I grew up about 10 miles down the road from Remington Arms, but had never been to the factory or the museum.  Since I was back on my native ground for a few days, I thought I’d take the opportunity to check it out.

The Remington Arms factory has been in the town of Ilion, NY for over 200 years.  They’re the oldest continuously operating manufacturer in North America, and the oldest gun company in the US.

I believe that at one time it was possible to do a factory tour, but if so, that’s no longer available.  But the museum, although small, is free, open to the public, and very interesting.  This is the welcoming committee.

The museum holds a broad selection of the guns produced by Remington, as well as a history of the company.  It started when Eliphalet Remington (no, I have no idea how to pronounce that) built a flintlock rifle for his own use, and the quality so impressed others that they asked him to produce more.  Over the years, the company has been responsible for many innovations, including cast steel drilled barrels to replace laminated and welded barrels, and also the rolling block, a virtually fool-proof mechanism that remains the finest single-shot action of it’s kind I’m told.

The museum had only a reproduction of Remington’s original rifle.  The oldest production guns on display were these percussion rifles from 1826.

Although perhaps best known for their sporting rifles, Remington has also produced a wide variety of handguns.  Those canes in the middle are rifles, only about 1,000 made, of .22 and .32 caliber.

These derringers were really interesting, and were produced in about 1860s-1880s, much earlier than I expected.

Oddly, target practice has shown that I’m a much better shot with a larger caliber gun such as this .44 than with smaller handguns, so I’d really like to give this one a try.  I’m not sure what the Cartridge Conversion is about…?

This Army pistol with the rolling block action was quite impressive too.

Moving on to the rifle displays, the museum had a wide variety of the guns that they’ve produced over the years.

The teal pump-action rifle on the bottom here stood out, as it seemed to be one of the few that deviated from the traditional natural wood stock.  It was produced about 1960.

I really don’t know a lot about the design of guns, but I was curious about some of the features that I saw.  For example, on these shot guns, what are the relative advantages between the side-by-side double barrel, and the over-and-under?

Some of the pieces on display were one-off exhibition models, and were elaborately decorated.  Both the woodwork and the engraving on this Spanish rolling block were spectacular.

I’m a fan of Damascus steel, but wasn’t aware that it was ever used for rifle barrels, so this one really caught my eye.  The engraving was also intricate and beautiful.  This looked like a custom piece that had seen a fair bit of use.

Remington still produces custom pieces, and this was on display to advertise that.  I’m not sure if this one will ever actually be used, it seems too beautiful for that!

I had never seen anything like this rifle-pistol combination before.  There was no indication of how accurate this would be as a rifle, but it’s an interesting concept.

There were cabinets full of special collections and exhibition guns, that I’m afraid I just didn’t have the expertise to appreciate.

This is the most modern gun I saw in the museum, a first edition produced in 2008.

The museum also had a few interesting guns collected by the Remington family, including these matchlocks that Sam Remington (Eliphalet’s son) obtained in Europe.

Of course, Remington also produces ammunition, and there was some of that on display too.

I wasn’t aware of was that Remington ever made anything but guns.  At one time they seem to have been quite big into cash registers, sewing machines, and typewriters.

And from 1892 to 1898 they even made bicycles.  If you look closely, you can see that the rear fender is held in place with string spokes, for some reason.

Although it’s not possible to tour the factory, there was a section in the museum on the process of modern gun-making.  This isn’t a great picture, but you can see the barrels on the top and the wood stock on the bottom.

Even with my limited knowledge of guns, I found this a really interesting place to visit, and would recommend it to anyone who’s a true enthusiast.  And of course, if you’re interested in getting Remington merchandise… exit through the well stocked gift shop…