Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Cooper rifles of Montana now Cooper Rifles of Arkansas

Nighthawk Custom now owns Cooper Rifles and is moving operations to Arkansas. I hope they honor warranties in place before buyout. Price’s sure to climb.

Nice rifles I'm sure. Would make a great rifle to gift to a young man or woman, one which would last their hunting career as well as their children's. Alas, I'm too old to take advantage of such a gun. Ymmv

prices are sure to climb.........with nothing EXTRA to show for it other than a name change.

Proud owner of 2 Montana built Coopers. Was lucky to visit the factory last time I was out west. I'm glad it is bringing jobs to AR, but its a shame MT lost them.

Nighthawk’s response to Wilson Combat buying NULA.

Moving to Arkansas and raising prices may be the end of Cooper…

The price increases have been dramatic recently and I feel sure that they will increase even more once they are back in production.

I find the move to Arkansas illogical when there is a trained and very capable work force in the Bitterroot, it seems to me that putting a couple of good supervisors in Montana would have been a less expensive solution.

Cooper Firearms of Arkansas just doesn't have the same cachet that Cooper Firearms of Montana has.

drover

That may make sense, as Nighthawk was reportedly started by former Wilson employees.

Guess they’ll now need a bullet company too, since Bill Wilson bought Lehigh and move it to E TX where his ranch is located and where he kills bunches of hogs.

R and D, of course. And don’t ya reckon that’s a tax write off? Should be.

DF

Have never owned a Cooper but fondled a few. Hopefully they maintain the quality of the originals.

Exactly what I was poking at regarding the guys from Wilson that started Nighthawk.

As for Cooper, I’ve fondled several. Never found them all that appealing at their price point.

I've got some and I'm keeping them, don't need or want any others. I've got what I want. Going to miss stoping by and talking to the people.

the word I heard was they are not going to honor the rifles built in Montana

Figures, I have a Cooper 300 Win with over 950 rounds through it which is still holding groups but the throat has a lot of fire cracking. Cooper’s warranty was replacement for 150.00 when it won’t hold groups. Guess I’ll have to go elsewhere on my own dime. Maybe I’ll go to Wilson Combat if they don’t honor the warranty haha…

Source?

Honestly I have Nighthawk Custom pistol, and they have been great customer service wise, no dig on their company. They are top notch. If what you say about warranties is true I’ll be very disappointed.

One of the reasons they didn't stay in Montana may be because they didn't buy the machinery & I'm assuming the buildings or property. Basically they just purchased the name & intellectual property. It's possible that based on the property & facilities they owned in Arkansas, expanding their current operations might have been the better way to go. But that's just conjecture on my part. Below is part of an open letter from Mark Stone (Owner/CEO of Nighthawk Custom):


As a left-handed shooter, any manufacturer that makes LH rifles gets my attention. Companies like Cooper are really attractive because I can get ANY caliber they have while most other manufacturers only make a limited subset (or none) of their RH rifles available in LH versions. While I'm pretty good at using suspect logic or rationalizations to justify purchasing something I really want, Cooper's prices have so far stymied that particular weakness of mine. Every time I think about it seriously, I seem to wind up settling for a pair of LH Sako 85's in my mind instead.

Warrantee is a legal term with legal implications. Paying 150.00 to re-barrel isn't "warrantee" and never was. It's a service.

As far as rebarrels under warranty that has always been a moving target with Cooper (bad pun). When Dan Cooper was running the company they rebarreled two varminters that I had shot the barrel out of, they did not charge me anything for it, they even paid for return shipping.

When Vivero bought out Cooper they charged $150 for a rebarrel plus shipping - if you were the original owner. Recently they changed it to $200 if you were the original owner and $400 if you were not, they also charged $45 for return shipping.

I considered $200 and even $400 a good deal for a factory rebarrel plus it had the accuracy guarantee.

I have no expectations of Nighthawk picking up this policy but if they do I will certainly utilize it if I need a rebarrel on one.

drover

Ok, I hope they continue this service…

I was surprised I didn’t see them at shot show this year as I would looking forward to it. Now I know why ….