While it may be too late, I made this offer. Any wishing to support it feel free to copy the text and send it too. I'd like to see it come back. Anyway, here is what I emailed to them.

To whom it may concern.

I have read your statement in the opening of the H&R Talk and have to say I understand. I will also say I believe it is not the correct line of action to take. You state that the modifications that were being discussed could make you liable, in todays society you may be right.

You also stated that the forums were put up at your expense and that you could not police them adequately. I can understand this too. What I do not understand is there was no warnings given at all. They would have been heeded by all, rest assured. We valued the information gleaned from those forums very much.

Let me give you an example.

I have two Handirifles that I had purchased for my sons years back. They were originally bought in 223 and later added 30-30 barrels to them. The 30-30 barrels shoot fine and are very accurate with factory ammo. The 223's were another story. I had tried 4-5 different factory ammunitions in them with 4 -5" groups at best. I was really about to give up on them and NEF's. That is until I started reading in the forums about others finding solutions to their problems. Through the forums I have learned these rifles are very much in love with the Hornady V-Max bullets and have made some very nice groups with them.

This also was a key factor in my decision to buy a Buffalo Classic rifle as well.

If not for the forums, those would have been the last NEF rifles I would have bought, thinking they were grossly inaccurate rifles. I have never owned rifles as finicky as they are, but they are accurate. It is a good product for the dollar and we have collectively convinced MANY newcomers to buy the Handi's.

Any number of us (myself included) would have gladly volunteered to moderate the forum for you if you had just set out the guidelines you wished us to follow. If there is no talk of changing calibers from the factory offerings on the forum, so be it. We would have taken any discussion of this matter off line away from your area of liability. Please understand that as shooters we love to tinker. Whether it be with reloads or calibers, whatever. There are many, highly skilled gunsmiths on this forum and kept a fair balance to all of this talk. If not for people like them and us, there would likely never have been improvements to the muzzle loaders. We'd all still be shooting black powder rifles because someone was afraid a lawyer would not like us improving on a product. People like us are what make manufacturers improver their products, whether it be guns, cars or power tools.

It is all meant to improve upon a very stable well built rifle system. We understand it has its limitations, however frustrating they may be, and realize we have to work within these limits. Please try to look at these forums as a source of ideas for improvement/refinement and not as a liability.

I ask that you not be short sighted in this matter and reconsider the forum. Many of us would gratefully return under those conditions. We as forum members have sold many extra barrels for you and many, many more rifles as well. We can be a great source of marketing input for you as well.

Please consider my offer and I'm sure others would offer the same as well.

Respectfully

Scott Lewis
AKA Handirifle Member #70

Handirifle, unfortunately I just don't think that would work...the site everyone would go to would end up being the Marlin/H&R Talk site. Just think that everyone would end up staying at the "we can't talk about here but we can over there site"

These guys have shown their true colors and are not much if any better than Smith and Wesson. Unfortunately I do not think that any other firearms manufacturer would do any better.

I agree with perklo on another site, how is it that I can hotrod my Ford, Chevy or Chrysler, with parts they manufacture, yet I cannot get a simple and straight answer out of an arms manufacturer about the strength of their design. What hippocracy

It is not like the arms manufacturers do not know how their arms are actually used in the real world, all one needs to do is give a reading to most any gunrag to discover the truth for themselves. Hornady, Speer, Nosler, all make components which are used in factory offered ammo, are we to think that the arms makers are so naive that they do not know the business that keeps these and other reloading component and tooling makers alive? Are the arms manufacturers so naive as to believe that their customers do not know of the existence of these makers? I think not. I think that so long as playing "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" works for them, they will keep their head buried in the sand, hoping their butts don't get shot off.

I personally think the best thing that any arms maker could do is first publish the strength parameters of their arms and secondly, endorse any and all of the reloading suppliers who research and publish data using the same methods for ammunition development as any ammunition maker uses to comply with SAMMI. This should include any maker who publishes a reloading manual, and any of the powder makers. It would then be an easy and defensible position to publish in every owners manual "we are not and will not be liable for damage to this arm as a result of ammuntion produced by an individual". This would leave us where we are now but with a higher grade of working information and leave the arms makers absolutely above the claims of fools and idiots.

JPH
While I do agree with the last paragraph of your response, I still think it could be made to work. The only problem with them allowing us to continue talks of hotrodding the NEF is SOMEONE will try and hold them liable. Whether or not the jury finds them liable is not always the case. That is being proven by the anti-gun groups all over the country. They don't care if they win. When the gun companies can no longer afford the legal fees to defend themselves, they have to shut down.

I hardly equate this to a Smith and Wesson move, but it was a cheap shot as I pointed out in my letter. I also pointed out, that all they needed to do was give us some warnings.

Are there ANY other arms manufacturers that have sites like this? None that I am aware of, so now that NEF has gone the same way as all the others, they are the new Smith and Wesson? They haven't signed any deals with anyone, they are just trying to survive in a very litigous wourld. As I said in my letter, I understand their point but don't agree with it.

