I have noticed while watching television programs such as Guns & Ammo or American Rifleman that there are quite a few left handed shooters among the hosts & staff of these shows. Around half of the shooters I know are left handed. I am wondering what the percentage of left handed shooters is. I have a feeling that the number would surprise us. If my suspicions are correct why are the left handed options in firearms so generic.

quote:

Originally posted by hvy barrel:
If my suspicions are correct why are the left handed options in firearms so generic.

Because the people making the decisions are stupid and, for the most part, right-handed.

Even Bill Ruger, who was left-handed, took close to 50 years to release a left-hand bolt-action.

George

I would guess the answer is / was purely economic.

Generally, depending on which source you believe, something like circa 10 -25% of people are left handed. The discussion could be enlarged to the degree people are truly / wholly left handed or ambidextrous.

I suspect strongly, based upon my personal and family experience that time/place and cultural attitudes strongly influence the numbers / proportion of left handed people about. I was not allowed to write left handed at school and had to learn to write right handed.

The current British army rifle SA80 cannot be used anyway but right handed, it would break your cheekbone if used left handed.

The unit cost economics of tooling up for production lines means that with something like over 75% of people, and therefore most shooters, being right handed, the pile it high /sell it cheap companies, building to a cost / budget, like Remington, Winchester, Savage etc will concentrate upon the biggest margin products.

Ofcourse, Zastava in little Serbia can build crf Mauser left hand rifles and sell them at a profit, which makes me wonder why the land of capitualism and advanced technological innovation cannot......

It's kind of a Catch-22 situation, alot of lefties couldn't find LH rifles when they were young so they grew up shooting right handed and later in life bought right handed guns. Because some lefties buy right handed rifles the LH market is smaller, so the manufacturers make less of them. It gets to be a vicious cycle.

I think that some manfacturers have realized a larger market potential exists and now we are getting the best choice we've ever had. A few years back when Montana Rifle Co. came out with their charter deal to build actions they announced that they would start building them when they received 500 orders of a particular style of action (LH, RH, long action, short action). The first combination to reach 500 orders was for the left handed short actions.

I bought my first lefty in 1975 and only buy right hand guns if I'm buying for the kids or a it's a semi-auto.