Ammunition manufacturers and gun makers issued statements this week assuring customers that they’re working around the clock to fill orders and asking for patience as they deal with the tsunami of customer demand and the forced closure of their factories.
“This is similar to what we went through during the Obama years,” Neal Emery, Hornady’s Communications Manager, told GunsAmerica. “Obviously, we’ve expanded our production capacity during and since that time, but the speed and amount of this current demand spike is beyond what anyone can totally plan for. We’re making and shipping as much as we can.”
Steve and Jason Hornady also released a video addressing the crisis.
“We want you to know that we’re doing everything we can to ship more, keep people in stock, and keep things moving,” Jason Hornady said. “We’re dealing with all the challenges that are coming at us, and there’s a new one every hour. Our plan is to continue shipping and doing our best.”
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Federal Premium’s President Jason Vanderbrink posted a statement thanking the company’s workforce and telling customers his staff is “working around the clock to fulfill our orders.”
Smaller ammunition companies have been hit even harder. Dan Kash, owner of Idaho-based Freedom Munitions, told customers they are “busting butt to get everybody’s orders out, but we do need your help.”
The company was 7,653 orders behind as of March 25. They’ve added at least 20 new employees to help catch up, many of whom are working 12-hour shifts while the factory stays open 24 hours a day.
Their customer service team is working through a backlog of 509 voicemails and 604 emails.
“If it’s not important and you want to know where your ammo is, just please be patient,” Kash pleaded. “We’re going to do our best.”
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On the gunmaker side, several companies have announced that their facilities have closed in accordance with local shelter-in-place mandates.
CZ-USA announced this week that their Kansas City facility would be closed until at least April 23 to comply with the city’s Emergency Order.
“For the next 30 days, production and shipment delays are inevitable,” the company said in a statement. “We apologize for the inconvenience we know this will cause — we hold our nation’s Second Amendment rights to be sacred and are very concerned about the impact that emergency orders will have on our customers. We will work diligently to deliver products as soon as legally possible while maintaining social responsibility and compliance with government orders.”
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo shut down Remington’s factory in Ilion last week, and the company’s CEO Ken Darcy responded with an offer to help manufacture medical equipment during “this very difficult crisis.”
“Remington products have served in every major U.S. conflict for 200 years, and while the coronavirus is a new type of war, we’re not sitting this one out,” Darcy said.
“We are left with 1-million square feet of available manufacturing distribution space in Ilion, New York, the birthplace of Remington… We are standing by, ready, willing, and able to support in any way we possibly can. It would be an honor for our company to donate space for the manufacture of mission-critical products such as ventilators, hospital beds, or anything else deemed necessary.”
We are not, and by no stretch of the imagination, leading in response time or capacity. If you believe that is factual- you’re delusional.
NY manufacturers just like nationwide breweries offer to produce medical supplies or sanitizer so that they can then continue to make munitions, which I agree with, but it’s not all noble.
I’m a gun-owning, munition-loving, God-fearing Republican like most that will read this article and comments, but don’t be blind.
Remington and the other companies want to make supplies, so that they can continue to run their businesses and profit off of this pandemic.
Why wouldn’t Remington shut down and manufacture medical equipment, more money to be gouged there. Hell, they made all of Hitler’s weapons for him, were started by George h w Bush’s grandfather and cant make a gun any longer to save their lives, not to mention having THE worst CS I’ve ever experienced, right up there with s&w
Who’s price gouging the manufacturing of medical equipment? They’re offering to do what Cuomo asked for. As far as the rest of your commentary… keep drinking the look-aid.
According to the article:
They didn’t decide to shut down.
They were shut down by the State.
They are offering to make essential supplies if they can reopen.
I suspect this turn of events is scaring the h*ll out of the ChiComs for more than one reason.
First of all, they’ve been ‘called out’ by the international community for starting this plague, in spite of efforts to deflect blame to others (uh, the U.S. military? Give me a break).
Secondly, they’ve exposed the extent of their biological warfare research to the world, and put the world community on notice, in spite of all the ‘lipstick’ they’re trying to paint the ‘pig’ with.
Thirdly, they see that America is, once again, the leader in both response time and capacity when it comes to worldwide emergencies. Their little experiment to test the chaos level only reached as high as the illiterate mainstream media and a few of the public.
China (meaning the f$%&king Chi Com government will not recover from this in our lifetime, and I hope the Chinese people finally have had enough of these threats to humanity.