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Ruger to Discontinue Several Major Models. Part of their Ruger 2030 project to re-haul the company and
make more moneylose less money. I think it's very likely that they bring many of these models back, but this is a big surprise to a lot of people, especially anyone who happened to like Ruger's vast revolver catalog.I really didn't expect Ruger needing to do anything like this, to be honest. It seems like people are spending more money on guns than ever, or at least that's what I was doing. The ATF stating they will no longer enforce the NFA when it comes to short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and suppressors in applicable states and the resulting swarm of stock and suppressor purchases seemed to be evidence to me of this. But one commenter points out that times are a bit tough for most gun manufacturers. Since we've got a Republican administration and (last I know of) Republican leaning Congress in both the House and the Senate, there aren't any bans on the table and people aren't panic buying Glocks and "modern sporting rifles".
I remember once reading an argument between a couple right-wing users here about whether they'd press a button that had a 75% chance of wiping out all of Blue Tribe and a 25% chance of wiping out all of Red Tribe. The user against pushing the button said that wiping out Blue Tribe would be a complete disaster for the entire country because of how many industries rely on them. Perhaps I'd give this as an example of how that can manifest. It's Red Tribe buying the guns with Red Tribe money, but it's Blue Tribe driving them to do it.
Sor a second I thought this was Rutgers
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First time?
While I'll freely admit that I'm not a firearms historian beyond that of a casual dabbler, there's a solid argument to be made that the entire reason why the AR platform as a whole is so insanely popular nowadays(to the point where some people call it 'American's Rifle' - or maybe I'm just delusional and made that up in my head, uh-) is specifically because Clinton and the Democrats as a whole went 'nuh uh', thereby driving the demand for the forbidden fruit up through the roof.
That said, doing a quick perusals of the models Ruger is discontinuing looks to be... well, a long line of revolvers. And, sadly, revolvers, while fun and cool looking guns, just aren't that popular. Ruger's still making it's LCP line, and that brand of gun is so stupidly popular they'll made rare and weird production lines of the damn thing in various colors.
So it's probably more of a case of Ruger following the money, as opposed to any sort of political pressure just not driving gun sales.
The mad scramble the industry made after the expiry of the AWB might have had something to do with the popularity of the AR, but I think it was inevitable. Patent-expired rifle that has been in use by the military for over 60 years in various forms with publicly available spec sheets, milled, reliable, accurate, with a low bore axis, great ballistics, and endlessly customizable.
Any idiot with a CNC can do AR-15 stuff, and outside of maybe the Stoner 63 (which Robinson did in aluminum, that’s what the XCR is) it’s unique in that regard.
You’d have to do design work to transpose any other rifle and, if you have the tooling, it’s not worth it (especially with AKs, but the G3 as well). Modern guns come out of extenders nowdays and you need serious capital and production numbers for that (plastic or aluminum), but not the AR.
It’s lucky that the AR had a flat top that lent itself to optics basically by mistake but it is legitimately a great rifle in a cartridge that is almost as cheap as surplus used to be.
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What's the attrition rate over time for consumer firearms? I would think it's pretty low on average. Leaving aside boating accidents, which don't take them out of circulation anyway. You're not going to see a lot of guns legitimately lost, like permanently lost such that the owner needs to buy a replacement. Some small fraction are stolen, but even those remain in circulation satisfying some kind of consumer demand. Are any significant portion of firearms damaged beyond repair each year? How many rounds do you have to put through a modern firearm before it wears out?
So if guns exist at some point to fulfill all existing demand, and they don't pass out of circulation, you're only selling guns if you're creating new gun owners or new demand. Tech advancements account for some new sales, but what new tech is going to come out of the industry at this point? When does that max itself out? Doesn't really matter if the owner dies, they are pretty much always inherited, or at least sold off.
The only thing producing fresh demand that I can think of are gun buybacks and murderers tossing a handgun into the Hudson. Unless some exogenous force is producing new gun buyers.
Yes the attrition rate is very low and that is a good point.
Generally over 10,000 rounds. None of my guns have anything even close to that number. High-volume competition shooters will chew through guns fast, but that's a very specific person.
Even lower-volume competition shooters can expect their guns to last a lifetime. 5000 rounds a year over 20 years is 100,000 rounds, and that’s not unrealistic for guns to be able to reach.
