Free Republic

Finally, light at the end of the tunnel for the non-reloading shooter of 7.62 NATO chambered Mil-Surp rifles< Federal 308 Winchester Low Recoil Power Shock round on leftSouth African 7.62 NATO Mil-Surp on right The following paragraph is a quote from a previous article published at Surplusrifle: “Here at Surplusrifle.com, we recommend in the strongest possible terms that you do not fire .308 Winchester ammunition in any Mil-Surp rifle chambered for the 7.62 NATO round.”    It recently came to the attention of Surplusrifle.com that there may be ONE exception to the above statement.  Federal Cartridge Corporation has introduced a “low...

No buyer for Winchester; factory to close this month Associated Press March 16, 2006, 2:08 PM EST NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- Despite a two-month search for a buyer to take over the historic Winchester rifle factory, the plant will close at the end of the month, Mayor John DeStefano said Thursday. City and union leaders scrambled to find a buyer in January after the Herstal Group, a Belgian manufacturer, said it would close the U.S. Repeating Arms plant, the storied Connecticut assembly line that produced the "The Gun that Won the West." "It's going to go dark," DeStefano said Thursday....

Traditional Winchester rifles, including the famous Model 94, will no longer be produced when the plant in New Haven, Conn., closes March 31. Modern, high-end rifles bearing the Winchester name will be produced in Belgium, Japan and Portugal, according to Robert Sauvage, a spokesman for the Herstal Group, the Belgium company that owns U.S. Repeating Arms and the rights to the Winchester name. The Model 1894 appeared on the American scene in August 1895 and changed the world of shooting almost overnight. It was chambered for the .30-30 and .25-35 cartridges. You could get the lever action in a rifle...

OF COURSE, I believe in capitalism, and the primacy and fundamental rightness of the unfettered free market. But she's a cruel mistress at times, especially when among the carcasses of her spent and discarded lovers lay something not only close to my own heart, but close to the very essence of the American brand. Long before Henry Ford's Model T chugged to life, this brand was synonymous with a mass-manufactured, accessible-to-everyone product that embodied both an American way of life that would persevere for 100 years and the American industrial might that would shine until the dawn of the 21st...

On NPR's "All Things Considered" today (1600 EST) will be a story on the closing of Winchester. I know the feeling toward NPR hereabouts, but maybe we'll learn something. G

The Elm City will soon be losing another of its links to history. US Repeating Arms Company announced last Tuesday, 1/17, that it will be closing the Winchester firearms factory in New Haven on March 31st. More than 19,000 men once worked in the Winchester plant. Their numbers had dwindled recently to under 200, and only 80,000 guns were produced last year in a facility that still had a capacity of 300,000. Sales of hunting rifles have declined precipitously, along with America’s hunting traditions. What was once a Nation of Riflemen is today a nation of metrosexuals and Dilberts.

A famous ad that most boy baby boomers will recall from Boys' Life, the old scouting magazine of the '50s, showed a happy lad, carrot-topped and freckly like any number of Peck's Bad Boys, his teeth haphazardly arrayed within his wide, gleeful mouth under eyes wide as pie platters as he exclaimed on Christmas morn, "Gee, Dad . . . A Winchester!" All gone, all gone, all gone. The gun as family totem, the implied trust between generations, the implicit idea that marksmanship followed by hunting were a way of life to be pursued through the decades, the sense of...

Douglas Healey for The New York TimesUnless a rescue plan is worked out or a new buyer comes forward, the gun-manufacturing plant in New Haven, with about 200 employees, will close on March 31. Come spring, the Winchester rifle, immortalized as the gun that won the West and rode into the sunset with John Wayne, will be made in Portugal and Japan. The U.S. Repeating Arms Company, which has manufactured rifles and shotguns in New Haven since 1866, is set to shut its doors on March 31. About 200 people will lose their jobs, many having worked for decades...

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- The traditional Winchester rifles carried by pioneers, movie stars and Wild West lawmen will be discontinued in March, a Belgian manufacturer said Wednesday, confirming the end of an American icon that became known as "The Gun that Won the West." Once the U.S. Repeating Arms plant closes March 31, the only new rifles carrying the famous Winchester name will be the modern, high-end models produced in Belgium, Japan and Portugal. The older models, including the famous Winchester Model 94, will be scrapped. "The name will continue, but not with those traditional products," said Robert Sauvage, a...

U.S. Repeating Arms Announces Plans To Close Winchester Plant 3:23 PM EST, January 17, 2006 Associated Press NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- U.S. Repeating Arms said Tuesday it will close its Winchester firearm factory, threatening the future of a rifle that pioneers toted into the Wild West and John Wayne hoisted onto the big screen. "It's part of who we are as a nation just like it's part of who we are as a city. It's the gun that won the West," Mayor John DeStefano said. "What are we going to have, Winchester rifles manufactured in China? Is this what we're...

