Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns What happened to United State Firearms Mfg. Co?

Checked their website and they are now making semi auto .22s and calling themselves zipfactory.com. What happened to the single action army revolvers they were making?

Weird

from the bottom of the webpage:

ABOUT ZiP� FACTORY - A Division of US Fire Arms

ZiP�, ZiPFACTORY.COM�, ZiPPIC�Rail, ZiPSBR�Rail, ZiPNite�Rail, ZiP-Action�, ZiP.22�, ZiPGUN.com�, The Future of Fun� are Trademarks of USFA�. US + Foreign Patents Pending.
All other Trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

I posted on this a few months ago, but was told here on the Campfire that they were still making SAA revolvers. It is my understanding they no longer produce the SAA's and their Zip gun looks like a stapler and is about as useful.

It is amazing what you can learn on the Campfire...

http://www.usfasingleactions.com/


We Celebrate 20 Years of making the highest quality single action revolvers for our great and loyal customers. 20 years is a long time to be doing anything these days . . . And so we are re-tooling and re-processing every part, every component updating every machine to continue that great work.

In view of this process, we are happy to report that all orders have been delivered to customers with deposits. Service and warranty repair continue normal operations.

We have not been resting on our laurels these last years - indeed we have the pleasure to announce that USFA has developed a new factory to support an entirely new product line and a new class of product. We are proud to announce the New ZIPFactory web launch is now open at ZIPFactory.com where we introduce the New ZIP Modular Weapons System.

ZIP- The Future of Fun. Enjoy the ZiP Intro video, Operators, Welcome!

Thank you for 20 great years, we think the next chapter is our best yet.


Douglas Donnelly
Pres/CEO, Founder + Inventor of ZiP
USFA/ZiP Factory
NRA Life Member
ZIPFactory.com

Sounds like they are having trouble.

Aren't these the guys that Mike Venturino has written about some?
Seems he was a fan of their revolvers.

Their website used to have so many models offered it would make your head spin, before you even counted the options on each model. Now the number of models shown appears to be zero. I guess you could say they are scaling back.

Hard to compete with Cimarron Arms Uberti clones, Ruger Vaqueros, and Colt SAA. These are probably the best single actions being made right now bar none.

Itresting. I own a few and they have all been great. I will have to drive over and see whats going on.

...all the machinery that made the SAAs is gone... Almost all the employees are gone.... The price of their guns still left on the market has increased between 50-150%.

The owner of the company just decided the new plastic gun was the way to go...

I had a beautiful SAA .45 Colt with a 4.75" barrel...a wonderful shooter but just found fixed sight SAAs just were not for me...so it was sold.





Still do have two of their .22s. One is One of Two SAAs made in .22 Magnum and has the original US Patented Fireams Company markings. The other gun never made it out of the factory althongh by now I am sure it has been sold off.





The second is .22/.22 Magnum Flat Top Target with a 5.5" barrel...it is a wonderful shooter...





Really sad to see them go. I had been at the factory and had contacted them to make a Flat Top Target in .41 Special but the project was held up because they didn't have any .41 barrel blanks...so it's never going to happen...


Bob

When Colt dropped the SAA, USFA seemed to really start doing well. Don't know if they hired some of Colt's retirees, who have now permanently retired, or if they just could not maintain the quality, but it sounds like they are moving to guns that are less labor intensive to manufacture.

Colt has retooled and is making the SAA again, apparently to very good quality standards, and that's likely to squeeze other people out of a very limited market.

I chased a .44 Special New Frontier SAA for 20 years, 5.5" barrel just like Skeeter wrote about. When I finally got it, it simply never felt right to me. I'd much rather have a Ruger Bisley, which feels much better and can handle hotter loads.

Okay I watched the little video on the ZIP, and I'll be the first to just come out and admit it...I don't get it.

Travis will buy one.

Brian Pierce has written some great articles on USFA single actions, still, being a Colt nut, I bought a NIB Colt SAA Peacemaker about three years ago... 45 Colt, 4&5/8 barrel, blue... I love it. Could not bring myself to drop the coin on a USFA, even if by many measures it is built to a higher quality. The Colt I have is plenty quality enough for me. Still, I would like to have had one of the USFA 7.5" guns patterned after those at the Little Big Horn... I forget what USFA named them...

Maybe Tony will buy the rights and get it back on track. It is a tight market and there is a lot of competition. $375 each for the two Rodeo's I had isn't much profit and are very well made guns. There was profit in their higher end guns but how many of those can you really sell in todays market.

....I think you hit the nail on the head, MCH. I haven't done much CAS in the past two years, but when I started I got a pair of Rodeos from Long Hunter--they're wonderful guns (with jewelled hammers and died elk horn grips, they also don't look bad)---the alure of having saa's made in the old Colt factory on the colt machinery was nice, but still didn't replace having the rampant colt on the gun---by default they wound up competing against Italian (cheaper) guns and even tho cas is still popular, there are only so many saa's that that market will absorb. Still, I wish that I'd purchased another pair of Rodeos.

I'm afraid I'm gonna have to drink a fair amount before I can even figure out what it does.


travis

The SAA will come back now that semi-autos are going to banned. Long live the SAA!