S&W revolver designs start breaking down closer to 50K rounds (they start going out of time), AKs crack at the trunnion after about 100K, ARs break uppers at the barrel threads if they even break at all, and most modern extruded aluminum rifles are likely capable of a million especially those with replaceable high-wear surfaces (the SIG MCX being a good example of that). The barrel will be shot out, and the bolt might break lugs, but that’s not usually a gun-ender so long as you can still buy the part.
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Which naturally leads to gun manufacturers focusing on the small range of models that actually wear out, rather than on the larger market. There's probably just no mass market for revolvers these days, sad to say as I'm one of the few holdouts who love them.
I still say the most fun target shooting is firing .38s through a .357 cowboy revolver. All the fun with less recoil and much cheaper ammo. The Blackhawks being discontinued is a shame, but it's not like I need any more of them.
I like the form factor, and I like the simplicity and reliability. I know that if I maintain my semiauto properly there's no reason it won't work when called on, but I like that the revolver more or less can't jam under pressure, even if it hasn't been used in a while. And while I have no fear of using a semi-auto, I like that the revolver has extremely visually clear loaded/unloaded states. Basically everyone I know who ever had an accidental shooting, the gun was "unloaded" at the time.
I think my revolver has jammed more times than my semi-autos at this point (and that’s something requiring disassembly to fix), but it’s also somehow ridiculously accurate despite having a 12-pound trigger (that is sometimes 20 if it’s in a bad mood).
You require no other hand strength to unload the gun, as soon as the cylinder leaves the gun it can’t fire even if the user pulls the trigger (for leverage, I guess), and you get a set trigger if you need one by pulling the hammer back.
It’s honestly a type of pistol that you could use offensively if you needed to (as in, not exactly 7 yards and in, especially in .357 where it’s not dropping 3” at 50 yards) if you put an optic on it, which is probably why the French adopted one.
I think the decline in metallic silhouette, or the fact it didn’t evolve as a shooting game, has a lot to do with why the casual for-recreation owner doesn’t seem to bother. Not like indoor ranges have the space for it anyway.
How?
By being off-brand Italian garbage that, while they are dimensionally compatible with gear (and some grips) meant for K-frame revolvers, is where the similarities end (so you're on your own for parts).
In my defense, it was 300USD, new in box, looked like a Python, and I bought it because I wanted a gun for every competition division (and... also to learn about revolvers; in this, the piece functioned as intended). A .357 would have been better if only for more reliable ejection; .38-only revolvers can sometimes fail to get the casings out and this one is no exception (I'm also not doing the '90s-cop/Ayoob thing where you let go of the grip and tilt the gun vertical to eject, so if I forget to sufficiently tilt the gun up before hitting the rod it'll remind me). I'd go to .38 Short Colt brass for speed, but doing that creates pressure in excess of what a .38 is supposed to take, so that's out too.
Anyway, this particular design uses a torsion spring to push the bolt into the locking recesses on the cylinder rather than the coil spring S&W designs use, and was having problems positively locking the cylinder, so it locked up in the first 50 rounds with a shaved jacket against the left side of the forcing cone (and would occasionally lead to a round where the primer would be hit so off-center that it wouldn't fire). Modifying that spring so that it engaged more forcefully against the frame solved the issue- the gun wasn't actually out of time, it just wouldn't honor the existing timing, if that makes any sense.
Then, one of the two pins engaging the hand with the other moving parts fell out somehow. For some stupid reason, the pins aren't actually part of that assembly, and said pin magically vanished out of the gun one session. The one I ground to fit seems to have held up better- at least that was a standard dimension, but I get the distinct impression that it's supposed to sit flush against the inside of the frame (there's no recess to hold it in the side plate) and I currently suspect some of the inconsistent trigger pulls the thing suffers from now are due to this pin shifting in some direction (perhaps due to recoil) and binding up. That could probably be solved by an improved shim to better capture the pin, melting some plastic on the 'loose' end to support it better, or soldering the pin to the hand, but I'm too lazy to take this thing apart because it's annoying to get the side plate back on so that's just a theory for now.
Oh yeah, and the screw holding the cylinder release backs off within 100 rounds of tightening it (unless you make it so tight it binds). Loctite would solve that if I was totally done playing with it, but a gun that was made before the widespread use of threadlocker shouldn't need threadlocker.
The extractor rod will sometimes bind due to failing to re-center on the stud that retains it and there's no chamfer so good luck loading anything other than round-nosed projectiles with any urgency whatsoever. Surface finish is nice enough but not so nice I wouldn't be that sad if I scratched it up somehow.
