RemArms, the parent company of Remington firearms, has announced they are ceasing production at their Illion, New York factory. The closure, scheduled for 4 March 2024, will bring an end to a 195 year history of firearms production in that sleepy little Mohawk valley town. Approximately 270 employees will be affected by the closure.
The company was founded by Eliphalet Remington (1793–1861) in 1816 after he decided he could make a better firearm than he could buy. In 1828 he moved into the factory in Illion. That facility is the same one that is closing next March.
In 1888, the Remington family sold the ownership of E. Remington & Sons to new owners, Marcellus Hartley and Partners. This consisted of Hartley and Graham of New York, New York, a major sporting goods chain that also owned the Union Metallic Cartridge Company in Bridgeport and the Winchester Repeating Arms Company of New Haven, both in Connecticut. At this time, the company formally changed its name to the Remington Arms Company.
DuPont purchased Remington during the Great Depression and owned the company up until the 1993 sale to Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, a private equity firm, for $300 million. Under DuPont’s ownership, Remington introduced some of their most iconic firearms, the 870 and 1100 shotguns and the model 700 rifle. They also opened a new ammunition factory in Lonoke Arkansas.
CD&R then sold the company to Cerebus Capital in 2007. The company had been in dire financial straits then, they did not record a profit from 2003 to 2005. Both CD&R and Cerebus managed to saddle Remington with unsustainable levels of debt.
The first of two bankruptcies was filed in 2018. It was during this period of time the company was involved in a suit due to the Sandy Hook shootings. The restructuring wouldn’t help, they filed again in 2020. This time though, the company was broken up. The Remington ammuntion name and Lonoke factory were sold to Vista Outdoors. The other brands under the Remington umbrella like Marlin and AAC went to other established gun manufacturers.
Being in Upstate NY, this editor has followed the news out of Illion pretty closely and if you were to ask me what caused this closure I’d tell you it was a combination of several factors. First, years of mismanagement weakened the company to the point it couldn’t sustain multiple factory locations. Second, the laws in this state make it difficult to run a firearms related business here. Third, the union, the United Mine Workers, dug their heels in about some things after the bankruptcy sale. The final factor is the factory itself. The layout, while state of the art in 1828, is not conducive to modern manufacturing processes.