Henry opens a new factory to boost production

Henry Repeating Arms has announced it's opening a new firearms production factory in Wisconsin, with the goal of increasing its production capacity.

Currently, Henry has a factory in the Badger State, a 140,000 square-foot facility in Rice Lake. Now, it's opening a second factory that's about an hour's drive away in Ladysmith, Wisconsin. The new plant covers 85,000 square feet, and it's expected to create 100 new jobs. Once open, this plant will bring Henry to 350,000 square feet of production space, and 600 employees.

The new plant in Ladysmith will begin as a machining factory, building parts for Henry's rifles and shotguns. Judging by corporate communications, Henry has other plans for the factory down the road, presumably including final assembly of Henry's firearms.

An industry undergoing change

Although it's an American factory, this announcement is good news for Canadian shooters. In case you haven't noticed, it's been pretty hard to get your hands on a lever-action rifle over the past year. Basically, if you want a new one, make sure you've paid for a pre-order. If you want a used one, get ready to pay $200 or $300 above the asking price pre-COVID.

The reason? A perfect storm of production hassles and increased demand, both thanks to COVID-19, combined with Marlin's factory shutdown as parent company Remington went through a bankruptcy restructuring.

Now, Marlin is about to come back online, under new owner Ruger, and we'd expect to see more Henry rifles and shotguns on the market in the near future as well, thanks to expanded capacity.

Looks like the US firearms industry is pretty bullish on the future, then, even as political and judicial leadership down there seems intent on restricting the Second Amendment and civilian firearms owners. Even Bushmaster has resumed production under new ownership, after Remington sold it off. There are some major changes in the US firearms manufacturing scene right now (Smith & Wesson just announced it's moving much of its company from Massachusetts to Tennessee, thanks to political interference). Nobody's sure what the country's leadership will do next, in its quest for gun control. However, all the manufacturers seem to agree on one thing: The public wants to keep on buying guns, and as long as they can, they'll build them and sell them, even if that means moving, declaring bankruptcy to restructure your business, or building a new factory. Hopefully, that will translate into ongoing availability for Canadian customers as well.