Remington sells off its Ammo division

[Mako]

... It seems that Wal-Mart drives the gun market now. That, and that every rifle has to have "Tactical" stenciled on the side.
I am just a curmudgeon lamenting that well made guns... are simply too expensive in a cheap and dirty market driven world.

Man, I feel the same way. Modern manufacturing methods, CNC machining in particular, has resulted in 5 and 6 hundred dollar rifles that will shoot sub-MOA all day long. Most people, unfortunately, don't care about that old world craftsmanship when they can get that kind of accuracy for those prices or even less.

FN has historically made some of the finest rifles in the world. So it's not about capability, its about the market.

Agreed. I have a '69 vintage Browning High-Power/Mauser rifle. These were the last of the commercial Mauser actions made by FN, and are considered by many to have been the best of the post-war commercial Mauser actions. The rifle screams quality. While those were the production rilfles of their day, they would be considered semi-custom by today's manufacturing standards due to the level of human involvement/hands on work required in making those guns back then. Based on all I've read, that's exactly why FN stopped manufacturing them; even in the 1970's manufacturing processes evolved to where those rifles were just too expensive to build vs the amonut of people that were wlling to shell out the premium to by them over less expensive offerings.

I have a few M77 Rugers in the safe and like them. But the Ruger American is never going to be in the Cabela's gun gallery.

100%. Ruger and a lot of others, unfortunately.

If you want a fine rifle, it has become a boutique proposition. The big names in rifle history are going to give way to the Bergaras, and Christensens.

Sad, but true. ~A year ago I bought a Bergara B-14 Ridge rifle. The quality is excellent and it has become my primary hunting rifle. I'm actually surprised at how well built it is vs what I bought it for. If memory serves, it retailed for around $900 and I got it through Gallery of Guns for $750. That said, as great as the quality is, it will always lack that level of craftsmanship and refinement seen in my Browning/Mauser and Sako AV.

 

[Justabirdwatcher]

I can tell you I've never seen a post-64 Win model 94 that can hang with my 1959 version in either accuracy, smoothness, bluing or trigger. I bought 4 post-64 Win 94's including two of the Japanese $1K rifles, and sold them all. None could hang with my '59.

That said, I do believe a lot of talk about "the good 'ol days" is purely sentimental when so many rifles today can do "out of the box" for $300 what it used to cost $1K to do with a 70 or 700 after you paid the smith.

 

[Mako]

An Update from The Truth About Guns...

UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal report on which this post was based was premature. JJE Capital Holdings has put in a bid for Remington’s ammunition business. However we’ve spoken to Remington and the JJE bid is one of a number that have been received, both for Remington as a whole and for individual business lines. Most haven’t been made public yet. The bankruptcy court has until September 17th to accumulate all bids and then will finalize the sale(s) on September 24th.

 

[Dsnow9]

An Update from The Truth About Guns...

UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal report on which this post was based was premature. JJE Capital Holdings has put in a bid for Remington’s ammunition business. However we’ve spoken to Remington and the JJE bid is one of a number that have been received, both for Remington as a whole and for individual business lines. Most haven’t been made public yet. The bankruptcy court has until September 17th to accumulate all bids and then will finalize the sale(s) on September 24th.

Wouldn’t be surprised if meateater is at least testing the waters on that one, but then again it seems like the businesses they have bought have been good companies and growing. Not tanking companies.

 

[44hunter45]

Time for a Remington owners gofundme? 6 days to raise $100M and bid.

 

[Mako]

Time for a Remington owners gofundme? 6 days to raise $100M and bid.

I bet if Remy owners did that and were succesful, they'd do a far better job. As stated by others previously in this thread, their quality has been tanking for the better part of two decades if not more. I wanted a model 700 from the time I was a kid, but was really disappointed with the few that I handled and all the reviews here and elsewhere. Hence my purchase of the Bergara B-14. In the words of one YouTube reviewer, "...it's a model 700 that doesn't suck."

 

[OntarioHunter]

Lot of folks don't know it but Remington bought out Montana Rifle Co's barrel making end last year (or two years ago?). My brother was working night security at the place while the stuff was being packed up and shipped to Alabama where, as I understand it, anti union laws make for more favourable business environment. Or so they thought. Don't know that they ever actually set it up for production. Classic American corporate mistake: too much expansion too fast. They should have left Marlin alone and concentrated more on cleaning up their own image.

If I wanted another rifle (one has done a fine enough job since 1964) I would do like my dad did and build it. He made my 30-06 from a surplus WWII Springfield two years before I started hunting, just before he built a second one for himself. Have a gunsmith fit the barrel and the rest is far from rocket science. The end product is a mile above just about any new gun sold today.

