H&R 300AAC courtesy Advanced Armament Corp

H&R Firearms, or H&R 1871, LLC, is a firearms manufacturer that was hoovered up by Freedom Group back in 2007. Like Marlin, H&R was a manufacturer of traditional firearms — things that Bernie Sanders might call “hunting rifles” and exempt from his assault weapons pogrom. Firearms like single-shot break-action rifles, prized for their light weight, simple design, and accuracy. Word comes that Freedom Group may now have successfully euthanized another American firearms manufacturer (again, like Marlin) but this time it appears to have been a business decision and not due to poor management and terrible quality control.

The video above is the latest in a string from people proclaiming the death of H&R through indirect observation. And they’re right — every store I can find is 100% sold out of H&R firearms with no end in sight for the break-action drought.

I reached out to Remington for comment, since they’re owner of the H&R brand. I gave them about 24 hours to respond, but haven’t heard so much as a peep — besides an automated acknowledgement that they got my email.

Freedom Group (and Remington in particular) have been in a bit of trouble over the last few years, both in terms of their reputation and their cash flow. Advanced Armament used to be the largest silencer manufacturer in the world, but under Freedom Group’s management they’ve slipped back to the middle of the pack. Marlin used to be a watchword for quality and now some gun stores refuse to stock their guns. The hilariously awful Remington R51 continues to be an abysmal quagmire with no end in sight. Add to that the court ordered recall of their Model 700 rifles (which could take well over 10 years to complete under good circumstances) and it’s safe o say things haven’t been going well for Big Green.

It would make sense that, for the time being at least, Remington and Freedom Group might reduce their footprint and focus on executing their core business perfectly. In this case that means the Remington 700 rifle line, the Remington 870 shotgun line, and the core Bushmaster AR-15 lines. The more SKU’s they keep on the shelves the less machine time they need to devote to products that might not have such a big ROI.

In that context it might make sense to put the H&R brand on the shelf for the time being. I just hope this isn’t the shape of things to come for Freedom Group — slowly shedding products and shuttering business units in an effort to keep the lights on long enough to be bought by someone else.

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56 COMMENTS

  1. Wasn’t this announced like last year? The guy that owns my local gun store had gotten back from a few trade shows and was telling me this last October when I bought the 300 Blackout variant

    • Yeah, this is really old news, now. The time to complain has long since passed and gone. I would have hoped that TTAG would be more up to date. But the patents have surely run out (like, maybe a hundred years ago). Maybe the “Freedom Group” would be amenable to a friendly takeover of this storied, though sadly neglected but promising line of firearms, if they’ve still got some tooling and machinery to sell. Otherwise I guess we’ll have to content ourselves with the resale market.

      • I’d like to see somebody start making the H&R/NEF .22lr revolvers again. They are good basic inexpensive firearms. I bought mine (6″ NEF 9 shot double action revolver) used a few years ago for around a hundred bucks. Great gun for the money.

  3. Eventually Remington is going to make a single roll pin… for Glock. And it will suck.

    I’m still pissed about Marlin, so fu*k ’em.

    If they start fixing some of the things they’ve screwed up instead of flailing about and screwing up an ever-widening circle of new things, then I’ll give them a chance, but successful manufacturing doesn’t seem to be in their wheelhouse. Which is weird for a supposed manufacturing group.

  4. They quit making H&Rs in Ilium months ago, I think in February. By the time I found out in April it was already hard to find some calibers, and the available ones were on closeout pricing. I wish I’d known the end was coming while the Accessory Barrel Program was still active.

    Are there any H&R breakbarrels left on the shelves in high volume stores today?

  6. >> assault weapons pogrom

    Why not just call it “assault weapons Holocaust” while you’re at it?

    Seriously, words have meanings, and some of them have very significant emotional baggage. Don’t appropriate them like that.

    • Hey, when you’re playing in the liberal “Offended Olympics”, don’t you get a pass if you’re part of the group who is ostensibly being offended? So Since Robert is a Jew himself, and by proxy, this is his post (appearing on the site he runs and presumably approved by him) doesn’t that mean this cultural appropriation/offensive hate speech/racist oppression is okay? I’m just asking. This Brave New World is all new to me, but you seem to have a pretty good handle on it.

      • No, you don’t.

        And honestly, this isn’t really all that different than Christians complaining loudly when people compare pop icons to Christ.

        • “And honestly, this isn’t really all that different than Christians complaining loudly when people compare pop icons to Christ”

          Oh, so we’re on the same page that getting offended about using the word pogrom to refer to anything other than the systematic attacks on Jews in Ukraine and Belarus by the Russian Empire in the 1800’s is a pretty ridiculous and justifiably mockable statement. Great.

