BAD remington experience

[Trickymissfit]

Wile E and Tricky hit the nail on the head. First off Remington has gone the way of most American manufactures, us older people, 40+, are retiring or moving out of the hands on part of the process. The new kids graduating from school are not allowed access to wood shop, auto shop or any other hands on classes in school.
The schools are turning to computers and teaching kids how to survive in that world. Nobody is teaching mechanical skills as part of a basic education. When I was in high school we needed to take a shop class to graduate.
So the observation of the equipment was falling apart is no big surprise. The people running the equipment had no idea there was anything wrong. No mechanical aptitude and lax QC.

The second part of the failure is the corporation. Most larger companies care little about customer service, I see it in my business all the time. The larger they get the more out of touch with the consumer they become. As an exaample I own an alarm company. My company looses about 2 customers per year or about .3%, the big companies like ADT loose around 22%. All they would need to do is retain these customers and they boost their profit by 20+% without doing anything.

Sorry to be so long winded here but Remington is what a typical large corporation in America is becoming. Doubtful the government will bail them out of the mess they are creating like the auto companies got. And people wonder why American manufacturing has a bad reputation. It's very sad that they don't really care what we the consumer think.

**Edwards Demming spelled it all out for U.S. manufacturing many many years ago! He simply said to build quality first at manufacturing costs. Then shoot for quotas last. Then the world will beat a path to your door. Perhaps Remington Arms should have invested some of their time in attending that old man's seminars

**I don't want to get into the political crap, but the real reason for the auto bail out had nothing to do with the big three (believe me all three got something). It was really a bail out of about 3.2 million others that are affectted by what goes on inside those plants. These folks are the suppliers in virtually all the lower 48 states. Everybody from a tire company to a guy that drives a truck delivering them. If you ever went to the Chicago Tool Show you'd understand what I'm saying. Half the folks showing equipment were counting on sales from the big three.

**Remington is not dead but well on the road to a long slow death unless they change their ways of doing business. A shame, and maybe somebody will pick them up and straiten out their game plan. We saw the samething with Winchester Olin, and others along the way.
gary

 

[squirrelduster]

Wow, I haven't heard Demmings' name in quite some time.

The bail out had everything to do with the big three. If there was no bail out then it affected all the others down the line. Poor management and business practices resulted in the loss of all those jobs. I remember when I was young we argued over the best product, Ford and Chevy had a great following. They were the best built cars in the world. Mid 60's we were winning all the racing titles against Ferrari and anyone else that threw their hat in the ring. The Shelby Cobra, and the corvette were unstoppable. The cars and trucks we made then were very reliable. In the 80's and 90's the Toyota, Nissan, and Honda companies saw what Americans wanted to buy and produced high quality cars that got great mileage and were reasonable to buy. And what did the big three do? Nothing. They produced the same kind of cars as before, bigger less efficient models for higher prices. They managed to also somehow reduce the quality, door handles would fall off, they would rattle soon after they were purchased, goofy things happened. My dad had a new Dodge pickup in the mid 90's some time and the radiator fell out! It fell out and the fan chewed it up and spit it out! I don't want to get into a big argument about cars but the bottom line is none of the big three really seemed to care what the consumer wanted. The attitude was here is what we make, buy it or don't.
If you look at it Remington is in the same boat, they once had a great product with a great reputation and have let it turn into a piece of crap that is over priced and nowhere near the high class product it used to be. If it wasn't such a great product why would so many people copy it?
Sad to see the way the big American manufacturing companies have gone. The little guys for the most part are doing a great job. Little machine shops that make what we want and don't sacrifice quality for a buck. Look at people like Kirby Allen, Shawn Carlock, or any of the other top line gunsmiths. They provide an exceptional product and people are lined up to buy it. These businesses continue to grow. Savage is a good example of a big company that listened to the customer. They made a rough looking product for a long time and in the last few years they have turned it around and make a rifle that is very accurate and looks very good.
I hate to see Remington headed down hill.
Sorry for the rant but American manufactures need to wake up and smell the coffee. We are loosing jobs at an alarming rate to third world countries that are producing pretty good products. Remington is one of many companies in trouble but they probably don't even know it yet.

