from the gun nut blog:
March 23, 2009
Bourjaily: Good News from Remington
Take a look at the 2009 Remington catalog. What’s missing? Imports. After a brand-diluting dalliance with cheap Russian Baikal guns, reasonably nice Italian O/Us and Serbian Mausers, Remington once again is only selling guns made in the USA.
Now, I have nothing against the inexpensive and solidly made Baikal guns, outside of the fact that they have the heft and liveliness of truck axles. I kind of liked the Premier O/Us, although there wasn’t anything about them to set them apart from all the other Italian O/Us in their price range. Serbian Mausers are out of my area, but I understand they were okay. Whatever merits these guns may have had, though, none of them were Remingtons and they didn’t belong.
I called one of my friends at Remington for an explanation. He told me: “We had to get rid of the Russian guns because they competed directly with our H&R guns which we will continue to make in the United States.”
Remington, of course, was acquired by Cerberus Capital Management in 2007, which already owned Bushmaster at the time and has since added H&R, Marlin, Bushmaster, DPMS and EOTAC, as well as the Parker and LC Smith brands.
Given that many speculated that that the new owners would take all Remington’s production offshore, this seems like a good, if preliminary, indication to the contrary.
And, I can only hope the Premier O/U line was cleared out to make room for a revived 3200, but I’m not holding my breath.