Continuing stories across the Northeast...

In New Haven, Connecticut, US Repeating Arms Company (USRAC) has agreed to open its books to city officials for the next three months. The disclosure is part of an agreement struck to allow prospective Winchester buyers to see if the factory was profitable. USRAC President and CEO Pierre Bourgeois and Mayor John DeStefano Jr. announced what the New Haven Register calls a "stand still" agreement giving the city until September 1 to find a buyer for the factory.

As a part of the deal, USRAC will repay $850,000 for past tax incentives, and another $150,000 for a consultant to help find a new buyer. Mayor DeStefano is now making nice with the company he'd formerly been criticizing for abandoning USRAC.

"Without this agreement, U.S. Repeating Arms could have removed all of their equipment and inventory on March 31 and left town," DeStefano said, "instead, along with meeting their financial commitments to the city, they are providing a reasonable time period in which to market the Winchester site and hopefully to find a successor firearms manufacturer."

Under the agreement, purchase proposals will be due by June 23, the "best" offer selected by July 15; with a mandatory closing before September 1.

USRAC owner, Belgium-based Herstal Group, closed the plant March 29, effectively ending the 140-year old manufacturer - and leaving 186 workers unemployed.

Despite the efforts of politicians, industry insiders and labor leaders to keep Winchester in New Haven there had been precious little activity from prospective buyers before the agreement's announcement on Tuesday.

Lawyer Robert Berchem of Milford, who is representing USRAC, told the Register the agreement allows the gun maker to depart New Haven with an "absolute commitment" to pay the money it owes and leave the community in "as good a condition as possible."

"They were not able to make the venture profitable," Berchem said, "but we have paid our employees, our vendors and to the extent we can help the city take over the location, we thought that the proper thing to do."

Herstal, however, hasn't said it will surrender the license for the Winchester name, although they will allow a qualified buyer a "fair" opportunity to obtain the license from Olin, owners of the Winchester name. Several firearms manufacturers, including Smith and Wesson, have toured the facility, but at this point, not offers have been made.

Some one posted here a while back that "they knew a guy" that said the manufaturing equipment was already sold & gone. I wonder which story is correct?

Winchester was letting pure junk go out the fatory doors the past few years in particular. As thgey started cutting manufacturing costs with cheaper materials & shoddy workmanship or just pure lack of QC. They killed themselves.

Winchester will NEVER be able to come back to the quality standard that everyone here demands.......and stay at the present location. Labor costs will see to that. I say that unless any buyer decides to move the plant to a more gun friendly, labor friendly location, they are just throwing money away.

Iron Buck, do you work for Remington? Did a Winchester shoot your dog? Winchester's QC was going up in recent years and they were making more expensive changes to their rifles. As to the quality standards that everyone here demands, I suppose you are buying a 798?

quote:

Some one posted here a while back that "they knew a guy" that said the manufaturing equipment was already sold & gone. I wonder which story is correct?

IIRC what was said was that the rifling forges had been moved.....I don't remember that it was reported that all the equipment had been moved.

quote:

Winchester was letting pure junk go out the fatory doors the past few years in particular. As thgey started cutting manufacturing costs with cheaper materials & shoddy workmanship or just pure lack of QC

I did see some scope base taps off location....however I can not agree with this statement at all.....

The article was a copy & paste from The Outdoor Wire, my over site to not give credit. It is my understanding that Olin will not allow anyone other that a current gunmaker to use the WINCHESTER TRADEMARK.

I have 6 control feed m70's & the only difficulty has been the magazine box is too short for the 300 win but the 338 is perfect. I have not bought a new Remington in years so I can't compare them.

Olin will grant license to the highest bidder... period...

good to hear someone else is considering buying the production facilities..

just love comments that "winchester sucks" whe, quote frankly, in the last 3 to 4 years, the classic actions have been the best ever produced...

which when you improve quality you improve PRODUCTION cost, every time. Then why improve quality? to improve market share and reduce returns/rerworks.

