Smith & Wesson buys Thompson/Center

[RayinNH]

Read all about it...Ray

http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_98476.asp

[Ed Barrett]

I saw that in our local paper too. I guess S&W is out of the cash crunch they were in a few years back. They may come out with a Contender revolver. <g>

[Bass Ackward]

Wonder how this is going to shake out? Does S&W see a limit in their product line requiring a shift in focus? Or was this simply an eat or be eaten deal?

[7br]

Currently, there are 4 contender frames, one encore frame, a Scout Carbine and a Scout Pistol in the safe. In short, I like T/C products. That said, I have been a little disappointed in T/C in the last few years.

They dropped 10" barrels required for IHMSA production classes. This was pure economics I am sure. They offer a 15" encore barrel, but dropped the Super 16 line. That extra 1.25" meant you could legally use it as a pistol or a carbine. I have an 18" 7tcu carbine barrel that I love. Well balanced, extremely accurate. I would love a 16" Stainless .22 match for my daughter's frame. They have dropped a lot of calibers from their standard chamberings. You have to pay a premium for anything but the latest and greatest. Why did they not make the encore .22 rimfire compatable? The new G2 contender is a scaled down encore with a selectable firing pin. Why go to the trouble? Last gripe, why isn't the .45 blackpowder barrel compatable with the older frames?

Rant over. I am not selling my contenders or encore. They will in my safe until the kids move out and take them.

[7br]

Did Thompson Investment Casting go with the Thompson Center Arms? If so, S&W might have a new source of revolver frames. Interesting that barrel making facilities were also mentioned. Probably a smart move from the business sense, but it really doesn't give me a warm, fuzzy feeling. CZ-USA bought out Dan Wesson. DW is currently only making 1911 .45 and the .445 supermag.

[joeb33050]

I think it's better for these combinations to happen than for the individual companies to disappear, like Winchester.
Somehow the small companies don't seem able to make it, see Dakota Arms and the Miller family DeHaas-Miller and the mold companies/guys.
We'd all like to see them separate and independant, but maybe the economics demand combination.
Thinking about it, Maynard (Mass Arms Co), Ballard in any of the companies through Marlin, Sharps, Farrow, Stevens, Frank Wesson, Hoch, Peregrine, Fix = FBW, Hepburn, and how many more, all went away. What a shame they couldn't have hung around.
joe b.

[9.3X62AL]

I had a very interesting conversation about 8 months ago with a guy I went to school with. He is a venture capital specialist in a Los Angeles based multi-national bank and a pretty ardent hunter, so I trust his assessment.

He stated that capitalizing a gunmaking business was a pretty tough prospect. The sporting gun business is not a growth industry, and the market size is shrinking every year. This sort of news repels rather than attracts investors. The "black eye" given to the gunmaking business by mainstream media also depresses interest in investing, since firms and individuals don't want negative media attention of any kind. The only potential positive growth sector of the gunmaking business involved government contracts, specifically armed services contracts for small arms (a microscopic part of the military arms scene) and spare parts contracts for those same products.

His thoughts were that gunmaking today was a lot like raising horses, in that the investors and maker all needed to be involved for the joy of the experience and NOT be focused on bottom-line results. Structuring finances with that model in mind could enable a manufacturing concern to do well for 20-25 years, a period of time that corresponded to the work life of the initial venturors and often the service life of the tooling and physical plant.

Looking at the rise and fall of many gunmakers over the last 30-40 years, I think he called it pretty closely.

[dltaskey]

From what I read, S&W was interested in the long arms tooling that TC already has up and running. S&W doesn't see any growth in the handgun scene and wants to play in the rifle, shotgun and front stuffer game!

[versifier]

Well, I had been putting off my order through T/C's Hunter Education Program - they give HE Instructors Distributor prices for one firearm and as many accessories as you want per year. I just got my before-the-year-ends order in the mail this morning. Hopefully they won't change that policy, nor shake things up too much inshop. Time will tell.
As much as I like S&W's I admit to an innate distrust of anything that has to do with the Peoples Republik of Massachusetts - I moved out of there in the late 70's after they put a friend in jail for a year (unlicensed handgun) for cleaning a Ruger Old Army (yup, a Blackpowder revolver) on his front porch. Ironic that all those great handguns come from a state where most citizens are prevented from owning them because the decision is a totally arbitrary one made by their local Chiefs of Police. I am generally ashamed to admit that I was born there, but one has to learn to live with a birth defect and rise above its limitations.
Fortunately, the Second Amendment is still alive and well up here in "Live Free or Die" New Hampshire. Maybe S&W will move their production facilities to NH where the taxes are lower and the neighbors more friendly. Think positive.
(An armed society is a polite society - Robert A. Heinlein)