Bankrupt Remington gets $65m offer for ammo business- and the bidder might surprise you (hint: parent co of PSA)

The Heretic · Sep 30, 2020

I would hope that Ruger both continues manufacture of Marlin firearms and brands them as Marlin, but if they make the firearms and call them Ruger or Ruger-Marlin, I won't cry.

I hope Ruger expands the Marlin lever actions with some more powerful cartridges - such as their magnums. If they make a lever action in .480 Ruger then it could maybe be rebarreled into .460 Magnum, and a .454 lever action that is $1K or less would be nice.

Flymph · Sep 30, 2020

I'm not going to cry about Ruger's acquisition. They may not be my favorite gun company, but I own more than any other brand. They will do us justice, I'm certain of that.

gmerkt · Oct 1, 2020

The Heretic said:
I would hope that Ruger both continues manufacture of Marlin firearms and brands them as Marlin

I just happened to be at the Ruger web site this evening. They have a big declaratory statement at the top about this. At this time, they state that they plan to keep Marlin alive as Marlin, making lever guns.

po18guy · Oct 1, 2020

Marlins were Marlins.
Then, they became Remlins.
What now, Rugrats?
RuMars?

madladchad · Oct 5, 2020

I'm pretty sad PSA didn't manage to acquire the ammo operations. With a moto of "Maximize freedom, not profits" I'd prefer for them to expand their offerings in that direction.

Aero Denezol · Oct 5, 2020

gmerkt said:
I just happened to be at the Ruger web site this evening. They have a big declaratory statement at the top about this. At this time, they state that they plan to keep Marlin alive as Marlin, making lever guns.

Let's hope they do a better job of keeping distributors stocked than Remlin did. The blued 1894c in .357 is/was always sold out.

gmerkt · Oct 5, 2020

Aero Denezol said:
Let's hope they do a better job of keeping distributors stocked than Remlin did. The blued 1894c in .357 is/was always sold out.

Well, we can hope. One good thing, Ruger is a firearms manufacturer. Not an investment firm. The fact that Ruger has publicly announced their intentions is a good sign. Hopefully also, they won't find they have acquired a hopeless mess beyond salvation. I don't know that much about it, I've gotten the impression that Remington management never took a serious strain with Marlin; that it was allowed to become a disorganized mess through mismanagement or poor planning. That's my impression, anyway. Ruger seems to be a well-managed company with a strong track record. Remington being dissolved through bankruptcy says it all.

Legion489 · Oct 6, 2020

While I hate to see Remington go under, and hope it can make a comeback, like Ithaca does every 20 years when they close down and reopen under new management, which of course voids all the warranty work (to save money naturally), and look how many times S&W has been sold (quality STILL sucks, have you seen what they are putting out again, or is that still, lately?!), the major problem is the area they are located in, the NE. Rabidly anti-gun, half of what Remington makes can't be sold in-state/region, high taxes, the workforce is either older and retiring, or hates guns and doesn't want to work when welfare/unemployment is easier and nearly as much money, union taxes/walkouts/rules/pay-offs bleeding them, so on and so forth. And yes, the anti-gun/know nothing about gun groups that buy them and run them into the ground for the short term money and then dump them.

There might have been a reason for Colt, S&W, Remington, Winchester, Mossberg, Savage, etc., etc. being in the Mass/NY/Conn area, 200 or 100 years ago, but not anymore! Just like why so many gun makers/companies like SA, Rock River Arms, etc., etc., are in "Ill-and-avoid", when states on three sides of it are pro-gun/pro-worker/low tax/not communist controlled.

The Heretic · Oct 6, 2020

Maybe I am not experienced enough, but of the three late manufacture (in the last 5-10 years) S&W revolvers I own (460V, TRR8, 329PD), they all seem fine with regards to quality. I don't shoot them that much, but the first two are Performance Center and have nice actions.

The 329PD doesn't have quite that smooth of an action, but it has held up to a few shots (about five) of very heavy bear loads (300 gr @1200 fps), which says something considering it is a scandium frame - I know that isn't many shots, but it isn't fun to shoot those heavy loads in such a light revolver.

I trust these revolvers more than any Taurus I have shot/owned.

Legion489 · Oct 6, 2020

S&W has always had problems from the 1960s on, and run hot and cold. Go read what problems John Taffen (writer for GUNS/American Handgunner) had with his new S&W that went to the factory FIVE times and still wasn't fixed. Told them he was a gun writer and fix it or he would write it up, they said "Yeah? Well F--- YOU!" John finally wrote it up for GUNS Mag and they published it. S&W threatened to pull their ads. GUNS just laughed at them and said "You want us to print the ACTUAL reviews of your last few guns that you sent that were never printed?!" S&W backed down and repaired/replaced John's gun. GUNS published the whole sordid affair so you can go read it for yourself.

Two lessons, S&W QC/CS sucks and the gun rags don't tell you the truth about the crap they get. Either they never tell you, or they gloss it over. I have a list of magazines/writers that have admitted, in print, that they either just plain lied about guns/items they reviewed, glossed over problems, or simply refused to write any review about any of the junk guns/products they were assigned to review.

GUNS, Outdoor Life, Field & Stream, Mike Venturino (one of my favorite writers), John Taffen, etc. A LOT of them (both magazines AND writers) openly admit they refuse to write/publish ANYTHING bad about ANY product/company that puts an ad in the rag. If they can't polish or plate the turd, they simply don't say anything about it at all. Mike is very open about this in print, that there are items/companies he refuses to have anything to do with, such as Lee products, especially Lee bullet molds, which he despises, and refuses to review their products, "as it is beneath me to bother" warning his readers about them or telling the truth about junk. He just says to "watch closely what I write about and don't write about to figure it out".

A couple of years ago a guy brought his NIB S&W 25 (2 or 5, can't remember now) to the range and fired it for the first time. The barrel unscrewed while firing. Seems S&W didn't bother to screw it in tightly OR pin it as the barrel wasn't drilled for a pin (yes, holes in the frame for the pin). The barrel wasn't even finger tight when screwed in!

A guy I know just bought a new Smith less than a month ago and took it to the range to test fire. Locked up on the first round. Finally got the cylinder open and tried again, the same thing, locked up. Even unloaded it locks up when dry fired and is scratching the heck out of the cylinder/recoil plate. And yes, I have a S&W 39 I am absolutely delighted with, but would not like to bet my life any new S&Ws now unless extensively checked out. At least my Taurus revolver worked well and was accurate and my PT1911 has had no problems at all (so far anyway, which is more than I can say for the POS Kimber 1911 I bought).

The Heretic · Oct 6, 2020

I had a Taurus M44 that had a really nice action. I liked it.

I had a Taurus Total Titanium Tracker in .357 that came from the factory with a barrel/cylinder gap of less than 0.001" clearance - and after one box of ammo locked up tight.

In my experience, I've had a 50/50 good/bad experience with Taurus revolvers and I am not alone.

I have not had the same experience with the three S&W revolvers of recent manufacture (not including the Kit Gun I own that is from the 50s (?) because it is much older, but it is fine too).

So yeah, I put more weight on my own empirical experience than on what I read online, but I have heard a lot more bad experiences about Taurus than S&W. *shrug*