Comments by "" (@RedXlV) on "Star Z45: Spain's Improved MP40 Submachine Gun" video.

  1. No, they were founded independently. And initially weren't called Star and Astra. The original companies ere Bonifacio Echeverría (founded in 1905) and Esperanza y Unceta (founded in 1908), both simply using the names of their founders. Both were originally located in Eibar (which was always the heart of Spanish weapons making), but Esperanza y Unceta moved to Guernica in 1913 and during World War I started using the "Astra" trade name while making the Ruby pistols for export to France. (There were about 500 Spanish companies of varying sizes making such pistols, because France was desperately short on all types of firearms in WW1.) Bonifacio Echeverría was one of the other companies making Ruby pistols at the time, and at least some of them were marked with the trade name "Star", and the company started going by Star for all its products in 1919. It's quite possibly that they were copying Astra by switching to a similar name. That sort of thing was common among Spanish gunmakers. At any rate, Star and Astra remained competitors until Star went bankrupt in 1993 and Astra in 1997. And Llama, the other major Spanish gunmaker, went bankrupt in 2000. There's still a few small companies left in the Eibar region making expensive high-end shotguns and double-barrel rifles, but for the most part the gun industry is gone in Spain.
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