Man sad day Remingtons oldest factory closes after 200 years

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Brewcrew said:
New England used to be the Mecca of quality gun manufacturing. I'm happy to see them pack up and go where they are welcome.
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Two factors are at play here in the American firearms industry's mass exodus from its historical home in the northeast U.S. ... labor costs & politics.

Both of these have been working against the industry for years, as we had already seen the pre-bankruptcy Remington Arms Co. move a number of their manufacturing operations to sites in NC & AR in recent years, along with industry giants S&W and Beretta already having moved their headquarters to Tennessee (Maryville & Gallatin, respectively).

There have been others as well, & more will surely follow.
 
I agree it's a sad day. However as y'all noted, the reasons were known to all involved.
We get the government we elect. Each election has consequences. A string of elections like the previous ones snowballs the consequences.
New England, and NY, actually not a NE state, shows us the consequences of a single party system. While I was born in NY, I was raised in VT. VT used to be a red state. However it is no longer.
VT was the leader in "Constitutional Carry" dating back to approx 1912, I think. It's just another example of VT and NY. While the VT state supreme court was busy declaring the VT constitution had no authorization for the VT government issuing permits, or regulating concealed carry, it's western neighbor was busy crafting the Sullivan Act.
The US Supreme Court just overturned the Sullivan Act in June of last year, in the Bruen decision.

While government was involved, so too were the labor unions. Just as all the other industries that fled the Northeast because of overhead, such as the textile industry around NH's Merrimack River or the shoes made in Northern Mass, Remington's new owners are voting with their feet as well. In the years prior to Remington collapsing under the financial weight put upon it by the investment group that owned it, Big Green manufactured arms in NC, I think. I believe these products would be returned to the craftsmen in NY for warranty claims, if my memory serves me correctly. I think it telling how the years of experience in NY made it more profitable for them to fix what the inexpensive labor in the South created.

If you want to read the behind the scenes story of the demise of Big Green, read about what led to the bankruptcy and splitting up of Remington. In a word, it was greed.
 
retrieverman said:
I sure wish Remington would start selling the Corelokt bullets for reloaders again.
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I think the Remington product you speak of is no longer associated with the Remington of the factory in upstate NY.
I think the ammo products were split off in the bankruptcy process caused by the investment group that bought the Remington industry.
 
Leigh Clambakes said:
Big Green manufactured arms in NC, I think. I believe these products would be returned to the craftsmen in NY for warranty claims, if my memory serves me correctly. I think it telling how the years of experience in NY made it more profitable for them to fix what the inexpensive labor in the South created.
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TopFueler1 said:
Rem Marlin was junk.
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Leigh's characterization of the southern states' labor force is both inaccurate & highly unfare...

Remington mantained their Custom Shop operations at their Illion, NY facility up until their demise, yet this was not an endeavor to "fix" products screwed up by an incompetent southern workforce. Big Green's "Custom Shop" was staffed by Remington Master gunsmiths, who created the company's hand built & highly embelished custom guns that commanded significantly higher premiums than their standard production models. The Custom Shop long preceded the company's relocation of manufacturing operations to the southern states.

As for quality of products produced by these respective labor forces ... Remington produced 'Marlin' firearms were coincidently manufactured at the Illion, NY plant (after Remington purchased Marlin & moved production out of Hew Haven, CT), & they were the absolute low point of Marlin's 125 year history regarding fit, finish & overall quality. The newest 'Marlins' (now being manufactured by Marlin under Ruger ownership) are being produced at their state-of-the-art Mayodan, NC factory & are arguably among the finest rifles every to wear the 'Marlin' horse & rider moniker.
 
loaded444bear said:
Leigh's characterization of the southern states' labor force is both inaccurate & highly unfare...

Remington mantained their Custom Shop operations at their Illion, NY facility up until their demise, yet this was not an endeavor to "fix" products screwed up by an incompetent southern workforce. Big Green's "Custom Shop" was staffed by Remington Master gunsmiths, who created the company's hand built & highly embelished custom guns that commanded significantly higher premiums than their standard production models. The Custom Shop long preceded the company's relocation of manufacturing operations to the southern states.

As for quality of products produced by these respective labor forces ... Remington produced 'Marlin' firearms were coincidently manufactured at the Illion, NY plant (after Remington purchased Marlin & moved production out of Hew Haven, CT), & they were the absolute low point of Marlin's 125 year history regarding fit, finish & overall quality. The newest 'Marlins' (now being manufactured by Marlin under Ruger ownership) are being produced at their state-of-the-art Mayodan, NC factory & are arguably among the finest rifles every to wear the 'Marlin' horse & rider moniker.
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When did Remmy purchase Marlin? I think you're compressing part of the history, while highlighting others.
I apologize if I sounded demeaning to my southern neighbors. I was meaning to highlight the detrement to manufacturing known as union labor, while also highlighting how manufacturing anything, especially as complex as a modern firearm, might take a little more than buying a piece of property in a more reasonable area, setting up machines, and hiring people to operate them. Experience has intrinsic value, and should translate to greater income. As an example, in my current position, I'm QA-ing work of folks who graduated from trade school 4 years ago. I graduated trade school in January of 1982, and set foot on my first ship as an electrician in Sept of '82. While these youngsters are just starting out, for me retirement is in plain view.
Again, I apologize if I came across as demeaning. Not my intention.
 
