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Thread: H&R: What the heck happened?

  1. #1
    Boolit Master
    am44mag's Avatar
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    H&R: What the heck happened?

    It's been what, 3 years now since H&R shut down, and I still haven't heard of a good reason why. Their business model seemed pretty solid. Sell single shot rifles in a large variety of calibers that would otherwise be inaccessible in a $300 price range. They seemed like they were everywhere, sold them by the truck load, and they were perfect for experimenting with prototype wildcats due to their cheap price and versatility.

    What the heck happened to them? Was it just a warning sign to what's happening to Remington and Marlin now?

    I'm hoping the new Henry rifles fill that gap and come down in price a bit.
    Last edited by am44mag; 07-02-2018 at 04:27 AM.
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  2. #2
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    From Wikipedia:
    In the 1960s H&R was acquired by the Kidde corporation and run by the Rowe family. Warranty cards were sent to 'Industrial Rowe', Gardner, Massachusetts.[3] The original H&R company went out of business in 1986, and the building was demolished.[4]

    A new company, H&R 1871, Inc., was formed in 1991 and started production of revolvers, single-shot rifles and shotguns using original H&R designs. H&R 1871, Inc. assets were subsequently sold to H&R 1871, LLC., a Connecticut LLC owned by Marlin Firearms Company in November 2000. H&R 1871, LLC. did not extend their product warranty to H&R guns made prior to the LLC's takeover.

    Marlin, including all its H&R assets, was later acquired by Remington Arms Company in December, 2007. H&R 1871, LLC production was moved to Ilion, N.Y. (the site of Remington's original manufacturing plant) in late 2008, while their corporate offices are co-located with Remington Arms in Madison, N.C. (HR1871.com and Remington.com).[citation needed] Remington, along with its Marlin and H&R subsidiaries, are now part of the Remington Outdoor Company. H&R 1871 production ceased 27 February 2015.

    So, with Remington in charge, I'd say they'll not be made again.

  3. #3
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by sparky45 View Post
    From Wikipedia:
    In the 1960s H&R was acquired by the Kidde corporation and run by the Rowe family. Warranty cards were sent to 'Industrial Rowe', Gardner, Massachusetts.[3] The original H&R company went out of business in 1986, and the building was demolished.[4]

    A new company, H&R 1871, Inc., was formed in 1991 and started production of revolvers, single-shot rifles and shotguns using original H&R designs. H&R 1871, Inc. assets were subsequently sold to H&R 1871, LLC., a Connecticut LLC owned by Marlin Firearms Company in November 2000. H&R 1871, LLC. did not extend their product warranty to H&R guns made prior to the LLC's takeover.

    Marlin, including all its H&R assets, was later acquired by Remington Arms Company in December, 2007. H&R 1871, LLC production was moved to Ilion, N.Y. (the site of Remington's original manufacturing plant) in late 2008, while their corporate offices are co-located with Remington Arms in Madison, N.C. (HR1871.com and Remington.com).[citation needed] Remington, along with its Marlin and H&R subsidiaries, are now part of the Remington Outdoor Company. H&R 1871 production ceased 27 February 2015.

    So, with Remington in charge, I'd say they'll not be made again.
    It's pretty sad to say that America's oldest gun maker has gone from making extremely good guns to ruining the firearms industry. I won't even risk buying anything they or Marlin make because it seems like they don't even bother to do quality control anymore.
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  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by am44mag View Post
    It's pretty sad to say that America's oldest gun maker has gone from making extremely good guns to ruining the firearms industry. I won't even risk buying anything they or Marlin make because it seems like they don't even bother to do quality control anymore.
    I agree 100%.

    ONLY Remingtons or Marlins I'll buy will be used and OLDER!

    Its a Cryin' shame about H&R/NEF... Flipin penny pinchers...

    CW
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  5. #5
    Boolit Buddy
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    Remember they (Remington) is in there to make money.
    And making firearms is how they do it.
    If a line is loosing money or it is a wash, that line is soon gone.
    Bottom line is money, if they could make more selling fake gold bricks then the gun lines would be gone.

