Winchester Guns


10acboy

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I haven't been on here for a while to see if anyone has posted this, but this morning in the paper there was an article that stated Winchester is going out of business and are shutting their New Haven plant. Has anyone heard anything? It really caught me off guard. I have always liked Winchester. frown.gif

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Re: Winchester Guns

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Sad to say it is true. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10913125/

This is an end of an era of truly great rifles. What would John Wayne say? frown.gif

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Nothing, he's dead! laugh.gif

IMHO, Winchester lost the Hardees war. While McDonalds and Burger King were advertising away and innovating....Hardees was doing nothing. Winchester has been the same way.

I haven't seen one major improvement they made to any of their rifles. They went synthetic stocks and stainless metal when the others did but that's about it. I don't see a lot of innovation there. They may have been leading the innovation but I didn't hear about it.

A marketing experiment gone wrong, IMHO.

New

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Re: Winchester Guns

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While they do or well di make many diffrent guns they are known for the old cowboy lever action. And in todays world I just dont see a huge market for it. And when a guy goes out to buy say a new bolt action or pump shot gun. Winchester probably dont even cross his mind because they link Winchester and lever aciton rifles hand and hand, jmo.

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Im not so sure. The model 70 is well known for being a great action to build on. Before 1964 the model 70 was a great quality rifle. I believe they made a mistake when they tried to compete with the less expensive rifles on the market by throwing together Walmart rifles. I think if they went the other way and used more hand fitting, nicer stocks, better barrels ect. they would sell more rifles. confused.gif

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Re: Winchester Guns

This story has me very depressed. frown.gif I felt this way when Browning let it's A-5 go. It will be strange to go into a gun shop and not see a bunch of 94's on the shelf.

Someone said that Winchester did not try to keep up. I disagree. With the Model 9410 (which won gun of the year) and the reintroduction of the Lightning Rifle, I think they were trying to do something different. Maybe it wasn't enough.

So long Winchester!

Ranger

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Re: Winchester Guns

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Sad, but its just the traditional models. No more lever action rifles from Winchester. I always thought Marlin made a better 30-30 anyway, just an opinion though.

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It is not just the lever guns...here is part of an article copied from my local New Haven paper

COPIED FROM THE NEW HAVEN REGISTER

DeMennato said if the plant closes down, it will mark the end of Winchester’s most well-known and historic sporting firearms — the Model 70 bolt action centerfire rifle, the Model 94 lever action centerfire rifle (known as "The Gun that Won the West") and the Model 1300 pump-action shotgun.

Herstal Group has no plans to make the New Haven-made models anywhere else, said DeMennato. Under the facility’s union contract, none of the products manufactured at the New Haven plant may be relocated before March 2008, anyway, he said.

Scott Grange, a spokesman for Herstal divisions Browning and Winchester Firearms, both located in Morgan, Utah, confirmed that Herstal has no plans to build the New Haven models anywhere else.

Winchester Firearms will continue to produce some other Winchester lines at plants in Portugal and Japan, he said. The Portugal plant produces a limited number of semi-automatic shotguns and semi-automatic rifles, and the Japan plant makes a limited number of fully functioning replicas of older Winchester models.

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