For over two centuries, the village of Ilion in New York’s Mohawk Valley has been synonymous with Remington, the nation’s oldest gun manufacturer, which has announced plans to close its original factory early next month. This decision has profound implications for the local community, ending a legacy that began with Eliphalet Remington forging his first rifle barrel in 1816. The closure is attributed to the high operational costs of the historic plant, as reported in a recent Associated Press article, leading Remington to consolidate its operations in Georgia, a move seen as seeking a more industry-supportive environment.
This shift away from Ilion marks a significant change for the village, which has long relied on the factory for employment and economic stability. At its peak, the plant employed about 1,300 workers, but recent years have seen a significant reduction in its workforce. The departure of Remington is not just an economic loss but a cultural shift for a town deeply intertwined with the gun-making industry.
“It’s going to be like part of your family has moved off,” Jim Conover, a retired Remington production manager, told the AP, highlighting the deep personal connections many in Ilion have with the company.
The factory’s closure is expected to have a dramatic impact on Ilion, a village of 7,600 people, facing the loss of a major revenue source and the challenge of repurposing a large, vacant industrial site. The AP noted local businesses, such as Franco’s Pizza, have already felt the economic downturn as the factory’s workforce has dwindled. The village anticipates losing nearly $1 million annually in utility payments and taxes with the factory’s closure.
Remington’s decision to move reflects broader industry trends, with other firearms manufacturers relocating to states with more favorable business and legislative environments for the gun industry. This shift is often attributed to operational costs, labor and legislative pressures in their original states, but it’s no secret the once strong—and union heavy—industrial havens of the Northeast have become costly to operate in and for guns, openly hostile by left-leaning legislation across the region. What should be more surprising is that there are any firearms operations still calling the Northeast home.
Remington’s move to Georgia follows its purchase by RemArms in 2020 after the company faced legal and financial challenges, including bankruptcy filings and a significant lawsuit following the Sandy Hook school massacre.
The company won’t be the first firearms maker to commit to a more gun-friendly state. The article noted that Smith & Wesson opened its new Tennessee headquarters in October after being based in Springfield, Massachusetts, since 1852. Remington likely won’t be the last either.
As for the future of the town, hard times are sure to follow with the pull out of Remington. Even the future of the Ilion plant site, listed for sale at $10 million, remains uncertain, with hopes it can be transformed into a mix of manufacturing, retail and residential spaces. Despite the challenges ahead, local officials are optimistic about finding new uses for the site and maintaining the village’s historic identity.
Mayor John Stephens expressed to the AP his confidence in the community’s resilience, stating, “You can’t erase history,” emphasizing the enduring legacy of Remington in Ilion despite the factory’s closure.
The factory is expected to close on or around March 4.
quote————–Remington’s decision to move reflects broader industry trends, with other firearms manufacturers relocating to states with more favorable business and legislative environments for the gun industry. This shift is often attributed to operational costs, labor and legislative pressures in their original states, but it’s no secret the once strong—and union heavy—industrial havens of the Northeast have become costly to operate in and for guns, openly hostile by left-leaning legislation across the region. What should be more surprising is that there are any firearms operations still calling the Northeast home.———quote
TRANSLATION:
Cutting through all the Right Wing bullshit Remington is doing what most greed monger companies do, they move to an ignorant Hillbilly State with right to work laws so they can bust Unions, pay their workers starvation wages, make each man do the work of 10, lay off all quality control inspectors, pay no retirement benefits, give no vacations, no raises, no health care benefits, cheapen the product with junk plastic and junk MIM cast parts, and operate under totally unsafe working conditions. And you wonder why American made guns these days do not even work right out of the box.
My friend last month bought a brand new Smith & Wesson .22 revolver, and a brand new Colt .22 revolver and “neither” one worked right out of the box. The Smith was the biggest disaster as the cartridge cases when fired welded themselves to the walls of the cylinder and had to be driven out with a hammer and wooden dowel. The gun was so far out of speck Smith threw the cylinder away when the gun was returned to them and put a new cylinder on the gun. The gun should never have left the factory and would not have if Smith still employed quality control inspectors, obviously they do not, or even bother to test fire their guns anymore, obviously to save every greed monger penny they can to line the pockets of the corrupt C.E.O’s that hog all of the companies profits and laugh all the way to the bank making millions in salaries and perks while the troglodyte worker slaves live in squalor and abject poverty.