  6. #6
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by jaguarxk120 View Post
    ........ Bottom line is money, if they could make more selling fake gold bricks then the gun lines would be gone.
    Sums it up nicely

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by KenH View Post
    Sums it up nicely
    Then why buy a loosing company in the first place...


    CW
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  8. #8
    Boolit Master

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    loosing???
    Statistics show that criminals commit fewer crimes after they have been shot

  9. #9
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by cwlongshot View Post
    Then why buy a loosing company in the first place...


    CW
    1) Get rid of the competition! 2) once you own the opposition why sell a $300H&R unit if you think you can place a $700 Marlin in the same slot - ?

    Subaru did this in Australia - the little Brumby utes sold like hotcakes (call em Brats your side) but we had import quotas based on numbers of units so they ditched the Brumby at $12K retail and filled the quota with top end Outbacks retail $50+ .....blamed it on our pollution regs at the time but that was total BS cuz they kept putting em into California for years after ----could have been some kind of deal between them and Toyota in it too .......bottom line is ........bean counters are first, last, and only, interested in bottom line.
    Another interesting story would be WHY is Australia one of only two countries on the planet absolutely denied access to sell firearms into the US? - I have a LC Smith, and a couple winchesters would make good money over there and would pay for a trip for me - cant do it - I am allowed to take em over to "compete" and once there, would be no trouble finding a cash buyer - but jail here if I dont come home with exactly what I took over. To cap it off we dont have a viable gun industry - cartainly no threat to Remlin .

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by oldred View Post
    loosing???
    as opposed to tighting
    WebMonkey
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  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by indian joe View Post
    1).......bottom line is ........bean counters are first, last, and only, interested in bottom line.
    Yep you nailed it, buy out and eliminate the competition has been a business strategy for ages! Sure they could have continued to build and sell H&Rs but the lower priced models are rarely if ever as profitable as upper-end higher priced models of just about anything including firearms. The "Bean counters" have obviously determined (right or wrong) that sales of the cheaper H&Rs will actually cause them to lose money overall due to fewer and more profitable Remington sales rather than the H&Rs being an additional source of income. So the bottom line was that H&R sales were cutting into Remington sales and thus profits also so since they couldn't compete with H&R they simply decided to buy them out and shut down the competition.
    Statistics show that criminals commit fewer crimes after they have been shot

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by WebMonkey View Post
    as opposed to tighting
    Or as opposed to losing.
    Statistics show that criminals commit fewer crimes after they have been shot

  13. #13
    Boolit Buddy TenTea's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by oldred View Post
    Or as opposed to losing.
    winning! :-0
    A bear, however hard he tries, grows tubby without exercise.

  14. #14
    Boolit Grand Master
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    Seems like the wiz-kids - bean counters never allow for the unintended consequences. They bought out a viable H&R Co., destroyed it with the intention of replacing it with Rem-lins, which sounds like an aggressive business plan, but sours gun guys to the point they will never buy another recently produced Rem-lin. Way to go bone head.

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by 725 View Post
    Seems like the wiz-kids - bean counters never allow for the unintended consequences. They bought out a viable H&R Co., destroyed it with the intention of replacing it with Rem-lins, which sounds like an aggressive business plan, but sours gun guys to the point they will never buy another recently produced Rem-lin. Way to go bone head.

    Although it didn't involve buying another company to eliminate competition it's similar to what Ford did by eliminating the extremely popular Ranger pickup truck (DUMB move!), the thinking was (by their own admission) that since people couldn't get a new Ranger they would just opt for the much more expensive and more profitable per unit F150. The "Bean Counters" had determined that profits lost from Ranger sales would be more than made up by increased F150 sales so in the end they would make more money, of course folks just bought Toyotas and Nissians instead and now Ford is being forced to bring back the Ranger to recover lost profits!