Motorola, to talk about 6 sigma, found out that the cost of defects, to a point, was cheaper than the cost of "five nines" 99.999

Labor drove prices up, Quality Assurance (not QC)drives cost up, and inflation/war (remember, we are at war) drives materials and utilities costs up.

and the winchester price point is fairly inelastic on the market. "no one" would pay 999 for a 499 model 70.. Sure there's a couple irrelevant percents that would. These aren't walmart sales, folks, these are the boutique shops that cacn sell them... and walmart is the largest sporting goods store, based off sales, in the world.

So, to make a long story short
consumers demanded batter quality
workers demanded more wages
quality costs -- more hours, at higher rates
sales numbers are pretty stable at a price point...

the unit sales price did not cover this delta in cost.

plop!

and olin aint in the business to not get paid

jeffe

Hey Gentlemen,
I always loved Winchesters until my last crf. Its a sorry piece of quality. Run out as I mentioned before was .042 before I trued it.
Also the safety switch broke. Those folks will not sell you the parts or to any of their dealers.Change will be good for them.

I have 3 model 70 classics. An 06 a 338 win and a 7mmSTW. All are good rifles. The .338 is not as acurate as I might like , but it shoots fairly well, and the stw is a supurb shooter, while the 30,06 shoots real well with select hand loads.
Although I did see a couple rifles at dealers that I thought were a little shabby, I would say most were fine as much as you could tell without shooting them.
I would also say more or less the same thing about remington.
Ruger seems to have found a stock of prety decent wood latly, and outwordly there rifles look prety good to me. But the trigger should be redisgned.
The thought of Smith & wesson Building model 70s is one I like ! There revolvers are very good, and although I know some of you hate the idea of a reciever milled from a casting, It is efficiant and it is likly what smith & wesson
do, and it works for Ruger and MRC...tj3006

The State of Connecticut,makes it expensive to
do Buisness here.Winchester has not been the
only old firm to go belly up.You would have
thought that the State would have bent over
backwards to keep and old and well known
company like Winchester running...But then again
they didnt do Shit for Colt......

Just to qualify my feelings regarding quality of winchester rifles. I have TRIED to love this action because everything you read says I should. It was "The riflemans rifle" after all.

Now a bit of background info. I shoot left handed so I have only been able to even buy a LH M70 since the latter part of the 90s. I have owned a few.........but only kept one. Mostly do to accuracy issues. Bad barrels I guess. The one I have kept....a stainless & wood 30-06 I truly love. NIce wood grain. VERY accurate. A great gun. It is what i expext to get. Not what I just happen to get because I bought a "good day" rifle.

At the news of the closing (that day) I bought another M70 Left hand rifle. It was the only standard / non WSM caliber I could get quickly. A 300 win mag. Now from the start I intended to use this rifle as a base for a custom project. So ONLY because of this........and the fact that it would be very hard for me to get another LH Winchester anytime soon for a decent price I bought it. I have posted before a long list of issues that theis rifle came from the factory with.

1. Did not CRF.......but rather operates as a push feed every other cartridge.

2. Cheap plastic (looks like metal) follower. Luckily I picked up a steel one from Brownells while I still could.

3. I noticed that the action screws were very loose. Barely catching. No problem.....I thightened them up snug front/ rear a litle less so. And just grabbing in the middle. Only to find out that when tightend this way, or anyway, the magazine release would not close. It only worked as it was set initially. In other words.......some one at the factory figured this out & just left it loose. POOR QC.

4. Bolt stop was hanging up when I first got it.

5. The stock was VERY plain. Checkering looked bad. Stain runs everywhere in the finish. And the infamous glue bedding.

All in all.......very shoddy. Now like I said, I am changing caliber. stock, bottom metaletc. so I can work with it. But if I wanted a great example of "The riflemans rifle" I would have been sorely dissapointed. More than half of all the M70s I have seen my friends buy the past few years have had these or similar issues.

A friend of mine bought a LH 30-06. Kept splitting cases. Turns out the chamber was bad. Whichester replaced it with another rifle. Problem was....the replacement action was rough (gritty?) in feel when cycled. And the stock was just as poor as mine. He wanted his original rifle rebarrled. He was told....."we don't do that".

I have not seen any stock short of supergrades on dealer racks the past few years that would make me want them. What is with the stain & poor checkering? looks like it was double stamped???? I know it is machine cut.........but then the machine must stutter.

Do I hate M70s? No way. Maybe there were more issues with LH rifles than RH ones? I don't know. But I do know what I saw. And the examples were worse than any of the other new LH rifles I have bought from Ruger or Remington (Remington.......oh sacralidge! ) That aside ,they were once & still can be great rifles. But I am not going to be blinded by past glory when looking at what they had become. I want the M70 to be made again. But I want to be able to get it with much better QC than they have shown me as of late. Can it be done? Sure.....but not without labor/management working TOGETHER. And not in a state that like conn. And also... I do not think without a CEO or owner who is also a gun enthusiest. I don't think we'll ever see quality when magament looks at rifles like toasters or some other appliance. Without some degree of passion.....we'll end up with mediocrity. And that is what the last batch of M70s I have seen were. Mediocre shadows of what was a great action.

Iron Buck,

Those comments sound fair, but my experience is a little different. Of my five recent M70 Classics, I've had one badly inletted and another with a minor stock stain run. All of the metal (machining, polish, fit, etc.) was uniformly good on all of them. I like them, even the one with the inletting problem.

Jaywalker

don't worry the deal aint gonna happen, its just a pipe dream, that the mayor has come up with to try and wipe the egg of his face. He and the unions went to the well one too many times, High union labor and cripiling taxes are what sunk the company, you would have to be brain dead to try and open that factory back up in comminnedicut. the equipment needs to be sold and moved to a labor friendly state in the south, like texas, or miss, or oklahoma. I am sure herstal knows this, usrac knows it, and any potential buyer knows it, Its just a way to get out of paying the city any more than they have to, to get out of the deal there. in a year or so olin will have the name back, look for someone to buy rights to it and maybe buy the tooling and move the stuff out of commiennedicut

The M-70 I've bought in the last five years include a featherweight 30-06, a featherweight 257 Rob, a 338 win mag, a stainless 300 win mag, a lightweight 223, and a featherweight 243.

If I have a complaint about them it's that they almost invariably need glass bedding and barrel floating. That aside all the M-70 I've owned have been very fine functioning rifles and accurate as I want for a hunting rifle.

If one is looking for the mythical internet 1/2" gun he probably won't find it in the M-70. But it's suited me very well.

How much money is it going to take to buy that company and move it?

I feel the need to post this, and will probably get blasted for this opinion.

I think all of the production gun companies are headed down the same road. Here is the problem.

All most everyone when describing the "new remchester or rugerby rifle" they jsut bought say something like this, "It was great, except the checkering was bad it needed glass bedding and the action polished up fine."

How do you think people would look at you if you walked in and said. "The new car I just bought was great, except the paint job had runs, the front end was out of alignment and it only took the mechanic 3 hours to tune it up".

Gun enthusiasts need to wake up, quit basing everything on price, cheaper is not always better. Buy quality and expect quality, if we let these marketing bean counters continue to drive the price down and sacrifice quality, pretty soon people are going to start getting hurt and no they won't blame the quality of the gun they will blame the gun period. These are serious peices of equipment that are desinged to control an explosion, quit buying walmart crap, pay a little more to allow the companies to be profitable.

Off my soap box now.

CBB,

Personally, I agree, but I can't find many (any?) $1500 new rifles. I'm not talking about a "Supergrade" version of a $750 rifle, but one in which the stock, fit, finish, and metal all show commensurate care. Rifles seem to jump from retail prices of $750 or so to $2800. I presume that the companies have investigated their price points and customers, but they're leaving out six or seven prople who want something more.

Jaywalker

There are a few that would pay more for quality fit and finish. But looking at most of the people at the public range they think cheap. If the bullet hits on paper at 100yds that is fine with them. They could care less if the bolt is smooth. They will never adjust the trigger and couldn't shoot a MOA group even if the rifle was capable.

Buy a Sako if you want a $1500 rifle. You get what you pay for, many times more than you have paid for, sometimes less.

Planemech

quote:

Buy a Sako if you want a $1500 rifle. You get what you pay for, many times more than you have paid for, sometimes less.

EXACTLY!

quote:

Originally posted by Cockbird Blaster:
I feel the need to post this, and will probably get blasted for this opinion.

