338 Marlin Express-Lever Action
- Thread starter Mike 338
- Start date
Help Support Long Range Hunting Forum
SidecarFlip
Well-Known Member
In as much as Marlin is owned by Ceberus Capital, the same a'holes that bled Chrysler of their pension equity, I see no future anyway. I guess they own Remington so I suspect that Remington will also go down the toilet in the near future.
Better get those Sendero's now.
Keep in mind that Ceberus is all about the current administration's anti-firearms policy.
Just look at who sits on their board.
The Kelly MacMillan fiasco is just the tip of the iceberg.
Better get those Sendero's now.
Keep in mind that Ceberus is all about the current administration's anti-firearms policy.
Just look at who sits on their board.
The Kelly MacMillan fiasco is just the tip of the iceberg.
Trickymissfit
Well-Known Member
most people don't realize it, but the car or truck they drive in the end was probably financed by Ceberus money. Just because you got a loan thru some other corporation, in the end the loan was probably sold off to them. Half of GMAC was sold off to them years back (the mortgage side), and later they got the auto finance side. The owned Chrysler credit prior and pieces here and there all over the place. G.M. has (or is) in the process of starting up a new auto finance company. I think Ford credit is still owned by FOMOCO, but the auto loans are regularly sold off to others even though you still make payments to them. The only thing I'd heard about Chrysler and retirment funds was the bond issue that Obama voided. That had nothing todo with the Chrysler pension funds as that's been Federal regulated for about twenty years. Rodger Smith (anybody remember that ***?) stole a lot of money out of the G.M. pension fund to help finance Buick City in Hamtrammock (know I spelled it wrong). Thought he'd get by with it, but the auditors caught him, and made him pay it all back with interest (over $700 million). The UAW actually helped him pay it back. Think the rest was barrowed from GMAC when they still owned the company. I can't say much about Ford right now, but all the employees in the other two pay three percent of the paycheck towards their pensions, and the company matches it to a certain extent. What this means is that there will now be three or four regular audits (usually annually, but maybe bi-annuall) from Federal pension fund regulators instead of just showing up every three or four years.
The real problem with Ceberus and Remington is a failure to reinvest in the company. This is kinda funny as they've extensively retooled Chrysler. They have an engine plant that is well nown as the best in the world. Yet Remington hasn't bought much equipment over the last fifteen years. The tooling is rather suspect, and rarely checked to see if it's anygood. Guess they figure they have a product for life. Back around 1990 Monarch sent Ray Thompson in there to see what was wrong with several Monarch vertical machine centers. This was becomming an emergencey, and he literally found out that all their equipment was junk! Their tooling as even worse! They asked him to look at someother brands of equipment while he was there (at $80 and hour), and it was no better. Everything he looked at was way out of alignment (means it's not cutting strait and square). He called his boss, and told him they were in trouble as he could be in there two months just fixing stuff! He put several of their fixtures in the back of his car, and hauled them back to Sidney Ohio for a complete rebuild on Monarch (most would not have). He came back with a large granite H block and started squaring up the machine centers. He finally got all the Monarch stuff realigned after a couple weeks, and stopped by to see me for a day or so (I was building a machine center that Monarch had a deep interest in). Said he had to go back and start fixing their equipment as all of it was pretty much in need of major repairs. Said they had no serious machine maintence group. After a couple weeks Ray started recieving the tooling and installed it nice and square. But most of the machines needed the vertical axis completely rebuilt, so the results were only marginal. But still in spec. Ray told me about their custom shop and all the hand work they did, but also asked them why? He told them if the parts were made right they would need to do this! He was gone the next day.
Now to give you an idea of what a good Monarch machine center was like when properly setup. The compound error was less than .00075" in a foot of travel. The spindle runout was in the .00025" (TIR) range. Repeatability was usually around .0002" in a foot of travel. The machine centers I built were usually half that spec with the spindle run out being about .00015" (TIR). A good Monarch was capable of holding well less than .001" on a rifle action without working too hard, and their CNC lathes were also in that same window.
gary
etisll40
Well-Known Member
Most of this stuff is old news, I am buying some Marlin levers off of gunbroker, there are many there, I just make sure they have the "jm" stamp, pre Remington. When Remington was acquired they let all the great Marlin gun builders go and I'd guess they will never be the same unless Cerembarrasment sells all the patents and equipment and parts and such and they move back home. My opinion.
Trickymissfit
Well-Known Member
The issues predate the Ceberus aquisition of Remington, and may stretch back to the early 1980's. On the other hand Marlin always built a good lever gun, and has built some nice bolt guns from time to time.
gary