Winchester Rifle Plant Prepares to Close Tuesday January 17, 4:37 pm ET By Matt Apuzzo, Associated Press Writer U.S. Repeating Arms to Close Its Winchester Firearm Factory in Connecticut NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) -- U.S. Repeating Arms Co. Inc. said Tuesday it will close its Winchester firearm factory, threatening the future of a rifle that was once called "The Gun that Won the West." "It's part of who we are as a nation just like it's part of who we are as a city," Mayor John DeStefano said. The announcement touched off a lobbying effort by city officials and union...

Kilgore: Potts’s Candidacy Won’t Distract GOP Voters Local Support Is Clear During Stop at Airport By Michael N. Graff The Winchester Star -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Former attorney general Jerry W. Kilgore stood in Winchester Regional Airport’s lobby on Thursday afternoon — essentially on state Sen. H. Russell Potts Jr.’s front porch — and listened as Winchester-area Republicans whooped and hollered in support of his gubernatorial candidacy. There was a time many in the crowd would have done the same for Potts. But after Potts strayed from the party ranks last month and announced that he would oppose Kilgore as an independent candidate...

Winchester continues its reputation as a wedding mecca in Virginia. Linda Tripp, who caught the nation's attention during the Monica Lewinsky episode of President Clinton’s second term, came to the Winchester Circuit Clerk’s office to obtain a marriage license Dec. 30. “I asked her if she was THE Linda Tripp and she said yes,” reported Will Gardner, deputy clerk of the court. “I was curious about how many people could have that name,” Gardner said. He didn’t recognize her physically but did remember the name when he was typing up the license. Gardner said she seemed a little anxious once...

Confederate Flag Controversy Returns WINCHESTER, VA- A British politician is calling a symbol in the NBC25 viewing area racist. He`s a councilman in Winchester, England and he`s taking issue with the symbol of Winchester, Virginia. The councilman has an issue specifically with the Confederate Flag in the corner. But Winchester, Virginia residents like Jenae Finley don`t seem too worried. "Every couple of years a controversy comes up over the Confederate flag, and it will be a big ruckus about it, until another reason comes up and it will die out again, but nothing ever has been done about it," explained...

NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA POLITICAL VICTORY FUND INSTITUTE FOR LEGISLATIVE ACTION 11250 WAPLES MILL ROAD FAIRFAX, VIRGINIA 22030-7400 ______________________________________________________________________________FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: For More Information: August 16 , 2002 (703) 267-3820 Vote for Vernon Robinson ¨C the NRA PVF Endorsed Candidate FAIRFAX, VA -- In recent radio spots, mailings and on her website, Virginia Foxx incorrectly states she is the National Rifle Association (NRA) endorsed candidate in North Carolina¡¯s 5th District Congressional race. The truth is the NRA PVF has endorsed Vernon Robinson for the 5th District. Robinson, the son of a Tuskegee Airman and nurse, graduated from the U.S....

Speakers Assail 'Political Correctness' and Explain What Thousands of Soldiers Fought For Sometime around dusk Sunday, people wandered among the plain, age-stained tombstones of Confederate soldiers in Winchester's Stonewall Cemetery.They read from the slates, sending names and dates of births, deaths, and battles fought into the twilight. Most only spoke loud enough for themselves and perhaps one or two nearby to hear.Members of the 33rd Virginia Company D Honor Guard (above) participate in the 138th annual Confederate Memorial Day Service at Stonewall Cemetery in Winchester Sunday. Emma MacBeth, 7, of Stephens City (below) reads the tombstones of Confederate dead...

WASHINGTON, May 28 - With the United States fighting protracted wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, its military faces a shortage of a basic necessity: ammunition. The Army Field Support Command in Rock Island, Ill., held an "industry day'' last week to inform contractors of a vast increase in demand for small-caliber rounds, those for rifles and machine guns. Maj. Gary Tallman, an Army spokesman, said the armed services needed 300 million to 500 million rounds this year alone, beyond the 1.2 billion already being produced, to provide enough for a military whose active-duty force had increased because of the...

<p>The world's oldest and now most controversial sport -- big-game hunting -- could be transformed into a provocative quest acceptable to most anyone if a new sport were created: catch-and-release hunting.</p> <p>Imagine the thrill of tracking, spotting, stalking and hunting the world's greatest game animals at close range in Africa -- lion, Cape buffalo, leopard, elephant and rhinoceros -- without killing any of them.</p>

Although the Civil War is a topic of deep interest to many, it remains the source of heated debates within the American culture. Gary Gallagher, a professor of the history of the Civil War at the University of Virginia, told those who attended his lecture Wednesday that the Civil War remains divisive because Americans continue to struggle with different theories and interpretations of its central issues. About 50 people attended Gallagher's lecture, held at the Old Town Events Center on Loudoun Street in Winchester."I'm probably going to say something that will offend almost everybody in here at different points," Gallagher...

<p>The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) yesterday introduced a new, Internet-accessible system that will allow state, local and other federal law-enforcement agencies to share information about bomb and arson cases and related incidents.</p> <p>ATF spokesman Andrew L. Lluberes said the Bomb and Arson Tracking System (BATS) will serve as a library that law-enforcement agencies can use to manage and exchange information. It was developed by the agency's Arson and Explosives National Repository, which Congress entrusted with maintaining all national information on explosives incidents and arson.</p>