  8. Watch the price of the H&R steadily rise. They are good little plinkers. Just like a JM stamped Marlin.

  9. I called this about a year ago right on this very page, right after I talked to their CS and they mentioned they weren’t taking orders for custom barrels anymore even though their website still has the forms up. He didn’t sound too excited about things that were going on with the Freedom Group when I asked if that might have been the reason this was going on. My Pardner Pump 12g seems like a step up from the gun its a clone of, I’m sure other owners will say the same. This sucks, but I forsaw this scrying bull’s entrails and that hardly ever fails.

    • The pardner pump is made in China and will probably continue to be imported. The pardner pump is a beast and I feel mine is better than any current production 870.

      • I wanted a 20g barrel for mine, but I see the 20g 21″ is still cheap as ever. I could just get another one, I guess. If I have too…for the children.

      • I bought one of those Pardner Pumps on a whim a year or two ago. That thing turned out to be one of my favorite guns. It cost next to nothing new and it’s a freaking block of steel. Chinese steel, granted, but it’s a machine.

        I put on a Remington pistol grip and a BlackHawk 15-round sling stocked w/ 15 rounds of Sellier & Bellot 00 buckshot. Along w/ five in the tube. That’ll do.

        I love that thing. Always a conversation starter at the club.

  10. awesome… I picked up a Handi Rifle in .500 S&W on Saturday, still haven’t worked up the nerve to fire it.

  11. dont forget the kill-off of Para-Ordnance/ParaUSA. That’s another of Freedom/Remingtons “Kills”, also

  12. That’s a shame. I paid 99 bucks for my 12 ga single shot and I love the damn thing, it’s a lot of fun to shoot clay pigeons with

    • Same here. Pardner 12 gauge is my ‘volume survival gun’. Buy a set of simple chamber inserts, and it’ll shoot 20 gauge, 410, 9mm, 357, and 22lr. And all that stuff packs neatly into the wood stock.

      What else does anyone need?

      • Another plus is that the inserts let the rest of the volume of the 12 gage’s bore act as an improvised legal suppressor.

        Granted, somewhat suppressor, but take what you can get…

  13. This is why I can’t find a Buffalo Classic. Gun goes bang, but the stocks usually don’t fit me

    • H&R signal shots are a staple for American youth to begin there adventure in hunting
      They are the safest firearms on the market and the receiver is indestructible
      One big mistake was not selling the accessory barrels thru the dealers they were the poor man’s Thomson centre
      And would have given them a run for the money
      They should stay American made going overseas just makes them another cheap imported gun

  15. Damn. My first gun was an H&R 12 gauge break action. Love those guns. Maybe someone else will buy the design and start production.

  16. Might have to hang up my 444 marlin for a bit since replacement parts might be difficult to come by. Hope not. I love that gun.

  17. At one time, every non AR long gun I owned was a Remington. My first shot gun was a Remington. My son’s first rifle and shotgun was a Remington. They kept that 700 through hunting season for the trigger recall which took over 6 months when they said it would take 2. BTW, that replacement trigger sucks. They would have been wise to send you a check for $150 to buy a Timney and have it installed.

    Between poor quality and their bludgeoning of a number of manufacturers, including H&R, I am done with their products.

  18. Well I’m late to the gun game and all I know is my Chinese H&R is great. Sad to see another gone from ‘murica…sure won’t be hard to get another Chinese boomstick.

  19. You know what I don’t understand? If Gates, Soros, and Bloomberg are so big on civilian disarmament, why don’t they just purchase the 15 largest firearms manufacturers and shudder them? I doubt they would even notice the hit to their net worth.

    • “…why don’t they just purchase the 15 largest firearms manufacturers and shudder them?”

      They’re Progressives. They’ll spend taxpayer money, not their own…

    • “shutter” them. as in put shutters on the windows.
      I’m still shuddering at the wording.
      P.S. for goodness sakes don’t give ’em any ideas!

  20. “I just hope this isn’t the shape of things to come for Freedom Group — slowly shedding products and shuttering business units in an effort to keep the lights on long enough to be bought by someone else.”

    If it means a brand will be bought by people who will attempt to restore the brand’s good name, good on ’em.

    Unfortunately, if a brand is sold off it will probably end up like the audio companies sold off to the Japanese in the 60’s, only this time sold off to the Chinese.

    • At least the Chinese know how to build firearms. All things being equal, I’d take my Norinco-made IAC Hawk 982 over its Remington-manufactured counterpart.

  22. Big companies buy up their smaller competitors to destroy the competition. Why would a well run company want to be bought out? That part I don’t understand.

    As far as the word pogrom goes, the Mormons are the only religious people in America to suffer through a pogrom. They had to travel thousands of miles driven out of their homes because of their unpopular religious beliefs. The American government wrote orders to have them killed. The word pogrom does not apply to just one religious group.

