The thread on the .270 vs. .270 WSM got me thinking...

What are the prospects for American firearms companies in the next 50 years (get out your crystal balls!)? And a corollary: what will it take for them to remain solvent?

I'll be the first to tell you I know next to nothing about economics. What I do know is that JOE SHOOTER seems happy to buy a rifle that is minimally adequate (MHO of current production rifles) and is more keen to buy something that "shoots really fast, really flat, really hard."

And while I don't want to get into the pros & cons of the Federal .338, it is interesting that this offering seems to go the opposite direction of "Higher, Faster, Farther." Then again, Federal makes ammunition, not guns.

What are your thoughts?

Thanks, friar

If someone sold stock in their firearms company, I sure wouldn't buy it.

There will always be a need and market for the top of the line and that is served by private smiths and several extremely good smiths are alive today and making masterpieces for those than can afford the best. This is a very exclusive and small market of possibly hundreds of guns a year.

After that it appears to be a crapshoot. Price is more important to many buyers than quality it seems and I'd sure not take any good feelings about making for the lowest price.

As far as I'm concerned the best guns today are on the used market. We really don't need a new rifle made today at all.

There is really two things going on, one is the over all decline of the shooting sports and hunting world wide. What I mean by decline is that fewer people are taking up the sport. Thats just a fact of life. While hunting has never been better in most places. And the other one, well a rifle is almost like a house with some reasonable care it will out last several generations, case in point, I have a M-700 BDL 7mm Remington Mag that I dug out of my gun box. I could have gotten along the last 39 years since I bought it with that just one. Scope and all shoot fine, and it works and dose so quite well, now if I did that were did remington make any money on the deal? They really didn't, The Gun makers like the light Airplane makers back in the late 1970's make a product that is more like a house, gives new meaning to the workd durable goods. Most of the used rifles you find, and there are plenty to be had, would be hard pressed to have more that 50 shots thru them. That to is a fact of the matter. You can't take what is said on this board or any of the others as an accurate gauge of the market. The ones here and the others are not the norm, heck I have over 67 rifles at my peak. Planning on keeping just two that has now become three. As for the Custom built side of things, its the Golden Age right now, never has there been so many gifted craftsmen and a lady or two praticing the trade. Its aways been in america to own many riles in different chamberings of average or below average quality, thats a tradition, while in europe the tradition is one or two very well made or fine guns and that it for a life time or two. The Gunmakers are not the only ones, having trouble in the Market Place. Will there be a Gun making business in America in 50 years, yes there will be, it will be different that what we know, just as what it is today is very different from what it was in the 1950's. So is the rifle/gun consumer.

Gun manufacturer profits in recent years have been mostly in the handgun arena. Sadly, as we're all too aware, much of this production has been channeled into illicit markets (either domestic or foreign). One way or another this outlet for manufacturers is eventually going to be cut off, meaning that long guns will have to pay their own freight, so to speak.

For long guns, it increasingly looks like a saturated market. The price of new, rather pedestrian long guns like a Ruger 77 or Remington 1100/1187 is far too close to the price of higher-quaility used guns. In other words, it appears that the supply of superior used guns will eventually begin to hold the price of (presumably less desirable) new guns below a profitable level for the manufacturer. If that happens, Big Green joins Winchester as a name of the past. If Ruger looses its profits from its handgun sales, then its rifles and shotguns won't sustain its operations (think in terms of more Ruger titanium golf drivers as the future of that corporation). Savage, Mossberg, and a handful of others can hardly sustain themselves on "guns for the masses" if the masses aren't readily participating in the shooting sports.

I don't think the time frame for this shake-out is 50 years. More like 20.

I couldn't agree more that used guns today hold much greater value/desireablility than factory new, especially rifles. As for custom rigs...I can only imagine...that thread on the 404 Jeffery ("Patience is a virtue") right now is a good example of how a rifle should be made!

More and more, I suspect that the ability/desire for the common person to hunt will continue to decline. As it is right now, deer hunting anywhere outside the West is a proposition with only two options: Private land or small public tracts with intense pressure.

That, coupled with increasing urban sprawls which make it difficult to shoot regularly, means that fewer and fewer people are buying longguns. And you're right, Stonecreek...who knows how much longer handgun sales will float the boat!

friar

I believe Remington will still be around, in some form. Also S&W........

quote:

Originally posted by El Deguello:
I believe Remington will still be around, in some form. Also S&W........

I'm betting Remington will be tits up in a couple years and the only long guns in the US will be made by Savage, Ruger, and Marlin

Strongest companies that will be around: Kimber and Savage. Moderately strong: Browning, T/C. Iffy companies: Ruger and Remington.

Ruger is getting out of the titanium casting business because it is unprofitable (sorry Stonecreek, read the last quarterly report.) Plus Ruger will be struggling with management for a while. Bill Sr. didn't do them any favors running the company so strong-fisted. Now they lack good leadership and they are floundering. Remington is woeful. Nobody knows what they are doing. Tommy Milner is doing them no favors either. Ever since he said he wanted Remington to sell a billion dollars a year in sales, they lost their focus.

My 2 cents, take it for what it is worth.

Aaron

There are two kinds of firearm companies, much like, for example, the airline industry.

There are the old "legacy" companies like Remington and the former New Haven Winchester division. They are a product of the 1960's and 70's business philosophy of "management expertise" making the difference in company success. This lead to beancounters in charge of conglomerates. Nice management theory, and lots of fat jobs for MBA's, but conglomerates have proven to be unable to compete against the second group of companies: the specialists.


The specialists are outfits such as Savage, Kimber (and perhaps Marlin, but I do not know them). They know their markets, they know their manufacturing processes, and they focus on servicing profitable niches. They listen to their customers, and talk about guns and shooting at the watercooler instead of golf. Weatherby started out as a specialist, but seems to be vascillating towards conclomerate status. Big mistake.

Like Southwest in the airline industry, gun specialists are dominant in their niche, profitable, and do not have delusions of grandeur.

Looking forward, I seem more specialist companies: Savage, Olympia arms, CSMC, Kimber, etc, etc, and fewer conglomerates. JMO, Dutch.

This may not be the norm, but my three sons each just purchased their own rifles and shotguns. Also I have just taught several of their friends to shoot and they each just purchased their own new Remington rifles and two of then purchased shotguns also.
I am now in the process of teaching one of my son’s friends to handload 2 of my sons already load.
That said… the future of the sport and the industry is in our hands. I think I have reach the limit on rifles I care to own… (With the possible exception of a 358 STA) so the future in not in the hands of new cartridges but us.