Well, our pal Jim Shepherd at The Shooting Wire is reporting a Remington 1911 pistol in the pipeline:
Is Remington getting into the handgun market?Tom Taylor is a good guy and does indeed know a ton about handguns. It was under his tenure, I believe, that S&W successfully took a big chunk out of the 1911 market with their very successful product introductions. That introduction also seemed out of step with the market, until it worked.
Short answer, yes.
An "Organizational Announcement" from Chief Marketing Officer Marc Hill to all of Remington's employees confirmed the existence of a Remington handgun team by naming Tom Taylor to the position of Senior Vice President of Marketing and Product-Handguns.
That's a definitive answer to the question, and should serve notice to the industry that Remington has no plans to lay off what has been a torrid growth pace over the past year.
[...]
And the Remington handgun strategy?
While attending the Remington 2010 product introductions, I asked the same question of Marc Hill. At that time, he declined comment, but it has been no secret in the industry that Remington has been "shopping" for a handgun company. Several names have been mentioned, but it appears the first product will be "organic" coming from inside Remington, rather than via acquisition.
A 1911 is in first-production testing, and may be ready for introduction at SHOT Show in January. That is a qualified date because the company seems more concerned in making a solid product before introducing it to the consumer public, eschewing other companies' practice of launching products and making adjustments on the fly.
This comes on the heels, BTW, of Ruger assuring me that they do NOT have a 1911 in the pipeline, despite lots of Internet buzz.
Steve over at The Firearm Blog notes that a new 1911 is not the slam-dunk new product that it was a few years ago:
I don't think so, but heck, I've been wrong before. The whole SOCOM pistol debacle left a bad taste in a lot of Washington mouths. It did lead to a new generation of major caliber polymer-framed pistols, including the ostensible frontrunner, the FNH FNP-45, the S&W M&P .45, the Taurus OSS, etc. Frankly, I just don't see the money — needed in vast quantities for not only new guns, but a whole new logistics chain — coming from the present administration. If the money was available, I suspect it might be going to a new rifle caliber rather than a new handgun.I do find the suggestion that they are going with the 1911 platform odd. While the 1911 is a very popular pistol with civilians, police departments are not adopting it. Instead they are dropping the Glock in favor of other polymer pistols like the Springfield XD and Smith & Wesson M&P pistols.
We know Remington loves military and police contracts and that they are willing to delay consumer products in order to make a grab for lucrative military contracts. The constant delays of the Bushmaster ACR are a testament to this.
So is Remington making a 1911 because they know something we do not?
Years back I wrote a parody piece for a gun magazine that by 2011, there would only be 2 handguns for sale in America — 1911 and Glocks. Hmmmmmm.
23 comments:
A 1911 is a Bad Idea, unless they have some miracle of engineering that will let Remington deliver a lot of gun for very little money. The market is saturated.
Now, a Model 53 (the pistol the Navy and Marine Corps wanted instead of the 1911) might sell well...
Michael
A friend of mine works for Remington and he tells me theyve had 1911s for about six months now.
Mike M said, " The market is saturated."
5% of the market is driven by need, 95% is driven by want. Want is never saturated IMHO.
Ratcatcher55
WWII Remington-Rand (minus the Rand) model anyone?
As much as I like a 1911 a Remington model 53 sounds better.
I wouldn't be surprised if on a first run through for Rem, they turned out a high end classic 2000 dollar model 1911. Work out the company, engineering and manufacturing kinks. Keep the volume low. The high end market will always have disposable income. AKA USFA, STI etc. But if they hit the commodity market at 600 bucks forget it. It will be uphill all the way. They will just prove how much they can bleed for the next 10 years to establish themselves.
I hope for the 53, but whatever it is I hope it is STEEL. I'm sick of hearing about new SUPER Tupperware that all looks pretty much the same.
And as much as I trust my 1911, it would be nice to see SOMETHING ELSE .
Tom B.
That is not the original cartoon - the original can be found here: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/1999/12/15
Google is your friend...
Maybe, possibly, with another competitor in the 1911 market, it will drive the price down enough so that more of us poor folk can afford a decent (not high-end fancy super-competitor) one.