    Remington only sold H&Rs for a short time before shutting them down and maybe it was an advantage to their bottom line but it sure seems like a dumb move to shut down such a hot selling line of firearms and I seriously doubt many, if any, potential H&R customers chose Remingtons instead because of the product differences, but then who knows?
    Statistics show that criminals commit fewer crimes after they have been shot

  16. #16
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    I thought Remington bought a package deal that involved several companies, including Marlin and H & R...


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  17. #17
    Boolit Master

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    They did but for whatever their reasoning they evidently thought it more profitable to drop H&R and concentrate on Remington/Marlin. They had their reasons and they may have it right, who knows?
    Statistics show that criminals commit fewer crimes after they have been shot

  18. #18
    Boolit Grand Master uscra112's Avatar
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    Remington is still owned by Cerberus. Big-money holding companies like that impose a "tax" on every company they own to pay the salaries of their executives. It's a factor that killed the American machine tool industry in the '70s and '80s, (I was there, to quote Elmer). They also do a game called "asset-stripping" which means to sell off plants and tools for cash, which they keep. This is what Daimler-Benz did to Chrysler Corp., (I was there, too) which was then sold on to.......Cerberus, who stripped it some more, and that's why the fine old name of Chrysler is now owned by Fiat, and is soon to be reduced to selling Jeeps and Ram trucks, according to what I read.
    Cognitive Dissident

  19. #19
    Boolit Master
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    Companies at least used to bring their Management up through the ranks. Whether as good as the company founder or not, they at least knew something about the business they were running when they were promoted to the top.

    Reading business magazines in the 80’s was when I noticed the rise of the generic, roving, whatever-you-got,-I’ll-manage-it Manager. He would go from company to company, always available for the right salary, stock options and Golden Parachute. Never looking beyond his computer spreadsheet and the Bottom Line, he would proceed to dump the parts of the business that didn’t bring in a 16% a year rate of return and can all the old employees, replacing them with new young MBAs that would (theoretically) do more work for less money. Since the businesses themselves were being bought up by holding companies that just looked on them as cash cows, these itinerant gunslingers seemed the perfect solution.

    Most of the instances that reached the general news media were the huge success stories about how so-and-so had “turned the faltering company around.” The business mags reported on everything, though, and not infrequently, this cleanup job resulted in the loss of the corporate culture and the production of ever more shoddy versions of whatever products were left, since the new hires, degrees not withstanding, didn’t know what they were doing in these specific instances.

    I think it was Union Carbide that got one of these hired guns in. By the time he was done spinning things off and cleaning things up, there was no more Union Carbide left. And I remember a quote from an old-line manager who had come up through the ranks and was asked if he didn’t think his company could use some help from some savvy MBAs. He said all that one of those hotshots would do would be to sit in his office, thumb through his Rolodex and use his phones to network for a higher paying job somewhere else. Then he’d be gone. No morals or loyalty anymore.

    In our area, the Lyman Corp. was bought out by something called the Leisure Group. They noticed the tool room in the mould dept was full of cherries that were rarely used. The amortization calculations didn’t pan out, so they tossed them out, just a couple years before the rise of interest in old calibers. Somebody could have noted the increasing popularity of Ken Waters’ column “Loading the Old Ones,” but of course these were busy men, with no time for frivolous hobbies. Those boneheads get full credit for the rise of the custom mould makers whose services we now enjoy.

    People have remarked that Ruger did so well in the gun field for so many years because Bill Ruger was a gun enthusiast himself. He didn’t need “market research” to tell him what would sell. Unfortunately, the Bean Counters inevitably take over, and not many of them are interested in guns as guns, only as units of sale.

    I think this changeover is happening in the Computer field as well. These Macs used to be nice and intuitive to use. Now every App and Upgrade that gets pushed onto my Devices makes them harder to use.

  20. #20
    Boolit Grand Master uscra112's Avatar
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    Great post, B.R. ! Sooo true. I was reading the Harvard Business Review cover to cover about the same time, and learned the same thing.

    Long ago my father-in-law, who had been president of a large Boston bank in his day, remarked to me that he would never hire Harvard MBAs. They were impossible to retrain.
    Cognitive Dissident

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