Sad to hear. I have a Windham rifle from not too long after they opened up. Fine piece of equipment. Between it and my old Stag Model 1, maybe I have some collectible items. As collectible as an AR-15 platform rifle can be….
Posts: 6352 | Location: East Texas | Registered: February 20, 2008
Won't miss them. Like the old Bushmasters. Bought one after current owners took over. Mine was pure junk. They obviously could not even bother to test fire it.They would have knowen it had issues from 1 shot.
The only WW I have had was machined out-of-square in the the charging handle channel; I wasn't impressed. IMO, they haven't had a compelling model in years. Unfortunately, their neat modular multi-caliber system never seemed to gain traction; that thing was kinda cool. I hate to see any company go down, but I don't think their absence will be noticed.
Posts: 2532 | Location: Northeast GA | Registered: February 15, 2021
Everyone and their dog started making and offering ARs during the post-AWB Obama/Hillary era, riding the wave of the mass gun buying hysteria.
But afterwards, the bottom dropped out of the AR market. Sales went soft (with a brief rebound during the initial part of the pandemic), and it's been a race to the bottom for the non-top-tier AR manufacturers.
PSA has become the big fish in the entry level/budget priced market, and nobody else can really compete in that niche. And it's even tougher for those companies to compete with the quality of the higher-end AR makers.
So inevitably, a bunch of smaller low-to-mid level AR manufacturers - who can't beat PSA's budget pricing but yet don't have the quality/innovation to compete with BCM/CMMG/DD/et al - have had to shut their doors, and there will be more to come.
Sad to see US firearms manufacturers closing shop.
My fist agency AR carbines were Bushmasters, and for firearms used only during training, they were trouble free.
My second agency had Windhams, and I just turned mine in mid July when I retired. Other than it being trouble free during training, I had to kill several deer with it. My only problem with it was it was too heavy due to the rail system our agency used.
I had full confidence in our Bushmaster and Windham rifles during duty.
Retired Texas Lawman
Posts: 1226 | Location: Texas | Registered: March 03, 2016
I thought the WW story on its founding was pretty cool, but the output quality was suspect once the guns started showing up. We sold them for a time but the feedback from customers was middling at best and the offered features were also a step or three behind the rest of the very competitive and crowded field, so in the end we dropped them and concentrated on S&W, SIG, Diamondback, Ruger, Saint, even Colt and other budget-minded alternatives right up to our vile state's ban on the sale of ARs. The rapid rise of PSA on the complete build side and Aero Precision for the self-builder very likely hurt their chances of survival just as much as their lack of innovation and quality control. I agree that it's often a sad day whenever a gun maker calls it a life, but unfortunately for Windham and its legacy I don't think many will miss them.
-MG
Posts: 2268 | Location: The commie, rainy side of WA | Registered: April 19, 2020