B Woodman
III-per
Micheal, do you wish to comment on the recent Ruger 1911 rumors? ;)
Just wink once to confirm, twice to deny ;)
somebody must be buying 1911's for yet another one of these guys to jump into the market
I don't buy that the Glock is being dumped by LE in massive numbers, they just have some competition from S&W now, not buying that any of the other plastic pistol people are seriously in the LE race yet
A couple of years ago I stole a joke from Demolition Man, and told our shooting accessroies buyer that "In the future all rifles will be AR's and all pistols will be 1911's".
Now if I could just predict the stock market that well
What major department has adopted the XD? Podunk, Mississippi and Toad Suck Ferry, Arkansas don't count as major departments.
Maybe Remmy can make a go at pistols, but I don't see them bringing anything to the table that isn't already there. They're behind the curve of companies already in the handgun market. The chances of them being a player in the LE or .mil market are pretty slim. Very slim. Almost nonexistantly slim. Remmy needs a solid introduction of the ACR without Ruger-like recalls and with solid performance and durability. That's going to be the gun that gets them a different market beyond hunting arms.
If they came out with a high-end Commander, made expressly for concealed carry, requiring absolutely nothing added or subtracted or tweaked or twiddled out of the box, as nj_larry says, they'll sell as many as they make.
Without any data to support it, it seems to me the 1911 market is dominated by Kimber and Springfield. Leaving S&W and Sig and a few others to fight for a slice of the pie. Looking at the ATF stats the high end makers with full page ads in the gun rags turn out a only a handful of guns each year.
Where does that leave a Remington 1911? I dunno, but Remington has tried off and on for years to market a O/U shotgun and has met with failure each time.
A 380 pocket pistol like the old model 51 would make more sense to me in the current market.
I'd settle for abundant .44 ACP ammo from "Big Green"! I'd also like to be able to go down to my favorite family-run gun store and be able to buy ANY ammo. What is available is pretty pricy too. It's the "supply and demand" thing.I can't believe that it costs more to facilitize for ammo component making, than facilitizing for gun making. In any case, making guns and not being able to feed them isn't good marketing.
Life Member
I just hope that Remington goes the opposite way of the other 1911 newcomers (5" full-size .45ACP) and introduces something entirely different as their intro....maybe a 3" micro in 9mm and .40S&W under $800...like an EMP for the masses...
What the $%^& is wrong with you people?
When did shelling out $2,000 plus, plus for a five inch single stack 1911 become the norm, and accepted?
Another 1911 on the market...ahh...jeesh... I can hardly contain myself... I am so excited.
sigh...
Ya, know, if Remington came out with a contigency program like STI's, they might tempt me with their 1911.
I really don't see adding another competing manufacturer in the 1911 market leading other companies like Kimber, S and W, Springfield Armory, Wilson Combat, Nighthawk Custom, Les Baer, STI, Detonics and Taurus to drop their prices.
I have also heard that po-po officers can get their Glocks for $250 each. A little cherub once told me it only costs Glock sixty some odd dollars to make one of their tupperware guns.
Remington would be hard pressed to make and sell a gun to LE for under $250. And then not to mention the huge...HUGE Glock "momentum" there already is in LE market. Call it a paradigm. Or dogma.
Plus, lots of department or city lawyers like how safe those Glocks are.
I can't speak to anything that Ruger does...a lot of their work is dominated less by the market than by manufacturing technology. They play the commodity market very, very skillfully.
Nevertheless, I think Remington would do far better to introduce a reworked Model 53 than a 1911. There are a lot of people who would buy it purely for the novelty...and we should never forget that if World War 1 had not intervened, the Navy and Marine Corps would have bought the Remington in preference to the 1911.
There was mention that if there was money, the military would spend it on new rifle ammo rather than a new platform. I disagree. It would be spent on diversity training, pure and simple.
It can't have effect in fact, that is exactly what I suppose.
That is misinformation about the Navy and USMC wanting the Model 53 rather than the Model 1911. The Model 53 wasn't even built until late 1918, and the military wasn't buying anything after WWI ended.
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