Pioneer Arms, a Florida-based Polish AK maker, has been posting increasingly despondent goodbye messages on social media this week. 

The company's Facebook page on Tuesday noted plainly, "Pioneer is closed…..out of business."

The page followed up the next day with, "Please stop buying off website there is a ticket turn in to take it down. You will not receive product and may not get a refund. Apologies there are no more pioneer employees."

While the possibility of a hack of the social media page can't be ruled out, Pioneer's webpage makes no mention of any problems and its other pages on X and Instagram haven't been updated in some time. 

Further, there is some confirmation from Jay "CJ" Johnson, the longtime former vice president of the company, who posted online on Sept. 18 that the owner came in recently and "told everybody they were fired, closing the doors." 

Formed in 2001 with past locations in Vermont and Illinois, Pioneer Arms in 2004 moved into the old Circle 11 plant in Radom, Poland after a deal that saw it acquire the technical documentation of several platforms formerly made there including the Kalashnikov-based Tantal and Beryl along with legacy Combloc firearms such as the PPS-43, PM63 and others. 

This led to the import of components from Poland that, following some section 922r compliance tweaks, saw Pioneer market assorted sporter AKM-47 style rifles, Hellpup AKM-47 style pistols, PPS43-C pistols, a PM63-C model, and some custom-made SxS shotguns.