Maybe if we talk to them reasonably they will reconsider under some new guidelines and with a strong disclaimer. If not then we move on for good.

I just think it's wrong for us to trash their decision when no other companies ever had the courage to offer a site in the first place.

10-4 HR, some notice would have been appropriate. Very unprofessional the way it was done. Always did like your wisdom.

Thanks Rogmat, appreciate the compliment.

I must admit they did show more kutzpah than the rest in even offering this site. I'm still dissapointed that they just pulled the plug. It was done very unprofessionally, and obviously without regard to the users of the forum, it was not untill people complained that they even opened the site for members to retrieve such information as they want. Seems to me that we don't matter, certainly not as much as their bottom line, even though as customers we create their bottom line....go figure. We have in past disagreed without being disagreeable, and I repsect your position. I don't doubt that some of the people involved went through some very gutwrenching meetings. As I came to know Ed Chabot from the forum, I am sure he thought well of us and likely defended us more than a few times. But whoever pulled the plug, had no intentions of keeping faith with the best customers and sales staff they ever had. I respect too the nature of the litigous world they and we live in. We have to carry insurance on our handrail company on the outside chance one would fail, but it ain't quite the same to me, I choose to use firearms, and act in the knowledge that whatever I do with one will first come back to me. You might use one of our rails and never know it untill a fateful day in court. Perhaps the whole question is the one concerning arms and the society at large...just exactly where does personal responsibility begin and end??? I always thought it began when I picked the gun up, if I choose to bring it home, my responsibility didn't end unless I traded the gun, sold it, or it was stolen from me. I'm rambling, sorry, Good Shooting Handirifle, JP

JPH
Well said and agreed, we agree to disagree in small points. On the big one we do seem to agree. Oh well, if we do nothing else, we move on from here and not look bac.

I agree with your thoughts on responsibility. Too many things are someone elses fault.

All we can do is hold tight to our values and pass them on whenever we get the chance and hope someday reason and real justice will prevail.

You are a good man Handirifle. Perhaps more than anything it is friendships such as this that passed through my minds eye on Wednesday when I went to h&r1871 and found the Talk board closed. Am glad so many have been finding places to keep those friendships alive. A funny thing when one thinks about how a simple peice of steel with a hole it has drawn so many different people from so many different walks of life to share their common experience of using these little rifles. It is even more staggering when one considers what a chunk of our lives we give everday to one another in our search for the perfect Handi. (The one I have in my hands )That, far more than the place, is what I see continuing on at least 3 different boards.

OK, enough sentimentality....Yes, I do think it would be possible to hide a barrel weight in a full length forestock. I believe that there are a few examples of Mannlicher (SP?) stocked Handi's out there. The question is does one rely solely on the weight of the wood itself? There are several exotic species that are extrodinarily heavy for being wood, but generally it requires really good tooling to machine the stuff and it is very expensive. The other alternative is to use a common wood, walnut for example, making it large enough in shape to be able to either bore a hole or cut a groove underneath which would carry and hide the weight. It does make the gun very shootable though. I'll stay on it.

I was thinking more along the lines of the second idea. I have built quite a few laminated bows and have worked with some of the woods you mentioned. Not only are they heavy but one must be careful when you cut them because they contain poisons in the dust. The oil is toxic to humans. That is not widely known.

I think a stroearm type forend made from wood could have the holes bored in either side, lengthwise to carry suffecient weight, as you described. Not sure I'd want it myself but I have never shot a 22" 45-70 either.

I happen to have a couple peices of white oak 2x4 around I am going to start with, heavy and strong. I have to get a cutter for my friends router to make the barrel channel with, then do some fitting and drilling.....at least a coupe weeks inthe making, but i will keep you posted on it. I had a browning 1885 years back that weighed about 8 pounds, it was not uncomfortable to shoot, with the weight neither is this one. so far I reeeeeeeeeeealy like it

HR

Good to see both you a JPH45 on this board. Either I am doing something wrong, or I cannot read the whole thread while responding to all of you here.

I wonder how much time and effort it would be to keep a board monitored liability wise for a firearms manufacturer. Not only looking at thousands of posts daily for content, but policing troublemakers who would constantly shift their profiles makes for a long day. I already have a day job.

It was fun while it lasted, it is now over. I have noticed many familiar names including BM on this site. We can discuss the same things on this site as we did on the NEF site. We rarely heard from anyone at NEF on the NEF site anyway. We sold ourselves, didn't we. HR still has a telephone number if we have a question or wish to place an order (still can't order on the web).

Just keep on keepin' on.

Dave - The man formerly known as Trapdoor

dpastor (trapdoor)
This board is different, in that when you reply to a post it only shows the one item (supposedly) you're replying to. Odd!

Yea, I guess we did sell ourselves and many others as well. They are still good guns for the money. I remember feeling like I had lost a good friend when the forum was pulled. Quite a shock.

Oh well, here we are again and hopefully the learning and sharing will continue.