 

[Trickymissfit]

Wow, I haven't heard Demmings' name in quite some time.

The bail out had everything to do with the big three. If there was no bail out then it affected all the others down the line. Poor management and business practices resulted in the loss of all those jobs. I remember when I was young we argued over the best product, Ford and Chevy had a great following. They were the best built cars in the world. Mid 60's we were winning all the racing titles against Ferrari and anyone else that threw their hat in the ring. The Shelby Cobra, and the corvette were unstoppable. The cars and trucks we made then were very reliable. In the 80's and 90's the Toyota, Nissan, and Honda companies saw what Americans wanted to buy and produced high quality cars that got great mileage and were reasonable to buy. And what did the big three do? Nothing. They produced the same kind of cars as before, bigger less efficient models for higher prices. They managed to also somehow reduce the quality, door handles would fall off, they would rattle soon after they were purchased, goofy things happened. My dad had a new Dodge pickup in the mid 90's some time and the radiator fell out! It fell out and the fan chewed it up and spit it out! I don't want to get into a big argument about cars but the bottom line is none of the big three really seemed to care what the consumer wanted. The attitude was here is what we make, buy it or don't.
If you look at it Remington is in the same boat, they once had a great product with a great reputation and have let it turn into a piece of crap that is over priced and nowhere near the high class product it used to be. If it wasn't such a great product why would so many people copy it?
Sad to see the way the big American manufacturing companies have gone. The little guys for the most part are doing a great job. Little machine shops that make what we want and don't sacrifice quality for a buck. Look at people like Kirby Allen, Shawn Carlock, or any of the other top line gunsmiths. They provide an exceptional product and people are lined up to buy it. These businesses continue to grow. Savage is a good example of a big company that listened to the customer. They made a rough looking product for a long time and in the last few years they have turned it around and make a rifle that is very accurate and looks very good.
I hate to see Remington headed down hill.
Sorry for the rant but American manufactures need to wake up and smell the coffee. We are loosing jobs at an alarming rate to third world countries that are producing pretty good products. Remington is one of many companies in trouble but they probably don't even know it yet.

**the reason that the U.S. stuff was so successful against it's European counterparts is really simple. They had a European company design a chassis for them (in Ford's case it was Lola) and put a good sized motor in it that made good horsepower. But at first they were not successfull, and did a complete redesign of the GT chassis to accept a 427" Nascar engine. While this was going on there was a gentelman's agreement with all the other folks that they would not build anything bigger than 3.5 litres, but there was nothing in writing. Ford simply took advantage. After that several of the big names left sports car racing for good, and I think Porsche was the only one that stayed with it. Jim Hall ran Chevys over here, but don't think he ever raced over there. Add to this the fact that Ford dumped so much money in that adventure that their budgit was greater than all the others put together.

** agree with you about the big three building junk! But on the otherhand a monthly look thru Ward's will now change your viewing point. Since inception the Buick Lucerne has always been now lower than the #2 quality auto sold in the world, and often the #1. That compairs well to the car they swapped places with regularly at $75K. But Ward's also tracks warranty costs per unit sold, and the bottom ten will kinda make your hair stand up! BMW and BMW sourced cars usually hold five of those places. Mercedes has at least one, and Kia and Hyundai have one. Can't remember who the other two are, but they don't have a Big Three badge. Range Rover year in and year out is regarded as the highest warranty cost unit sold period, and has only been beaten out of that slot once with a Mercedes built deisel engine powered Jeep. But you have to know how to read between the lines on the warranty cost per unit to fully understand what's really going on. One well known company refuses to apply cost it dumps on their suppliers to the cost per unit quota. (it's a big three company)

** bail outs did have everything to do with the supplier networks setup in this country; as well as the folks that supplied them as well. I've said it more than a few times that there would not have been much if any bail outs had the Fed stayed out of running the business. Affirmative action alone is a 20% tax on each of the big three (non domestic companies do not honor affimative action as required by the Carter administration back in the late 1970's). Look at Ford; they only build about 30% of the parts they use, and buy the rest. Of course Ford has now sourced much of this stuff to Asia and Europe (about 70%), and is regarded as an assembly company rather than a true manufacturing company. G.M. has also upped the anty, and averages about 62% per unit made in house when prior to that they did about 77%. Of the 38% about, 80% is still made in this country. The Japs also use much of the same supplier networks, but don't buy enough parts to keep those folks afloat. It takes at least three big companies to do it. And the main idea here is to get the work force back to work (or keep them working)
gary

