"I can't blame Remington for wanting to get out of Taxachuesetts. Who in their right mind would want to operate a firearms factory in that socialist hellhole?"
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Carbineman, I can't blame them either.
A couple of plants who make AR's have the same problem in IL. Many "lawmakers" in IL want to do away with this type rifle, so why would you want to make them in a hostile enviorment & one of those companies has considered moving in advance of this nonsense.
The future in the United States, such as it is for industry in general & gun companies in particular is in the South & parts of the West where the logistics are practical, but esp. in the South.
For industry in general because the North & esp. the Northeast is an expensive place to do business with the cost of most goods & services
running much more than the South. They TAX & regulate individuals & companies all they can. Also, the Unions have abused a good thing
if you want to stretch a little & call it that & have made it impossible in many cases to be competitive & drive up the price of their product. Actually, I owe Unions in general a dept of gratitude because I sell Forklifts & Ind. products in AR & many Northern plants have moved here to get out of this enviorment which is better than going overseas, we just received another Steel plant, thanks I guess.
For gun industries in particular because the Northeast is too antigun & you would not know from one day to the next what situation you would have. Tim mentioned one of the Rem. plants being in KY. & you will see more of that from other companies in years to come. The old gun plants were built back when no part of the USA was anti but today the Northeast does not deserve to have any gun plants in my view.
So for these 2 reasons it would be enough for me, but add consolidation to the mix & it makes even more sense. It is only logical to bring the production/man. of these guns to existing/modern plants IF the goal is to bring down the per unit manufacturing cost & to do so with more modern equipment which can & should translate to a higher quality product. Wouldn't it be nice to have Handi's machined in such a way as to afford barrel interchangeability? I do not know these things would result but it is possible, but was not likely in the present operation as we have seen. I hope no one here would argue that the quality could improve, if you do you would be arguing with yourselves, go back & read
the threads over the last couple of years if you need a reminder. Bringing this manufacturing to other plants is a logical move that I see being done with companies that I do business with on a regular basis. It is a lot better to see this than to see the others that can't adapt to ways to
get more efficient & then they close & the foreigners gain the market share. One of the 2 will happen, which would you prefer???
If I were in Rem. management, I would offer VERY Strong incentives for the best NEF people to move to these plants, if they can't then I would give them a very nice separation package. For the others (80-20 rule always applies) I would give then the std. sep. pay & wish
them the best, not what we all would like, but the best that could be done.
If it was not a consolidation to other existing plants as stated by Rem, but instead farmed out to foreigners, that would be a different ball game,
but why make that leap now without knowing?