After 195 years, RemArms introduced it was shuttering operations at its Ilion manufacturing unit, affecting lots of of workers
The corporate was based in 1816, and the plant turned operational in 1828. Mitch Barrie / Flickr
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The longest-operating gun manufacturing plant within the nation will shut its doorways in March after 195 years of creating Remington weapons. RemArms, the reimagined model offshoot of the Remington each hunter and shooter has identified for 2 centuries, introduced the change in a letter to union leaders Thursday, experiences the Utica Observer-Dispatch.
“I’m writing to tell you that RemArms, LLC has determined to shut its total operations at 14 Hoefler Avenue, Ilion, NY 13357,” the letter reads. “The Firm expects that operations on the Ilion Facility will conclude on or about March 4, 2024. The Firm didn’t arrive at this determination calmly.”
The choice is noteworthy for Remington followers, however not altogether shocking given the latest turmoil at Large Inexperienced. The Remington Out of doors Firm filed for bankruptcy in July 2020, shedding 585 workers with out severance advantages and halting operations in Ilion. In fall 2020, an funding agency named The Roundhill Group purchased the manufacturing plant, together with a second Remington facility in Tennessee that made handgun barrels, and renamed the corporate RemArms. (In the meantime Ruger bought Marlin, which had been under Remington ownership since late 2007. Remington Ammunition is now a separate company from RemArms firearms.)
In Might 2021, 230 RemArms workers returned to the Ilion plant to proceed operations. The corporate was centered on mass-producing Mannequin 870 shotguns and Mannequin 700 rifles, and restocking cabinets earlier than looking season rolled round, director of product administration Adam Ballard told Field and Stream on the time. (Out of doors Life has since examined the RemArms 870 Fieldmaster, which has changed the RemArms 870 Express.)
Round 300 workers clocked in on the Ilion plant day by day, making it the most important employer in rural Herkimer County, New York. A lot of these workers are represented by the United Mine Staff of America. The UMWA negotiated on behalf of the staff in the course of the 2020 chapter, ensuing layoffs, and acquisition. UMWA worldwide president Cecil E. Roberts released a statement in response to the information.
“This can be very disappointing to listen to that RemArms LLC is closing its Ilion plant,” he wrote on Thursday. “The employees in Ilion enabled RemArms to rise from the ashes of the Remington Arms chapter in 2020-21. With out these employees and their dedication to producing the most effective firearms on this planet, this firm merely wouldn’t exist … This announcement by the corporate is a slap within the face to all of them. The timing provides insult to damage for these affected. Merry Christmas from RemArms.”
A RemArms consultant didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. An auto-reply electronic mail to Out of doors Life acknowledged, partially, “RemArms is worked up to increase our services in Georgia, a state that not solely welcomes enterprise however enthusiastically helps and welcomes corporations within the firearms business.”
The assertion was a part of a November 2021 press release from Georgia governor Brian Kemp’s workplace asserting that RemArms can be shifting its world headquarters to LaGrange, Georgia, and constructing a complicated manufacturing facility there, as properly.
Eliphalet Remington II founded Remington as a rifle barrel producer in 1816; the Ilion plant turned operational in 1828 and produced 1000’s of firearms for the Union Military within the Civil Conflict. The corporate additionally produced a few of the nation’s first commercially obtainable typewriters in Ilion from 1874 to 1886, though it’s unclear whether or not they had been manufactured in the identical plant.
Learn Subsequent: The 28 Most Notable Guns from Remington’s 200-Year History
“The Ilion facility and its workforce actually stay a valued asset to the corporate,” then-Remington CEO James Marcotuli advised capturing editor John B. Snow in 2016, in the course of the gunmaker’s 2 hundredth anniversary. “There’s a ton of expertise and data there. We’ve been producing Remington merchandise in Ilion since 1816. In that point, we’ve produced greater than six million Mannequin 700s, practically 4 million Mannequin 1100s, and 11 million Mannequin 870s.”
A clarification was made on Dec. 1, 2023: A earlier model of this text mislocated the phrase “shotguns” when referring to Mannequin 870s and Mannequin 700s. It has been up to date to mirror the suitable class of firearm for these fashions.