Greed - corporate, labor, and government alike - kills off more great American enterprises than anything else. In the world of sporting goods, it seems to follow a well-trodden path: Great company goes corporate, gets bought out by a conglomerate or a bigger corporation of some kind, product quality and customer service cheapened to fatten profits, innovation suffers, sales plummet, brand is sold off. Winchester, Remington, Thompson Center, Marlin, Gart Brothers, Cabela's, and Bob Wards are a few examples that spring immediately to mind. The great Simms flyfishing company has recently been sold off too, so I expect that they will follow the same decline.
 
Sad time. I live with in an hour drive. Had many friends that worked there and many have moved south. When I had a problem with a firearm I would drive to the factory and was always taken care of. Nice museum on firearm history also. I`ve seen this coming for years. I did what I could being involved with groups meeting in the political realm of Albany. I fought for my home state the best I could. For those of you in a red state thank God for it.
 
This is a trend I expect to see continue. Our local Sheels has been a real benchmark for the mall its a part of here at home and the other Scheels stores are going great guns too. Way better than the Cabelas store since that take-over. Up in St. Paul, MN there's a private company called Joes that caters to the sportsperson and that store literally can put our Scheels to shame in many regards, but it doesn't have much in the line of smokers or accessories for them other than pre-package stuff, mostly CVA garbola. We stopped by Joes a week ago and got there five minutes before the doors opened and the parking lots was already about filled and I think there's enough places for about 150-170 cars. Crazy how that single store can suck in so many customers, but then again with ice fishing just starting here there's a tremendous amount of fishing stuff traffic. Still, the gun department had maybe ten people at the counter handling or asking about guns. Hopefully both Scheels and Joes will hold out for a few years before some conglomerate buys then out and turns them to a fancy walmart. They say our economy is good right now but based on how many fine companies have taken a dive in only a few years I'd argue that. It takes reliable work-forces, supporting good brand names with solid on-going reputations and solid customer bases to have a good economy and right now the auto makers, gun makers and many, many other aspects of our economy are in shambles.
 
JIMYJAC said:
Sad time. I live with in an hour drive. Had many friends that worked there and many have moved south. When I had a problem with a firearm I would drive to the factory and was always taken care of. Nice museum on firearm history also. I`ve seen this coming for years. I did what I could being involved with groups meeting in the political realm of Albany. I fought for my home state the best I could. For those of you in a red state thank God for it.
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I just moved from WA to MT because the State of Washington has become the State of Insanity, and as long as rampant election fraud continues, fighting the political corruption and lawlessness which are rapidly destroying a once-beautiful state is completely hopeless. Personally, I had no choice, as WA's Deep Blue government HATES all small business with a vengeance, and particularly hates small mom and pop landlords like my wife and I because we are relatively free of corporate thumbs, and are therefore hard for government to control. So.... to drive us out of business, Governor Josef Mao Inslee and company have made it effectively impossible to screen tenants or to evict squatters for any reason, and just about every WA landlord that I know is fighting long-term squatters who are causing massive damage and are not paying any rent. Crime of all kinds is also running wild, even in little Ellensburg on the formerly sane east side of WA where Tina and I retired, because criminal law enforcement has been essentially gutted.

Getting here and getting re-established was an unbelievable amount of work, but we are LOVING Montana! WA friends and world-class Columbia Basin duck and goose hunting are about the only things in WA that I really miss.
 
MrTom said:
This is a trend I expect to see continue. Our local Sheels has been a real benchmark for the mall its a part of here at home and the other Scheels stores are going great guns too. Way better than the Cabelas store since that take-over. Up in St. Paul, MN there's a private company called Joes that caters to the sportsperson and that store literally can put our Scheels to shame in many regards, but it doesn't have much in the line of smokers or accessories for them other than pre-package stuff, mostly CVA garbola. We stopped by Joes a week ago and got there five minutes before the doors opened and the parking lots was already about filled and I think there's enough places for about 150-170 cars. Crazy how that single store can suck in so many customers, but then again with ice fishing just starting here there's a tremendous amount of fishing stuff traffic. Still, the gun department had maybe ten people at the counter handling or asking about guns. Hopefully both Scheels and Joes will hold out for a few years before some conglomerate buys then out and turns them to a fancy walmart. They say our economy is good right now but based on how many fine companies have taken a dive in only a few years I'd argue that. It takes reliable work-forces, supporting good brand names with solid on-going reputations and solid customer bases to have a good economy and right now the auto makers, gun makers and many, many other aspects of our economy are in shambles.
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Scheels is still a great outfit. We have a couple of them here in MT.

I was born in MT but grew up in Pullman, WA and Eau Claire, WI. Burger Brothers used to be a great Twin Cities sporting goods store, but I just read that they are now selling out to somebody else.
 

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