Five years ago my two youngest kids and I toured the Remington plant in Ilion NY. Every summer we go the western end of the Mohawk Valley and end up at Fort Ticonderoga, and hit everything cool in between. The Remington factory tour could not have been OSHA approved. Every stop and often in between stops, workers would stop their lathes or machines and come show us what they were working on. Lots of pride, neat to see. Mostly 870s and ARs. We ended in the Custom Shop, which was cool. A lot of military active duty weapons were in for servicing, and about 95% of those were sniper rigs. Very very cool. The custom stuff was spectacular.
Like most American gun nuts, I own a bunch of Remingtons. Pump and semi shotguns, but mostly 700s in every caliber imaginable. My favorite is a heavy barrel .223 from 1994. Shoots 1/4" groups at 110 yards and nips varmints way out there. Never had a failure with any but the last one, a SuperMag 870 that literally fell to pieces in my hands as I shot a gobbler at ten paces. I went to jack another shell in and the gun fell into pieces, and was sent back to the factory. The one I got in return has worked great, but it was an eye-opener.
My son's first gun was one of those sweet 1100 LT-20s, set up as a deer gun from the factory. We found it pristine in a remote little burg on one of our Upstate NY trips. Later I managed to find a RemChoke barrel for it, so the boy can shoot slugs out of one barrel, and swap it out for doves, etc. Fantastic gun obviously made with real care, but it dates from 1991, I think.
Anyhow, that Remington tour really stuck with us, and the kids and I talk about it frequently. The workers there had a lot of pride.
