Remington large rifle primers have been nearly impossible to find for several months, and now I think I know why.
On Monday, Remington Arms announced that it intends to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. According to CNN Money, the plan would allow Remington Outdoor Company to stay in business while restructuring its debt. The plan allows for Remington to reduce its debt by $700 million and contributes $145 million of new capital into its subsidiaries, according to the company.
Remington, one of the nation's oldest and most respected gunmakers, has been troubled in recent years. Some of its wounds were self-inflicted. Others were not.
Under the aegis of The Freedom Group, Cerberus Capital Management bought Remington in April 2007 for about $400 million. That same year, Remington bought Marlin Firearms.
It was rumored that financier George Soros not a favorite of Second Amendment supporters, was one of the The Freedom Group's main investors. Soros was not associated with the group, but the rumor spooked gun buyers away from Remington.
Similar boycotts have happened before, notably when gun owners nearly broke Smith & Wesson in the 1990s for attempting to collaborate with the Clinton Administration over gun control legislation. Gun owners also turned against Sturm Ruger in 1989 when Bill Ruger, the company's co-founder, proposed banning high-capacity rifle magazines.
It's notable that Cerebus also bought 80 percent of Chrysler in 2007, which had to be bailed out by American taxpayers in 2009. It was the first American automobile company to go bankrupt since Studebaker in 1933.
Along with Remington, Cerberus's also owns DPMS and Bushmaster, which make AR-15 type rifles. Several investors withdrew from Cerebus after Adam Lanza used at least one Bushmaster rifle to kill 20 children and six adults at a school in Sandy Hook, Conn., in 2012.
Additionally, a lawsuit over defective firearms and defective triggers stung Remington. Gun advocates reflexively dismiss the lawsuit's claims as part of a relentless assault by lawyers and anti-Second Amendment media against the gun industry, but the claims are legitimate.
Some years ago, for example, I wrote about a Wynne attorney that represented Remington over its Model 597 semiautomatic rifles chambered in .17 HMR. Those rifles had a habit of firing when the bolts were not fully engaged and injuring their owners. Remington no longer makes that particular rifle.
Remington also has a standing recall for any rifle equipped with an adjustable X-Mark Pro trigger, which has been shown to discharge spontaneously. The reason, according to a source that is involved with the situation, is that Remington contracted its trigger production to a foreign manufacturer that compromised component quality to manage costs.
Collectively, all of those things deeply wounded Remington, but the company also has failed to adjust quickly enough to changing times and tastes. The flagships of its product lines are the Model 700 rifle, a design introduced in 1962, and the 870 shotgun, a pump shotgun introduced in 1950.
Military trends have always driven the sporting rifle market. Two generations of Americans that served in Afghanistan and the Middle East since the first Gulf War prefer to use AR-style rifles because that's what they used in the service. Remington's response has been to wrap tactical style bodies around its 56-year old Model 700 chassis.
Meanwhile, Remington doesn't even surface in any conversation about semiautomatic shotguns anymore. Benelli and Beretta monopolize that market.
To be fair, Remington has introduced some great, innovative products over the last 20 years, only to shoot itself in the foot, so to speak. The Model 105 CTi semiautomatic shotgun was fantastic, but Remington rushed it to market before working the bugs out of the design. It lasted less than three years.
The VersaMax is also a fantastic concept, but again Remington rushed it into production before working out its bugs, too.
Two years ago Remington introduced its V3. I believe it's the best semiautomatic you can buy, but by then Remington had squandered all of its trust capital with the public. Retailers can't get customers to even look at a V3.
Remington said that its operations "will not be disrupted by the restructuring process." I hope they get back to making large rifle primers soon. The Remington 9 1/2 is my favorite.
Sports on 02/15/2018