Nation’s oldest gunmaker to move HQ to Georgia

ATLANTA» Remington, the nation’s oldest firearms manufacturer, said Monday that it will move its global headquarters to the Georgia city of Lagrange and open a manufacturing facility and research center to design and produce the company’s guns.

The gunmaker plans to spend $100 million and create about 850 jobs in Troup County over the next five years, Gov. Brian Kemp said. The company said in a statement that several of its “strategic products” will be made in Georgia, though it’s not immediately clear which weapons will be manufactured in the state.

The company’s roots date to 1816, when it began pumping out flintlock rifles as American pioneers fueled the nation’s westward expansion. But the company fell into financial turmoil in recent years, with slumping sales and financial pressure over the Sandy Hook school massacre.

Remington filed for bankruptcy in March 2018 and then again in July 2020 after negotiations to find a buyer broke down with the Navajo Nation. Even as gun sales soared amid pandemicrelated uncertainty and GOP concerns about new gun restrictions, the company struggled to regain its financial footing.

The iconic gunmaker was broken up and sold to seven different firms in a late 2020 auction, with rival companies snapping up different ammunition, shotgun and long gun businesses. Remington Firearms, which makes several lines of rifles, shotguns and handguns, is the portion of the firm relocating to Georgia from Ilion, N.Y.

It’s not immediately known what incentives the state offered the gunmaker. Officials said Remington will hire for positions in production, operations, engineering, management, finance and administration work.