Hudson Manufacturing Files for Bankruptcy
Maker of Hudson H9 Pistol Files Chapter 7 Bankruptcy
According to several sources, including bankruptcy information site InfoRuptcy, Hudson Manufacturing has submitted filings for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
The New Wonder Pistol
When we met with Cy and Lauren Hudson in the past about their ambitious venture into producing the new H9 pistol, they were genuinely passionate about the project and, personally, seemed like nice people.
To be sure, the demo Hudson pistols that we shot did shoot well but, for the life of us, we could not really figure out the buzz around it. At the SHOT Show product announcement and shooting bays, the crowd of firearms industry New Media folks around the Hudson booth was a hundred people deep, all clamoring to catch a glimpse of the new pistol or get their hands on it.
Truthfully, we had questions about how well an expensive new, unproven, funny looking, and heavy (2.5+ lbs loaded) steel framed pistol would fare breaking into a market trending toward smaller, lighter carry pistols. Yet they continued to innovate, making design changes and, a year after the H9’s introduction, releasing a half-pound lighter aluminum H9A variant. With all of that work involved, they would certainly need to find a lot of buyers for the $1100 pistol to remain viable.
Troubles Begin
According to Josh Supnick’s H9 Owners site, it looks like major issues started in Summer of 2018 when Hudson announced that they would be fabricating their own slides for new models instead of having the third party H9 slide manufacturer make them. The other company put the kibosh on their relationship and stopped making the original H9 slides for Hudson, leaving the company unable to meet production demand.
During all of this, Hudson was also having tolerance issues with the H9 grip modules, causing functionality problems with pistols that had already made it out to customers. The company stopped shipping new pistols and started dealing with more and more warranty claims on those that had shipped.
In August 2018, contract manufacturer Cambridge Valley Machining filed suit over Hudson’s failure to pay for a portion of the nearly $1.7M order for H9 grips, barrels, and other parts. Hudson counter-filed stating that the breach was on CVM’s end as they had failed to provide adequate product, causing them to not be able to sell the pistols to generate revenue to pay for the order.
By fall, Hudson did not even have enough parts on hand to complete those warranty repairs, could not fulfill existing orders (to the tune of more than a million dollars), and could not secure investors or companies to license the design.
Production staff, and then front office staff, were laid off. After launching the original H9 at the 2017 SHOT Show and the lighter H9A at the 2018 SHOT Show, they company had planned to exhibit at the 2019 SHOT Show but visitors were greeted by an empty Hudson booth.
Hudson had disappeared from Twitter by August 2018 and abandoned their Facebook page by December.
RIP Hudson Mfg
The latest nail in Hudson’s coffin came last week when they filed for Chapter 7 liquidation bankruptcy – a process through which remaining assets are sold to pay back creditors.
The repayment of those creditors looks like it might be about as likely as all of the H9 owners with pistols in for warranty work receiving back their repaired pistols (or receiving them at all).
The bankruptcy filing claims that Hudson is anywhere from $10 million to $50 million in debt while having only $50,000 in assets. The list of creditors to Hudson Manufacturing runs 18 pages in the filings.