It has been suggested that the plant was sold to New England Westinghouse because they had just received a contract to produce Mosen Nagant rifles and bayonets for Russia. Some guns were produced in another facility on Center Street in Meriden until 1918 when Sears announced that the Meriden Fire Arms Company would discontinue the manufacture of sporting guns.
The factory on Colony Street was demolished just a few years ago to make room for a modern factory building. That was the site were the Russian rifles were made. I had not realized they also were located on Center Street.
Living in the Meriden area, I've met several people whose family worked for either Parker or Meriden. To my knowledge, Crescent was always in Norwich, not Meriden.
An old timer has told about his father laughing about the Russian inspectors at the factory. They had several racks of newly completed rifles & would get the the inspectors busy on one rack. Meanwhile, they would roll the rack, that had just been inspected, around the corner, out of sight, and put it back in line to be inspected again. The poor guys were inspecting the same rifles over & over, while uninspected ones got packed for shipment!
To make things worse, the firing pins got shipped separately from the rifles to a different port. All so that the rifles wouldn't fall into "the wrong hands."
What do you think the chances were that the rifles ever got firing pins installed? Just about zero!
Regards, Ron