 

[Mako]

Lot of folks don't know it but Remington bought out Montana Rifle Co's barrel making end last year (or two years ago?). My brother was working night security at the place while the stuff was being packed up and shipped to Alabama where, as I understand it, anti union laws make for more favourable business environment. Or so they thought. Don't know that they ever actually set it up for production. Classic American corporate mistake: too much expansion too fast. They should have left Marlin alone and concentrated more on cleaning up their own image.

If I wanted another rifle (one has done a fine enough job since 1964) I would do like my dad did and build it. He made my 30-06 from a surplus WWII Springfield two years before I started hunting, just before he built a second one for himself. Have a gunsmith fit the barrel and the rest is far from rocket science. The end product is a mile above just about any new gun sold today.

Nice rifle, and very nice buck.

 

[Brentc]

It's funny, I was actually thinking about using a guitar analogy. I sometimes think that people's love of pre-64 Winchesters is similar to the way some people are obsessed with a certain vintage pickup, etc. even when there are 6 modern pickups that can do the same thing. Oh well... I may have misunderstood your post. I thought you were saying that FN had represented a drop in the quality of Winchester firearms. I'm actually not familiar with the ones coming out of Portugal (is that a recent thing?), but I had a FN M 70 that I think was made in South Carolina and it was nicer than anything I've ever seen from New Haven's Push-feed days, and probably a step up, in many ways, from the pre-64's as well.

You are correct. The M70 quality actually improved when the New Haven plant shut down. I wouldn't hesitate to pick up an FN built M70 if I had the desire to get one.

 

[BWALKER77]

Has this ever really happened?

Winchester rifles are not what they were. Even FN could not keep mass producing them to their former quality.

Since Bill Ruger died, that company has gone from being "quality for every man" to, "How cheap can we make a rifle?"

Savage is..., What?

Marlin went to Remington and now,...What?

If past is prologue, Weatherby will be owned by MeatEater before we know it.

Winchester rifles are better made now than they have ever been.
The other thing is current model 70 production isnt really made in Portugal. The parts are made by FN in SC and shipped to Portugal for assembly.

 

[Woodrow F Call]

Lot of folks don't know it but Remington bought out Montana Rifle Co's barrel making end last year (or two years ago?). My brother was working night security at the place while the stuff was being packed up and shipped to Alabama where, as I understand it, anti union laws make for more favourable business environment. Or so they thought. Don't know that they ever actually set it up for production. Classic American corporate mistake: too much expansion too fast. They should have left Marlin alone and concentrated more on cleaning up their own image.

If I wanted another rifle (one has done a fine enough job since 1964) I would do like my dad did and build it. He made my 30-06 from a surplus WWII Springfield two years before I started hunting, just before he built a second one for himself. Have a gunsmith fit the barrel and the rest is far from rocket science. The end product is a mile above just about any new gun sold today.
View attachment 153682

It might sound counter intuitive, but CEOs and these "holding" companies priority isn't to run a manufacturing company for the long haul. It's all about stock value at points in time. Buy a company, pillage it's assets, spend as little money as possible, get the stock value up just to sell the husk of a company at the right moment. Get out before it all crashes. Rinse and repeat.

 

[belshawelk]

Lets just say something isn't right. Last week helped my buddy sight in his 30-06. Bought a few boxes of Remington Scirocco ammo. One round did not fire. Tried twice but. two firing pin marks. I contacted them and they wanted to round back. They sent me a box of ammo back to replace the round which is all good, except they sent me a box for a 300WM. Close but not quite.

 

[ddcdevelopment]

bringing up an old thread, it looks like Sierra Bullets LLC is buying the Barnes ammunition part of Remington's assets. I'd like to see Barnes still be available. the make some good stuff.

https://journalnow.com/business/loc...cle_90f346cc-028d-11eb-bc53-ebcb17e045e3.html

 

[Mako]

bringing up an old thread, it looks like Sierra Bullets LLC is buying the Barnes ammunition part of Remington's assets. I'd like to see Barnes still be available. the make some good stuff.

https://journalnow.com/business/loc...cle_90f346cc-028d-11eb-bc53-ebcb17e045e3.html

They bought them back in October. That said, I had called Barnes back in November to see if there was any kind of a slow down in production with the transition, because I can’t find their Ammo anywhere. They told me no, and that they have been procucing more Ammo now than they ever have before.

 

[ddcdevelopment]

They bought them back in October. That said, I had called Barnes back in November to see if there was any kind of a slow down in production with the transition, because I can’t find their Ammo anywhere. They told me no, and that they have been procucing more Ammo now than they ever have before.

that's excellent news. I'm glad Barnes is still going full tilt. on the surface it seems Seirra Bullets LLC is a good fit for Barnes. that being said, yes, its almost impossible to find their ammo available for purchase.