Far be it from us to spread every stray bit of hearsay that’s thrown over the transom, but someone in the retail gun business for whom we have high regard — someone who is not only trustworthy but cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent — tells us he hears that latest brand to join the ATK Sporting Group fold is STI International. That’s right, the Georgetown, Texas-based maker of fine 1911s will join ATK marques such as Federal, BLACKHAWK!, Uncle Mike’s and Bushnell…not to mention Savage Firearms. A match made in heaven?
Boy I hope not. STI is special because of their independence. Getting all these companies sucked into corporate hell sounds like the worst.
STI isn’t that independent, they get many of their frames from the philipines
Only for the Spartan line. Also, that is their entry level gun.
Captialism at work I suppose. Chances are, The Truth About Guns, will one day sell out too.
That’s kind of unfair, don’t you think?
Not really, RF started and sold thetruthaboutcars.com (TTAC) before he started TTAG.
Prepare to see the QC dive into the toilet if they ever do.
Beware the Ides of Consolidation.
And, choking hazards.
http://www.myfoxdc.com/story/25668177/holders-gun-grab-via-operation-choke-point#axzz33VKQiha7
Does this mean I might be able to buy a double stack 1911 at a price I can afford? Like, under $500??? Lol
They seem to be in kind of short supply right now, but the Armscor/Rock Island 1911A2 is in the neighborhood, pricewise.
ATK does own some of the most highly regarded ammunition companies (Federal and CCI/Speer) so I don’t think its a given that ATK will mess up their business if this is true. The Freedom Group/Cerberus is a whole different story than ATK.
I completely agree. The Freedom Group has just destroyed Bushmaster and others, and Remington’s overall quality control seems to be on a downfall. ATK on the other hand is the only supplier of small arms ammunition (rifle, not handgun) to the military, and the cross technology between Federal and Speer rounds has kept them on top. I don’t think they will drive STI into the ground.
TTAG really has smeared Remington.
A. The trigger thing from CNBC and the 2014 recall have nothing to do with one another.
B. Remington wasn’t acquired until 2007, the recall affected triggers were manufactured between 2006-2014.
But is your source also loyal, courteous, and kind? Gotta get the whole thing in there.
So hopefully less fuggly roll marks and stupid sharp lines on sti’s high quality American made guns?
I know STI just had some layoffs. Where there is smoke…
Good, I have ATK stock.
To you negative nancys, Savage still has its excellent reputation even though it was bought by ATK.
I’ve been watching these “rollups” for years. I handled some of them, too. They never seem to work out.
That’s my fear.
STI makes a really nice pistol. Now anyway.
STI contracts out to Armscor, don’t really understand why some people here are paranoid about private business dealings. If ATK buys them good for them, hopefully they might bring somethign new to the game instead of ars and 1911 clones.
What has ATK done for Savage? Have we seen better QC? Have we seen updated designs? Have we seen new models?
Nope!
Hope somebody buys Keltec. Improves quality and quantity
My 1911 I had built with all STI guts. Wanted quality and wanted them from Texas. I’ve handled Nighthawks, Les Baers, and other crazy-expensive 1911s and they might match my 1911, but they do not exceed it, and certainly aren’t worth 3x the grand I have in mine.
Hope they don’t pull an AAC and move them somewhere else (assuming the rumors are true). It’s a Texas company and that should stay that way.
Here is a question to ponder, what if Freedom Group is actually some highly financed, far left-wing conspiracy to destroy the U.S. gun industry by acquiring beloved brands (Marlin, Remington, etc.)… make absolutely, terrifically bad business decisions and thus kill the brands.
I’ve seen some bad business decisions, but these private equity guys are WAY beyond f’ing up 2 car funeral territory, this seems almost like intentional, deliberate negligence.
Rumor is false.
How would it work? STI styles itself as an employee -owned business. -Not disputing the possibility but it would seem to have its own special wrinkle
If they are selling to ATK, they are doing so in secrecy. There absolutely IS something going on there though. The CEO announced his departure in Jan 2014 and in June, the marketing mgr who has been the primary spokesperson for the company left also. For public consumption, he said that there had been a number of lay-offs because of the down turn in the industry that made marketing their products more challenging than in the past. The Internet Talking Drums say otherwise- that one or both of them were caught up in some sort of internal uprising and lost.
Dealers regularly drop out of their distribution system but this is not a new thing. It is prompted by customers who order an STI Product and get tired of waiting for them to deal with their backlog.
A fly on the wall might be interesting there. A local dealer attributed the lay-off an the down turn in distribution to the predictable slump in the entire industry that happens after every democrat-driven buying frenzy slows down. The other factor he mentioned was that STI had been shipping (expletive deleted, expletive deleted.) He then quipped that it was a certainty that the staff changes had repaired the quality assurance problems.