Solution:
Vote Blue this year and defeat the gangster criminal Republicans, the enemies of all the working people of Capitalvania, the most corrupt industrialized country on the planet.
Cope
Grow up, Dacian. NY has some of the highest taxes, worst weather, and most offensive restrictions on gun ownership anywhere in the country. This move isn’t some scheming plot by shifty-eyed fat cats in top hats and waistcoats, twirling their mustaches and cackling in glee as the 3 p.m. express from Syracuse bears down on the lovely heiress they’ve tied to the tracks. This is an entirely rational move to save a company that is being choked to death by the fascists who run NY.
“Cutting through all the Right Wing bullshit Remington is doing what most greed monger companies do, they move to an ignorant Hillbilly State with right to work laws so they can bust Unions, pay their workers starvation wages, make each man do the work of 10, lay off all quality control inspectors, pay no retirement benefits, give no vacations, no raises, no health care benefits, cheapen the product with junk plastic and junk MIM cast parts, and operate under totally unsafe working conditions.”
Ignorant hillbillies? Georgia has one of the largest tech economies outside of California and Texas.
Starvation wages? Georgia workers enjoy a far lower cost of living than expensive New York. Go ask workers in each of those states how they’re doing, and see who is actually struggling and why.
Quality of work? Honda, ZF, and Hitachi haven’t complained about the quality of work from their Georgia plants.
Just be honest, you’re a union leech who hates that states with right to work laws don’t force employees to pay for the union bosses new vacation homes. Unions have their place: Where factories are filled with incompetent and lazy workers who deserve to be fired, unions keep them from being replaced with better workers. Unions are champions of the incompetent. Productive workers don’t need unions; they can negotiate better pay and benefits based on their superior value over the other workers. This is why unions are dying: The good workers are tired of getting suckered.
It is kind of crazy seeing the cultural divide in the country that all the arms manufacturers are moving south. Really ironic historically speaking.
Big Green’s not the first, and they won’t be the last. PTR announced in June 2013 it would move from Bristol Connecticut (42 jobs) to Aynor South Carolina (140 jobs), at least partly in response to the hostile environment in Connecticut after the unrelated tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012. “The company said it has been contacted by 41 states and selected South Carolina from six finalists.”
My PTR-91 A3S was among the last with a Connecticut rollmark – a relic of a bygone age.
The kast time we were through there as tourists on the Erie Canal the town was hurting pretty bad and that was pre-covid. All of upstate NY is hurting. This plant was the main employer in town. Hopefully they will be able to keep it open somehow as a tourism attraction (it already was doing a fair amount of tours) after actual production is shut down. Maybe the town will buy the property as is and figure out a way to make it into a money-making tourism attraction which at least keeps the folks coming to visit the town like before. They don’t have much other than boat traffic, runners/walkers, and bicyclists on the canal trail and a few auto tourists following the historic route.
Dems don’t care about people having decent jobs. They pretend like there’s going to be some massive wave of “green energy” jobs. I’m familiar with a local solar farm. None of the people on the construction crew that came in to install the perimeter fence were speaking English. Then, none of the people on the solar panel installation crew spoke English. Dems borrowed money to pay foreigners to install a Chinese-manufactured energy station. That’s what the “green energy” jobs plan looks like. I’m sure there are a few American Dems at the top making bank off the government grants and subsidies. It’s a scam. None of it is going to lower the temperature or prevent extreme weather. Continue to vote Dem if you’re suicidal.
“Mayor John Stephens expressed to the AP his confidence in the community’s resilience, stating, “You can’t erase history,”
Sure you can. In fact, it’s one of Leftism’s main goals. Got any Confederate statues in your town? We don’t, any more.
Well, they’re not the first to close shop and move south. Happy to have them. Safes are chock full of 700’s, 1100’s, 870’s and I think a 541T.
Just another example of liberal city dwellers destroying their state’s rural communities. Just like CA, ILL, WA, OR, and so on. Rural communities have pretty much used up 3 of the 4 boxes available to them.
lots of pain
dead ahead
Vote liberal, get liberal policies and go broke
Always wanted to do a arms makers tour of the north east. The anti gun laws of most of the main states involved has always been a turnoff.