And yet, for all of those faults, I shoot it exceptionally well [in DA] with the factory grips (which are too fat to accommodate speedloaders, but one problem at a time) and have about 6000 rounds through the thing so far. It would be more, but the assholes at the place I bought the bullets from failed to send me the proper diameter, so that's kind of on hold for now.
Overall, I rate it 6 out of 6, would revolve again.
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I remember running the numbers once, and estimating 80++ years life for modern guns. It was a dead-simple production rate vs. existing stock calculation, and I don't think I even corrected for changes over time.
I assumed modern AI could do better, but Claude Sonnet doesn't improve much. It reports 0.1-1% per year from the literature, with weak evidence.
Look at the last fifty years to predict the next fifty, and we might get...slightly better metallurgy, machining, ergonomics, and style? Maybe some different cartridge geometries like the Winchester Short Magnum line and better bullet construction like bonded jackets. Gun design isn't quite as solved as knives are, but they're a very mature technology by this point.
The problem is that, while like any man I admire beautiful engineering and want something way better than what I actually need, guns long ago passed the point where the gun is holding back the accuracy. Get me the finest $10,000 firearm it's not going to improve my groupings all that much over the cheapie.
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Well yeah- I have guns made for WWII(and stored in a random closet since then, not dipped in cosmoline in a state armory in eastern europe for fifty years). I have pistols used heavily since the seventies and shotguns from the mid twentieth century.
The gun industry may simply have saturated demand and need to expand the supply of gun owners. I know I stopped buying new guns because I simply couldn't think of any I wanted badly enough to spend hundreds of dollars on(I already have plenty, after all). Unfortunately, 'who can they sell guns to' is a valid question- selling CCH's to red tribe women gets you, like, one new gun per buyer, and a lot of them are already onboard. There's plenty of people legally prohibited from owning them, or simply unwilling to do so. It's a tough market to expand in; all the guys in my hunting club already have enough guns that it'd probably be more lucrative to try to sell them a second safe. Regulars at the range are in the same boat.
Yeah I buy a car or a drill because my last one died. I buy pens or chapstick because I lost the last one. When my grandmother died, all her blankets and sheets were either thrown out or used for moving blankets, because I don't think of that as something I'm going to inherit.
None of those apply to guns. It wouldn't surprise me if the median gun purchased in the past ten years is still around when guns are banned.
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Ruger is a weird company. They make top-tier rimfires, second tier revolvers and bolt guns, and Kel-Tec-tier centerfire semi-autos. Much of what they're discontinuing is "pistol" registered short-barreled versions, possibly having to do with the ATF rule changes. The revolvers are just not profitable and haven't been for a long time. The heyday of big-bore revolvers was forty years ago, and Rugers aren't as popular or well supported as Smiths.
A lot of these old legacy gun companies are struggling, while new ones like PSA, Bergara and CZ eat their lunch. Ruger is in trouble, and I'd guess Smith isn't doing too great either. Remington, Colt, Winchester etc. are all dead and buried. Name brands for the banks to fight over.
Would you really say the revolvers are second-tier? I think the S&W 686 vs. Ruger GP100 debate was still pretty contested up to this...
I'm not a revolver expert, but they sell less than Smiths, have less aftermarket support, are used less in competition etc. etc. Subjectively, they're not as nice to shoot unless heavily modified, and it's harder to find a gunsmith to time or trigger job a Ruger. I've seen more Chiappa Rhinos in competition than Rugers.
In terms of quality, the centerfire revolvers are solid guns and the old Single Sixes are great. The new Wranglers are a bit crap, but cheap enough that most people won't mind.
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They're not second-tier in terms of functionality.
They are second-tier in terms of aesthetics, and that matters for guns whose aesthetics are the only advertisement. Ruger isn't even a stranger to that concept; that's the only reason Mini-14s sell in areas where you could buy literally anything else, and everything in Marlin's lineup is like that too.
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Ruger is an investment casting company that just happens to make guns. Now, casting is a fine way to make a firearm, particularly when it comes to pistols (especially revolvers because they have to be metal, but any semi-auto with a metal frame benefits) and stuff that has been designed with casting in mind (10/22, Mini-14).
Which explains literally everything about what was, yesterday, their product catalogue. But, if doing literally anything else with their casting lines is more profitable than the revolvers, then the revolvers are going to go. The 10/22 requires a minimum of machining to make, and the Mini-14 has such a fat profit margin (especially where they're the only legal option), that there's still room for those.
