Ruger reports significant drop in sales

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Riomouse911 said:
Remington put itself in a debt position where Cerebus could waltz in and take over like the corporate raiders they are. Strong companies can fight it off, Big Green couldn’t.

These pirates care zero about brand or legacies, only about the Benjamins. “Bleed them dry and kick them to the curb” should be their motto.

Like every previous time a hostile takeover occurs by a money fund rather than some entity that actually knows what it is doing, it was all she wrote. Once harpooned, