I always suspected it was becuase short magnums did not sell, but I read this morning on rec.guns that it was because Rick Jamison sued Winchester over short magnum patents.

I know that most of the M70s sold for cheap last year by CDN were short magnums.

I bought a 300 win mag M70 (new) the DAY the news was released that the company would close the plant & production would end. It was teh WORST quality rifle I have ever bought from anyone........period. It should never have left the factory...but it did. I am sure things like that did not help them.

simply put:
the union required higher wages and produced ever reducing quality product (this is a STANDARD negotiation tactic), which causes winchester to have to charge higer prices for reducing quality rifles. which in turn caused the market to buy less and less rifles, due to QC and/or the "common" user wants to pay the price of a savage and have the quality of a hand made custom rifle. And in the case of the last bit of the previous model 70, this was reversed. resulting in lower sales.

ruger, savage, and browning all '"surived" jamison's patent findings, which make me question if there were any material impacts


in short, in inability to control quality at a reasonable cost lead to FN closing that factory.

Ditto what Jeff said; royalties on patent infringment are rarely enough burden to put a solvent company down. That defeats the purpose of suing. No sales, no royalties.

More specifically,isn't it the Olin side of Winchester that would pay instead of US Repeating? The ammo company? I ask because I didn't follow the saga at the time.

the reason winchester closed is because of liberal unions that went to the well too many times, add in the state of Connecticut and its liberal ideals, you have a company that could not exist anymore, surprising because according to the libs you would have though connecticut would have been utopia by now after decades of liberal leadership

I have no doubt that unions cause many of the problems as I watch the UAW go out on stike against GM who had just lost Billions of $$$ wanting to have FREE health insurance and job security.

On the other hand I don't know what the upper managemment was doing at Winchester but how many times do you see the top dogs getting Millions in bonuses etc as the companies are lossing hand over fist.

Both the upper management and the union needs to understand if the company goes broke no one makes any money.

They went broke because, even with cheaper to produce simplified designs and new technology, they couldn't produce guns of the same quality as their fathers and grandfathers produced in the 1940s and 50s with antiquated technology. And yeah, I think the union had a great deal to do with that.
-----------------------------------------------
"Serious rifles have two barrels, everything else just burns gunpowder."

FN closed a poorly managed unprofitable plant in New Haven; the final chapter of the death spiral which began in 1964.

FN isn't broke. Winchester isn't dead, but made in Japan, Portugal and Belgium.

Let's see what Ceberus does with Remington. It'll be interesting.

FN/USRC used the short mag law suit as a excuse to close the door in the states to building M70s and avoid the union. They are still building the M70 as a special purpose rifle.
http://www.fnhusa.com/products/firearms/family.asp?fid=FNF006&gid=FNG005

They are owned by the Herstal Group a Belgium company that also owns Browning. I`d bet when the pesent contract with the union is over you`ll see them offering the M70 and M94 once more but built over seas somewhere. I suspect the general plan is to follow Brownings lead and build the different Winchester models where ever they can have it done at lowest bid.

I was in a gunshop earlier today and the owner blamed Bill Clinton. He said "Bill Clinton allowed China to import SKS rifles into the States duty free. This reduced sales of the M94 so drastically Winchester had to shut down."

This he believed whole heartedly!

quote:

Originally posted by ElCaballero:
I was in a gunshop earlier today and the owner blamed Bill Clinton. He said "Bill Clinton allowed China to import SKS rifles into the States duty free. This reduced sales of the M94 so drastically Winchester had to shut down."

This he believed whole heartedly!

This post rates BEST OF THE MONTH because it hits the nail directly! Everyone has their opinions.....all of them with a particle of truth to lend them credibility.

I got no problem with union labor when union leadership thinks long-term and I got no problem with management when management thinks long term. When they work together the result is a powerful, competitive corporation.

But when either becomes short-sighted or you add government in the mix you're screwed, blued and tattooted. That is exactly what happened to USRAC.

my last model 70 would average about 3" groups at 100 yds.

I always expected top quality from Winchester and never got it. I always found something wrong with the rifles that I bought. After working with manufacturing of machined parts nearly 40 years I have to say it is always dumb ass management.

The problem wth GM has little to do with unions abd the cost of healthcare. In an effort to boost share holders profits, very little money is put back into the company to place it on the cutting edge. Little R&D, little market trend research, and little re-tooling. It is funny how GM can complaing about the millions of dollars of health care costs and still manage to pay the CEO and Board of Directors multi million dollar bonuses.

In the case if Winchester, they were operating on dated machinery and tools. They had laid off siginficant labor and kept the production numbers the same. Had they saved the heavy profits they made in 94-99, the factories could have been updated before the quality fell off.

As for Liberalism, I am sure the tax structure of Conneticut is less favorible than any other state save California or New York. Not to mention the multitude of lawsuits filed by liberals to the large US manufacturers in their war on the 2nd ammendment. Yet, there are numerous gun owners who continue to burry their heads in the sand and vote democrat and act surprised when they enact some crap legislation.

As for the design, there are very few steps that couldn't be done on a CNC machine. Kimber and montana have both been doing Ok throwing out Mod 70 clones with varying degrees of success.

John

they failed to embrace the "tactical" group that buys lots of crap.

quote:

Originally posted by Big Bore Boar Hunter:


In the case if Winchester, they were operating on dated machinery and tools. They had laid off siginficant labor and kept the production numbers the same. Had they saved the heavy profits they made in 94-99, the factories could have been updated before the quality fell off.

John

True except the "owners" leased the Winchester name for 10 years with no guarranteed renewal option; how much would you invest under those circumstances? My guess is that long before the fall, both parties knew the relationship was toast. And yes, the workers got caught in the middle but at that point there was no saving them.

quote:

Originally posted by KSTEPHENS:
they failed to embrace the "tactical" group that buys lots of crap.

If you're referring to the "couch commando crowd", well friend, They'd be gone a long time ago.

They are the cheapest bunch of idiots I know of!

In addition to the other reasons already given, I believe that another thing that contributed is an overall decreasing market for guns. For one thing, there are already millions and millions of guns already out there, and for another, the shooting population is ever so slowly decreasing worldwide.

I don't know what exactly caused the demise.

But the rumblings I've heard is they will probably be back next year. From overseas or a plant down south.

I would expect an announcement at the SHOT show.

I have no hard proof, just rumblings from industry people.

Didn't they sell off that old and very expensive to replace machinary? Wasn't the company up for sale for years? I wish they come back.I would like to buy a few more of their rifles.

quote:

Originally posted by ElCaballero:
I was in a gunshop earlier today and the owner blamed Bill Clinton. He said "Bill Clinton allowed China to import SKS rifles into the States duty free. This reduced sales of the M94 so drastically Winchester had to shut down."

This he believed whole heartedly!

Makes as much sense as anything else on this thread.

Terry

quote:

Originally posted by rolltop:

quote:

Originally posted by KSTEPHENS:
they failed to embrace the "tactical" group that buys lots of crap.

If you're referring to the "couch commando crowd", well friend, They'd be gone a long time ago.

They are the cheapest bunch of idiots I know of!

no, i mean the "tacti-cool" guys.
the MKIV ill reticle mil-dot heavy BBL fluted honey combed kevlar antireflective Night vision defeating in use by the navy seals urban camo'd
bullet drop compensating fast aquisition rapid deployment crowd.



with seat belt cutter.

Winchester sure missed the boat with the cowboy action crowd. 1897 and 1873 clones are sure selling, and not cheap either.
I bought a model 70 classic in .300WSM while I could, it's a shooter sub MOA good trigger and "sorta" bedded from the factory. Seems to be a very well made rifle.

quote:

Originally posted by KSTEPHENS:


no, i mean the "tacti-cool" guys.
the MKIV ill reticle mil-dot heavy BBL fluted honey combed kevlar antireflective Night vision defeating in use by the navy seals urban camo'd
bullet drop compensating fast aquisition rapid deployment crowd.



with seat belt cutter.

If a guy drives himself to the range and has no gray hair, there is a good chance his guns are Rambo style.
The sinpershide forum has a lesser gunsmith section than AR, but the optics there are much better:
http://www.snipershide.net/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=cfrm

There are a whole lot of reasons why Winchester went under, not just the issue with the union contract at the time of the closing. Tooling and machinery at the plant was old, not kept up, tolerances probably were out of spec as a result. Management was NOT committed to keeping the New Haven plant up and running. The plant wasn't prfitable, so they closed it. How it got unprofitable it the issue that needs addressing to find out why they closed.
To me, management was not interested in keeping the plant open, so they left it die. But, why? There had to be a marketing forecast involved somewhere in this answer, and not a bright forecast.

Don

I personally thought they had too many mediocre options to choose from. wading through the duplicative versions and calibers left me feeling confused, not inspired to buy anything.

If I was to win the lottery and thus bring winchester rifles back, I would:

start from scratch on CNC stuff;
narrow down the bolt-action product line - make it look more like what CZ has and less like a late 80's GM model lineup;
see if I couldn't sell made in USA 1873, 1892s and 71s at a realistic price, offering the 71 in the Alaskan calibers too;
sell one very decent pre-64 type with nice, straight-grained wood finished in the beautiful pre-64 reddish finish, and sell it at cost for a few years to get people to love winchester again and to get the magazines writing about it;
get rid of the push feed. nothing wrong with it, but it was another needless option.

but I'd prolly go broke quickly as I have no idea what works in the gun business, just what I would like to see.

I will not even attempt to put some spin on tales told here !

I think (IMO ) The owners saw the hand writing on the wall and took what money they could and ran !.

Just take a peek at almost every other U S business around . If they're not importing it they're figuring out how to import it !!.

How many of you remember what the former Pres. Peanut farmer had to say about NAFTA ?.

This will be good for America it will open up a 250 million market share for our goods to be exported too !.

The first thing that happened after forcing Ronald into signing NAFTA on his second watch . ( Star Wars Project ) Dummycratic party made it clear No Sign NO FUNDS .

All the Big 3 built plants in Mexico so as to move jobs south of the border , only to be followed by almost every other business !.

Now they're all up here and down there and still coming !!!!!!!!!!.

So where's the Immigration relief " Jimmy " ???.

Oh yea in China !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

I know put it in the Political forum !.

That's what's happened to Winchester and soon to just about every other U S Company . OUT SOURCE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

I only know how to shoot straight ! and I know My Targets !. ...

I spoke with a Browning Rep.and he said not to be surprised if within a year they are back on the market and made in the USA.They went out of the market because they were not making money,or enough money.Whatever that means.Pointing fingers at any one group and laying blame is pointless,because the truth is that no one knows for sure. My 2 cents

quote:

Originally posted by rolltop:

quote:

Originally posted by KSTEPHENS:
they failed to embrace the "tactical" group that buys lots of crap.

If you're referring to the "couch commando crowd", well friend, They'd be gone a long time ago.

They are the cheapest bunch of idiots I know of!

This is really a bit off topic but I smile nearly every time I think of it.....I pondered for a while and finally decided to buy a Mech Tech Carbine Conversion Unit which in just a couple of minutes (depending on how fast you can break your pistol down) turns either your Glock or your 1911 into what I would call a camp carbine. I bought mine for fun and to play with.....I went back and forth between buying the Glock unit and one for the 1911....finally decided that for a rifle type situation, a good 1911 trigger would beat the hell out of the Glock trigger (which I like but which is not meant for fine aiming IMO).....at any rate, I had a couple of questions so called the factory and talked to the head honcho.....(if you haven't seen one, and most people haven't, the thing looks kind of like an elongated M3 grease gun)....I told him what I wanted to use it for, that I had no tactical asperations for it, and he said in the course of the conversation, "Well, we get all kinds here, some guys even mount bayonets on them"......that cracked me up.....a bayonet..... give me a frigging break!

One accessory they offer is a plastic muzzle attachment, looks kind of like a muzzle brake or flash suppressor, costs $10 and DOES NOTHING.

BTW unit came in yesterday (no muzzle attachment), but I haven't had a chance to shoot it yet. Looks like a helluva lot of fun and might be deadly on squirrels. Although some of these high fenced Texas squirrels might just shrug off those 230 gr .45 bullets.