So we just do the bourbon cruise in Kentucky instead. Way more fun.
They could convert it into a pronoun processing center.
Haha
My bet is it will become a data center. Just a rando thought but they like to rehab buildings that have had heavy equipment in them and lots of power going to them. May be wrong on that though.
Such a shame, if it weren’t for NY being NY I bet they’d still hang around. Illinois still has a few companies, SA and Rock River Arms trying to placate the Democrats via campaign contributions doesn’t really seem to have worked in the end.
Votes have consequences. As do inaction’s in the face of political tyranny.
As long as the democrats are in charge, your state can go to crap. Your city can turn into San Francisco with feces and urine everywhere.
You can defund your police department.
But the ruling class will make sure your “bread and circuses” are delivered on time. So don’t worry you’ll always have access to leg@l butt sex and drugs.
The libertarians liberals and the left. Are comfortable with manufacturing moving out of the USA.
The answer is obvious to the left. Turn the whole building and the town into homes for the illegal aliens. Or as the left calls them, undocumented democrat voters.
2nd attempt to post in 2 days
quote————–Remington’s decision to move reflects broader industry trends, with other firearms manufacturers relocating to states with more favorable business and legislative environments for the gun industry. This shift is often attributed to operational costs, labor and legislative pressures in their original states, but it’s no secret the once strong—and union heavy—industrial havens of the Northeast have become costly to operate in and for guns, openly hostile by left-leaning legislation across the region. What should be more surprising is that there are any firearms operations still calling the Northeast home.———quote
TRANSLATION:
Cutting through all the Right Wing bullshit Remington is doing what most greed monger companies do, they move to an ignorant Hillbilly State with right to work laws so they can bust Unions, pay their workers starvation wages, make each man do the work of 10, lay off all quality control inspectors, pay no retirement benefits, give no vacations, no raises, no health care benefits, cheapen the product with junk plastic and junk MIM cast parts, and operate under totally unsafe working conditions. And you wonder why American made guns these days do not even work right out of the box.
My friend last month bought a brand new Smith & Wesson .22 revolver, and a brand new Colt .22 revolver and “neither” one worked right out of the box. The Smith was the biggest disaster as the cartridge cases when fired welded themselves to the walls of the cylinder and had to be driven out with a hammer and wooden dowel. The gun was so far out of speck Smith threw the cylinder away when the gun was returned to them and put a new cylinder on the gun. The gun should never have left the factory and would not have if Smith still employed quality control inspectors, obviously they do not, or even bother to test fire their guns anymore, obviously to save every greed monger penny they can to line the pockets of the corrupt C.E.O’s that hog all of the companies profits and laugh all the way to the bank making millions in salaries and perks while the troglodyte worker slaves live in squalor and abject poverty.
Solution:
Vote Blue this year and defeat the gangster criminal Republicans, the enemies of all the working people of Capitalvania, the most corrupt industrialized country on the planet.
Cope harder
Let’s get most of the manufacturing of everything to go to the south where it’s welcome. Let the north have their beloved “service” economy. Oops, it looks like Big Finance is leaving NYC as well. Who’s next?
Sad times for the small towns and people who work in places like this. But, the politicians and other wannabe dictators and socialists are happy. Killed 2 or more birds with a single stone.
Got rid of an evil gun maker, killed the tax base for another small town, forced another group of workers into poverty and dependence on government, all while getting nice fat donations from the union bosses.
And a nice win for Georgia. good paying jobs with likely a decent benefit package, building a nice tax base, and fewer people needing government assistance. Likely these companies will find out that the people in the areas they set up are better educated and capable than many want to admit. And, many industries are finding a welcoming, business friendly atmosphere.
Lower taxes, less ridiculous regulations less overpriced and ever more demanding union bosses who do more to screw the workers than the evil capitalists ever could.
All in all this will likely be a good move for both Remington and for the workers either in the area they build, or for those who relocate from NY.
“The factory’s closure is expected to have a dramatic impact on Ilion…”
sheesh.
just waiting for the last truck to pull out so the busses can roll in. only four hours from battery park.
Remington did not just decide to move out of NY. They were forced out by the anti-gun NY establishment and the high cost of doing business there.
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