    • Yes you could legally kill a white person in America as long as they were a Mormon up into the 1970s. I believe it is still illegal to teach a black person to read in some states. The laws were never withdrawn.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missouri_Executive_Order_44

      “The Mormons must be exterminated”

      …Executive Order 44 was issued during the 1838 Mormon War, which was caused by friction between the Latter Day Saints and their neighbors due to the economic and electoral growth of the Latter Day Saint community…

      …Governor Boggs directed that “the Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State if necessary for the public peace—their outrages are beyond all description”.[2] The militia and other state authorities—General John B. Clark, among them—would use the executive order to expel the Latter Day Saints from their lands in the…

      I call people who say no one died as a result of the order to exterminate a group of people holocaust deniers.

      • Yes you could legally kill a white person in America as long as they were a Mormon up into the 1970s. I believe it is still illegal to teach a black person to read in some states. The laws were never withdrawn

        I suppose that explains Chicago

        • They are paid very well to not educate people. Also the welfare system has done a good job of breaking up the family. Black children have a new man in their lives called Uncle Sam.

  25. My favorite bunny gun, before steel shot, was my H&R 20 ga. single pipe. Easy to carry all day while brush busting and of more than enough power for cotton tails.

    One of my grand kids will get that gun.

  26. I had a Handi-Rifle in .223, got it shortly after Remington bought H&R. It was a PoS that had an awful problem with vertical stringing. 5 rounds would string vertically about 4 inches at 50 yards.

  27. Meh. Their triggers SUCKED. There was no need to have multiple receivers. There was no need to have to send your gun in for an additional barrel. Additional barrels should have been available at retailers. The wood stocks needed a redesign. The transfer bar was prone to break. There were trying to push too many calibers, but they did have the right ones. The center fire rifles were “disposable”. For instance, it was hard to find stretched and loose receivers in typical calibers like ’06 and 270. Not long barrel guns. Meaning no 28′ barrel. No true compact models. The needed to have a few model wearing 18- 20″ barrels with a light profile. The only stainless model they carried was a 45-70. …..

    Maybe CVA will take the hint and do single shots right. CVA already makes a better rifle.

  28. NEF and legacy H&R 1871 products were pretty good guns for the money, in spite of the triggers which mostly did suck. One reason for all barrels having the same fat profile near the breech was due to interchangeability. One reason for requiring factory fit of accessory barrels no doubt was Lawyerville, USA. Could be the sucky triggers were all about liability too. The transfer bar safety came about for that reason, invented by H&R. Imagine, Sturm, Ruger paid H&R a royalty for using that design so they could lawyer-proof their revolvers. My 1966 H&R Topper shotgun does not have the transfer bar safety and the trigger is pretty good on it. I never liked the bogus, fat Schnabel fore end that NEF used for a time; they did improve that wood design later with a conventional profile.

  29. Freedom Group is a liberal controlled corporate “ax man” that destroys every company they take control of. The proof is in the pudding.

  30. Glad I got my h&r guns and extra barrels a long time ago before they sold out to another company. All of the h&r guns I have been excellent shooting guns over the years. Never had any problems with any of them. I have a 12 ga pardner, a 3006 custom w/muzzle break which makes for a great fly swatter out to 100 yards lol. Or any whitetail or wild hog that comes into range. Have fun shooting. Good luck in finding yourself a nice H&R gun. Good Shooting Guys.

  31. I’ve had a few h&r/nef guns. All were good well made guns. The 45-70 had a nice kick. The interchangeable barrel program was a Nice idea. I wish I had kept them. Didn’t figure they would have been shelved. The 12ga slug guns Were good too. Currently have an h&r topper. Hanging onto it. If only I had a few grand. I’d buy up a few slug guns still available at local pawn shops. Rossi guns don’t seem to be made as well as the NEF’s. But might be the only single shot available now.

  32. I have a 20g youth turkey w/20″ barrel. Used to have a .223 green laminate stock, great shooting gun but was a pain to carry on my back when out on the snowmobile as barrel always swung down while riding. always wanted to get a .22 but now i guess not.

  33. I own a single shot H&R twelve gauge. If I had a .308 or .223 barrel from H&R would it fit my shotgun?

  34. Weighing in on this a day late in 2018… I bought my first H&R 30/30 in 1974 at Gibsons for about $35. A month later I had managed to mow enough yards to go back and buy a Topper 12ga. For about the same amount. I was 12 years old. I continued to add to my collection of these venerable little guns up until about 1990. Including several that had new barrels fit. The strangest of all of them was chambered in 7mm Rem. Mag. I took this one out of the box. Looked it over. Put it back in. Never got thenerve to shoot it. My last purchases were in 1995. I picked up a pair of them in the Buffalo and Target guise. 45/70 and 38/55. I sent the Buffalo back in and had another barrel fit, which I immediately reamed out to 45/120 Sharps. None of the H/R’s I saw on the dealer racks since have came anywhere close to the quality, the fit, and even feel of those early ones made back in the earlier decades. Oh well… It just goes to show that if there’s any way to screw up a good thing, we as Americans will find, implement, and perfect the doing of it…

  35. Hey, guys,
    Maybe they are mothballing the single shot Fire arms for when semi/ auto guns are totally illegal.
    Could happen now…………

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