Or maybe they need the cash to pay for some new in-house aluminum extrusion capacity. I'm not convinced most of their new guns (the PC and LC Carbines in particular) aren't subcontracted to a different manufacturer and 9mm rifles never really sold that well to begin with (and even if the de facto nullification of the NFA does result in an uptick of 9mm rifle sales the PC Carbine was never even that great a rifle in the first place; yes, it's still legal in most states, but increased foreign competition of far better rifles will likely end up with Ruger competing with itself just like it does with the revolvers).
As it turns out, not really.
Remington was broken up and most gun companies in the US took a piece of it (Ruger bought Marlin).
It's the Colt CZ group now.
Winchester ceased to be an independent gun-making entity in 1935; they were acquired by Olin, an ammunition company naturally seeking commoditization of their compliment.
I'm pretty sure the PC carbine is primarily made in house. The internals are almost identical to a scaled-up 10-22 takedown, with the exception of the tungsten insert in the bolt.
Actually, yeah, I think you’re right. I thought the Carbines were both extruded but looking at them again I’m pretty sure they’re largely billet aluminum with cast bolts (one being its own thing, and one being an obvious conversion of their handguns).
Honestly I’m kind of surprised they never bothered to make an LC Carbine in 9mm but I guess that would cannibalize PC sales, which were probably not that great to begin with.
It's kind of a shame really. I love my PCC for plinking and I'm going to chop the barrel if the SBR changes hold.
Honestly I'd rather them just offer standalone barrels (Ruger seems to have a bad habit of making things non-user-replaceable simply by not offering the parts; I think the nonexistent demand for shorter PC Carbine barrels is indicative it didn't start selling more as time went on, but that's because you have far better options). They're basically all takedown models for some reason, not like it'd be hard.
I don't think the PC Carbine was ever actually that great or optimized a product. It's 3 pounds heavier than it should be, the magazine well is about 2" further forward than it should be, and the non-50-state/tactical version makes itself known it really wasn't designed that way. Sturdy is expensive.
It's unfortunate. Ruger appears to define themselves largely by their legacy offerings (which is why it's a shock they're ditching the revolvers) but any iteration they do make on an established formula is 15 years too late and looks like it was just slapped together. They're a lot like FN in that way.
I'm kind of surprised they didn't just go Walther MPL (where the bolt's a rough casting except for the bearing surfaces which are nicely machined), but then again, 9mm carbines are luxury products to begin with (which is also why every manufacturer feels compelled to offer some gimmick- takedown for the Ruger, folding for the S&W, and... well, I'd say Kel-Tec but they'd do it even if they didn't need to so I don't think that counts) so maybe Guntube would laugh at them for a cast part being obviously cast.
Then again, I'm also one of those weird people who think that a Mini-14 set up with changeable barrels to shoot every pistol caliber under the sun would be an interesting prospect; the last people to ever make a semi-auto rifle in a revolver caliber was... well, Ruger's modified Mini-14 in .44 Magnum. They won't do this because they bought Marlin (and because it would require designing a bunch of magwells and a substantial modification to the receiver, including the fundamentals of how it operates), but for people who don't have the kind of range available to take advantage of an optic and don't want to spend $2/round on a rifle design that's so stereotypically American the CMP is usually running low on guns to re-import? I could think of worse business ideas. (Or just stamp a bunch of clips to hold 9mm if you'd have to do it the shitty Chiappa M1-9 way from any other pistol magazine, and have them launch out the top in the Garand way. I'm sure there's at least one state that exempts fixed magazines from capacity restrictions.)
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Hey, I like magnum revolvers. Great safe queens and I can very occasionally convince my wife to shoot one.
All legit, but that sort of thing isn't nearly as big a part of the gun community as it was forty years back. Back then it was all handloading varmint rounds, fire lapping barrels and big bore six guns. Nobody had ARs!
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Yes, I'd expect the SBR looking stuff to come back in a different format. However, I am genuinely surprised to see the Ruger PC Carbine go. That was one of the few approximately-50-state-legal semi-automatic rifles in existence, and a blowback 9mm carbine can't be that difficult to make. Revolvers don't make much sense anymore.
However, I am not sure that those other companies are doing just fine either. CZ just canceled production of their older guns earlier this year, and Glock phased out a bunch of stuff late last year and early this year. Seems like a larger industry shrink to me.
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