Video: Gregg Ritz Explores Thompson/Center's History Ahead Of Reboot

Thompson/Center Arms is moving! After former T/C owner Gregg Ritz bought the company back from Smith & Wesson, he announced his plans to move the company’s production back to New Hampshire—and ahead of that, he’s taking us on a tour through the company’s history as it’s packed up at the S&W HQ.

Thompson/Center @ TFB:

• Review: Thompson Center's T/CR22 (10/22 Clone)
• Anarchy Outdoors News – Thompson Center Compass and Venture Rifles upgrades
• Thompson Center Reintroduces G2 Contenders
• T/C Strike Muzzleloader From Thompson/Center Arms

How we got here

For decades, Thompson/Center Arms sold much-loved muzzleloaders, with business booming after the mountain-man-movie trend of the 1970s (they should have cut Robert Redford a thank-you check). From those front-stuffers, Thompson/Center moved into cartridge-based firearms, building highly popular single-shot designs with swappable barrels that needed no gunsmith to change from caliber to caliber. They pioneered the hunting pistol market and eventually moved into the bolt-action rifle market as well.

Thompson/Center was based in New England and focused on the hunting market. Smith & Wesson bought the company from Gregg Ritz in 2007, and at first, they moved the company in interesting directions. In 2011, they brought out the Venture, an economy-priced bolt-action with an MOA-at-100-yards guarantee. But a few years later, they shut the brand down, and in 2021, they announced their plan to sell the company off.

Now, as we told you a few weeks back, Gregg Ritz has bought the company back, and he’s currently getting ready for the reboot.

Memory lane and the road ahead

As you can see above, Smith & Wesson did a good job of preserving T/C history, and Ritz seems to appreciate their efforts, and what they’ve saved. And he also seems keen to bring some of these classic firearm designs back into production, instead of just introducing a new, cheaper lineup, which has often been the way the market pushes these marques (for example: the new lineups from Stevens and Iver Johnson are built in Turkey to keep prices low). He’s even moving production back to its northeastern roots when much of the gun industry has been pulling up stakes in New England and moving to the South. That’s a bold strategy, Cotton—let’s see how it works out for him. Maybe, because of Thompson/Center’s long aversion to tactical firearms and focus on the hunting market, it’ll work out just fine?