What happened to all the old store brand guns?

#1buck said:

you could get a store brand version of what you wanted for a fraction of a name brand.

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With little to no profit, the company may go under. I think this happened to High Standard? (Sold by Sears). A cheaper gun is , at times , made cheaper.
I remember a 22 lr made by Winchester that could not be made to eject a fired shell. Sold it to a parts house.

See " Store brand cross over list. " http://www.nramuseum.org

Back of the closet, worn out and scrapped, sent off to Numrich for parts.

I have a Sears 25.

One get shot all the time. My JC Higgings mdl 80 22. (My first gun) Marlin
Also still own a JC Higgins High standard shotgun.bought from Sears.

Shot my first dear w a old Sears and robuck (spelling). With adjustable choke. Wish I could find one for a decent price. Those things are built like a tank. RIP paw paw gone but never forgotten.

Meeks36 said:

Shot my first dear w a old Sears and robuck (spelling). With adjustable choke. Wish I could find one for a decent price. Those things are built like a tank. RIP paw paw gone but never forgotten.

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Yep, that adjustable choke. And yes built like a tank and heavy.

Some are hiding in my safes. I'm not a big shotgun man, but I like to have examples of the common hunting, military and self-defense guns of the last century or so. A number of local authors and sculptors have made use of my collection. So have a number of shooters and would-be shooters. and so have I.

Store brand guns were sold cheap, and used hard, often abused, until they broke. And then discarded or set in a corner and forgotten.

That's human nature. We still flog the hell out of our cheap-o harbor freight stuff until it breaks, and then complain about it while we stand in line to buy another.

Although the High Standard gun company developed the "first successful shotgun with a concentric gas system", it was introduced in 1956 and marketed as the Sears, Roebuck and Company's J.C. Higgins Model 60, semi-auto shotgun; eight years before the introduction of the iconic Remington Model 1100, gas-operated, semi-auto shotgun.

And the High Standard Supermatic was the original Jam-O-Matic. They made excellent pumps, but lousy autos. They made a lot more very good guns as well.

My home defense shotgun is a Mossberg 500 made for Western Auto, and marked with the trade name Revelation. I bought it at a gun show 20 years ago, it was at the bottom of a pile of used security company riot guns.
They were all off brand shotguns, all well used and abused...take your pick, $75.
Mine was originally a long barrel hunting gun that they had chopped to 18".

I have a sears o/u that was made by Zoli in Italy, nice gun, BUT it says sears roebuck on it.
That is the value killer, if it was a importer it would be worth twice it is now.

Store brands killed the value of many very nice guns.

I had a beater of a Montgomery Wards 30/30. Considering the condition it was in, it shot very well.

Virginian said:

And the High Standard Supermatic was the original Jam-O-Matic. They made excellent pumps, but lousy autos. They made a lot more very good guns as well.

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Certainly not the one I own. We use to shoot doves in Ariz. with it. More doves than I have ever seen. Gun ran great. Took down many deer with it as well In NC and VA.. I no longer shoot it, just too heavy and have moved on. But have many fond memories of that old shotgun.

The Old Marlin JC higgins now over 50 years old is still running.

We all grew up with "store brands" , that was all my working class father could afford. He hunted his entire life with a Sears 16 ga. bolt action shotgun. My first gun... Western - Auto .410 bolt action .
My first deer rifle came from Montgomery Wards !
The store brands are gone because the stores are gone or almost gone...Sears is not what it used to be.
Wards stopped selling firearms before most of you were born .
But when the store brands were in their heyday it was a good way to get a good serviceable firearm at a affordable price .
Anyone know who J.C. Higgins was...I heard he might have been a real person...on the other hand I also heard it was just a made up name....like that Ted Williams name on my baseball glove !
Gary

Please remember that store brands were price point guns.

The reason name brands cost more was due to better wood and finish.

I think a lot of the store brands died with the 1968 GCA. Even if they didn’t stop selling them until a few years later.

More licenses and paperwork made a lot of the stores just give up on the idea of selling guns.

Got a lot of good memories of those "working man's guns". A buddy in high school had a J.C. Higgins shotgun, and most of those other names I recall. Occasionally see one at a gun show or the used rack at the LGS. But lots of "working man's guns" were also around with the actual maker's name on them also. Mossberg and High Standard come to mind. My dad's pre-WW2 pheasant gun was a 16 ga. Iver Johnson, which was another "budget gun" of that era but not a store brand.

I'd imagine quite a few were turned in at gun buy back programs and brought far more than they were worth.

Western Field model 550 = Mossberg 500 with a single action bar.
Rock solid 20g bunny gun.

What happened to all the old stores?

My old Ted Williams sits in the safe.

Marshwood double barrel 12 ga. Same as- https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/marshwood-double-barrel-shotgun.157305/ Marshwood was a trade name of the Crescent Fire Arms Company.

When i was about 9, dad and uncle let me shoot it. Crow flying about 100 yards away. Was told to pull both triggers at same time. Being a dumb kid , l did.
They we both suprised when fired, it didnt set me on my butt. Big kid for my age.

After my dad passed back in the 60s, i took the old gun out squirrel hunting in the 70s.
Slammed the action closed on a quick reload. The gun fired.

Found that the soft metal sear/hammer had worn to a unsafe level. Very light trigger pull weight on the one barrel. Recut the hammer notch, heat treated it, put it back together and test fired.

Then sold it. Cheap gun.