Business Histories of Winchester, Colt, Remington, etc?

[Kynoch]

Has anyone ever really written a serious, non-romantic book about the history of the big gunmakers in the USA? It would be fascinating to know the gritty details of Winchester, Colt, Remington, Savage, S&W, Browning, Marlin, H&R, Mossberg, High Standard, Ruger, et. al.

It seems like almost all were poorly managed at one point in their histories. Military contracting has contributed to huge highs and lows to most of them. I remember for example when Colt really hit the skids around 1989. If you dug into their business model it was appalling. They seemed to be experts at introducing the wrong models while killing time-tested models. They had an expensive, UAW-represented labor force that had been on strike for years. Their plant, property and equipment was medieval compared to some of their competitors. Colt still seems to be living on past glory, at least in the consumer market.

S&W also hit the skids one or more times in its history -- even in its fairly recent history, yet today it's thriving. I wonder what has kept Colt from replicating S&W's success?

It seems like almost every US gunmaker has had to weather a few horror stories. Has anyone written on this at the industry level?

 

[rcmodel]

Yes, and no.

There are many books on the specifics of Colt, Winchester, Browning, Marlin, Ruger, early Remington, and High-Standard companies.
All focus more on the various models of guns and less on the business & financial aspects of the declines, ascensions, and falls.

Not so much if anything on H&R, and very little on Mossberg.
There is little to no collector interest in them, so nobody put the time & effort in to write a book, or books about them.

Here are just a few:
http://www.wilsonbooks.com/

http://www.amazon.com/Marlin-Firearms-History-Guns-Company/dp/0811708772

http://www.amazon.com/History-Remin...1342483542&sr=1-2&keywords=remington+firearms

http://www.amazon.com/History-Brown...=1342483592&sr=1-1&keywords=browning+firearms

http://www.amazon.com/Browning-Armo...=1342483609&sr=1-4&keywords=browning+firearms

rc

 

[mod700]

I'm almost done reading a book by Wayne Van Zwoll. Hunter's Guide to Long Range Shooting. It has great detail and information about long range shooting of course, but first it goes into pretty good historical information about Browning's life/business, Charles Newton, Remington, Winchester, Sharps, and some others. It was very insightful, and if you're also interested at all in long range shooting or rifle knowledge in general, it's a great buy IMO.

 

[Mk VII]

Winchester: the Gun That Won the West (1952) by Harold Williamson is the sort that you seek. Not much about the guns, lots about the corporate history. Ellsworth S. Grant, Colt Armory (1995) is another.

 

[Kynoch]

Thank you all for the inputs...

 

[JohnBT]

Newsweek published an article on Colt in 2000. Google using Unmaking A Gunmaker. They were in a hole and still digging. It's a miracle they survived while paying $300k/month in legal fees.

John

 

[Kynoch]

Thanks, that was a good read. Interesting they did not mention Colt's troublesome and expensive labor problem as well.

Zilkha should have had the brains to buy only the assets of Colt that would largely have indemnified him from existing lawsuits. That was a critical misstep.

Zilkha should have also had the brains to hire a headhunter that would have brought him the best operating and marketing talent from places like Ruger, Remington, Mossberg and possibly S&W. 3-4 of the right people would have made all the difference.

S&W almost went down the tubes since 1992 as well, yet it's doing far better than Colt. I would be interested to know the difference?