 

[eaglesnester]

I spoke with my gun salesmen last week and he said, "We have to carefully inspect every Remingtom that comes into this shop from the factory. We have found many many flaws that should never have left the factory. These flaws include fail to fire, fail to extract and eject, sights both front and rear mounted off square and other jamming problems to numerous to mention. We immediately send em back. Remington is bypassing Q.C. problems and letting their customers deal with problems if they get past the dealer. It would appear that Remington has started the process of mining the company. I do believe that Remington and Marlin have also been combined. I paid over 700 bucks for a Marlin 39A 22LR and it would not shoot and when it did manage to fire a round it would not extract or eject the spent brass. I had to completely rebuild this rifle before it could be made servicable. I will never buy another Remington or Marlin product ever, unless I can examine the weapon and cycle the action in the store with dummy rounds, hold the weapon and examine the sights both front and rear and run a bore sight up the pipe to check the machinning at the leads and the rifleing. I do own a Remingfton 700BDL in 30/06 springfield that seems to be ok. I bedded and free floated the barrel with Devecon 10--110 and it shoots into 1 inch at 200 yards all day with Burger 168 grain bullets 10 thou off the lands.
Cheers & Tighter Groups: Eaglesnester

 

[Trickymissfit]

I spoke with my gun salesmen last week and he said, "We have to carefully inspect every Remingtom that comes into this shop from the factory. We have found many many flaws that should never have left the factory. These flaws include fail to fire, fail to extract and eject, sights both front and rear mounted off square and other jamming problems to numerous to mention. We immediately send em back. Remington is bypassing Q.C. problems and letting their customers deal with problems if they get past the dealer. It would appear that Remington has started the process of mining the company. I do believe that Remington and Marlin have also been combined. I paid over 700 bucks for a Marlin 39A 22LR and it would not shoot and when it did manage to fire a round it would not extract or eject the spent brass. I had to completely rebuild this rifle before it could be made servicable. I will never buy another Remington or Marlin product ever, unless I can examine the weapon and cycle the action in the store with dummy rounds, hold the weapon and examine the sights both front and rear and run a bore sight up the pipe to check the machinning at the leads and the rifleing. I do own a Remingfton 700BDL in 30/06 springfield that seems to be ok. I bedded and free floated the barrel with Devecon 10--110 and it shoots into 1 inch at 200 yards all day with Burger 168 grain bullets 10 thou off the lands.
Cheers & Tighter Groups: Eaglesnester

a real shame about that 39A! Sounds like that old guy (last I heard he was seventy) has retired. He was the only person for the last few years that built 39's, and he built one a day. Between my brother and I, we have at least four of them. Never a problem. Do have one special one that has an octagon barrel and gold enlay that's never had a round chambered in it.

I have had other firearms that screwed up right out of the box, but never a problem getting them fixed. I had one Colt Match Target 22 pistol that had to be completely rebuilt, and they did it in fine fashion! Not even the slightest whimper. They had to replace the barrel and maybe the barrel shroud. Didn't have one, so they ordered in an aftermarket match barrel for it. While they had the pistol they sent it over to teir custom shop for a complete going thru. Total cost involved was a three month wait and two letter of apologies. I had a 629 Classic Hunter that was stolen from me, and recovered. I didn't like something about it and asked S&W to look it over (looked like it'd been dropped). When S&W called me I asked them about refinishing the outside of the gun to their performance center bead blasted finish, and paid them $80 to do this as well as relaser etch all the logos. The gun was returned with several parts replaced, but with the same factory finish. My gunsmith caught it before I showed up. and contacted them about it. I sent it back, and got a personal phone call from them with apologies.. The Gun comes back with a glass beaded finish, and was beautifull! Gunsmith called them to tell them they still got it wrong! But I told S&W I was keeping it as I liked this finish better yet. Now they were a little slow, but Never charged me a penny except for the refinish work. That's what I liked about them, and probably will buy another someday.
gary