On 12/16/2021, Palmetto State Armory Announced in its Industry Forum on AR15.com that its parent company JJE will acquire Nodak Spud LLC and make it a subsidiary of Harrington & Richardson. H&R is a well-known name in the firearms industry not only for its revolvers and sporting arms but also for being the largest contractor for M14 rifles and one of only four contractors for the M16A1 during the Vietnam war.

Palmetto State Armory @ TFB:

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The Harrington and Richardson M16A1 (Image from Reddit)

Nodak is of course famous originally for their AK receivers, followed by their Retro AR lowers which almost single-handedly kicked off the retro AR craze of the early 2010s. They also created 10/22 front and rear aperture sights as well as a complete 10/22 receiver with a built-in M16A1 style sight.

The NDS-26 10/22 Rear Aperture Sight (Image from Nodak Spud)

According to their post:

Effective Jan 3rd, NoDak Spud will become a subsidiary of Harrington & Richardson. Mike Wetteland, co-owner of NoDak Spud will become the CEO of the newly reformed H&R.

Mike brings over 30 years of experience in the firearms industry to our team. As many of you know, Mike’s attention to detail and passion for Retro AR15’s has helped grow our hobby.

NoDak Spud will cease all operations at their Edina MN facility Dec 23rd in order to complete ship outs before the end of the year. NoDak Spud will then be relocated to West Columbia SC.

All customers that had backorders and/or were on the interested parties list for retro lowers/parts will be notified by Harlan via telephone or email.

All NoDak Spud retro parts will be rebranded as H&R. Most of the other NDS products, such as Ruger rifle sights will still be produced. Please be patient as it will take time to spin production back up.

NoDak Spud will continue to field calls and emails until we get the H&R website and staff up and running.

PLEASE DO NOT call Palmetto State Armory to place pre-orders or make product inquiries as the customer service staff has not been brought up to speed yet.

Please be assured that we will do our best to contact everyone on the NoDak lists to give them the opportunity to purchase H&R retro products.

Thank you,

-Josiah

From the sound of the announcement, JJE will be offering H&R branded retro items which if you want to create a period-correct clone it’ll be that much easier. Also with the news that JJE will acquire Nodak Spud, there’s a possibility that those retro parts will become much more widely available at a reasonable price due to the increase in manufacturing capacity.

What are your thoughts? Leave a comment below.