I think all of the production gun companies are headed down the same road. Here is the problem.

All most everyone when describing the "new remchester or rugerby rifle" they jsut bought say something like this, "It was great, except the checkering was bad it needed glass bedding and the action polished up fine."

How do you think people would look at you if you walked in and said. "The new car I just bought was great, except the paint job had runs, the front end was out of alignment and it only took the mechanic 3 hours to tune it up".

Gun enthusiasts need to wake up, quit basing everything on price, cheaper is not always better. Buy quality and expect quality, if we let these marketing bean counters continue to drive the price down and sacrifice quality, pretty soon people are going to start getting hurt and no they won't blame the quality of the gun they will blame the gun period. These are serious peices of equipment that are desinged to control an explosion, quit buying walmart crap, pay a little more to allow the companies to be profitable.

Off my soap box now.

This is why Kimber is doing so well, they are hiring more people, the others are laying more off

quote:

All most everyone when describing the "new remchester or rugerby rifle" they jsut bought say something like this, "It was great, except the checkering was bad it needed glass bedding and the action polished up fine."

How do you think people would look at you if you walked in and said. "The new car I just bought was great, except the paint job had runs, the front end was out of alignment and it only took the mechanic 3 hours to tune it up".

VERY well spoken. And very true.

What if you could get that car, that needed three hours work by a mechanic for $8000 instead of the $30,000 for one that was closer to perfect from the get go? Thats essentially what we are saying. Guys want that factory rifle to have perfect handcut checkering, be fully glassbedded and have the bolt handlapped, but they don't want to pay more than the $600-800 they cost without that stuff. I've heard guys whine forever about a new Winchester that they payed way under a $1,000 for being less than perfect, but the same guys will brag on the quality of a $3,000 custom gun. You can't have it both ways and by far, most rifles are bought in this country by people than aren't going to pay more than a few hundred bucks.

Problem with this outlook is that the Ruger M77 Mark IIs & the Remington 700s I have bought the last two years have cost less than the M70s I've bought during the same time period. They had better fit & finish. The stocks were WAY nicer. The checkering was nicer And they both funtioned properly as delivered. The accuracy of teh other two are right around 1 MOA with various factory ammos.

That is all I expected from Winchester as well. But was let down. And I am certain that this poor quality was in no small part a contruibuting factor to them going under. M70s cost more & delivered less.

I FULLY expect any new factory rifle I buy for $600+ to have an acceptadle degree of fit/finish & funtioning quality. I also expect at least 1 1/2 MOA with minimal fuss. It does not have to be hand cut checkering.........but the machined checkering better look good (like Rugers). The walnut does not have to be fancy........but it better at least have a nice tight & straight grain. I really expect my new rifle to feed reliably & shoot well..again with minimal fuss. JUst like I expect my new vehicles to run reliably.......no matter if they are a 10K econo car, or a 60K luxury car. I do not have to give up "runability" just because i am spending less money.

quote:

Originally posted by loboga:
Thats essentially what we are saying. Guys want that factory rifle to have perfect handcut checkering, be fully glassbedded and have the bolt handlapped, but they don't want to pay more than the $600-800 they cost without that stuff.

No this is not what I am saying. Not perfect hand cut checkering - but atleast checkering that is not double or triple stamped. Not fully glass bedded - but bedded well enough that the stock doesn't split after one box. Not handlapped bolt - but a magazine fed rifle that will feed and extract the cartridges.

Until agun manufacturers figures out that customer satisfaction is the number one issue that contributes to a successful and profitable business, they are all headed down the same road. Look at CZ, many stories of stocks splitting, if they don't get a handle on it pretty soon only the cheapest of the cheap will buy them. Now if they corrected the problem, even if they had to charge another $100.00 for it they will still have as many sales and be considered a good value. People who are buying them now should be sending them back if they split or are not bedded properly. Hold the company accountable, but be willing to pay a little more for quality. I am not talking about the difference between $800 and $3000 for a custom. I am talking about $800 and $1200 to $1500, Sako - Kimber - CZ, etc...

Yup,

Even Sako is starting to slip on the quality.

Although they did stop fluting the barrels on their FinnLites .

LD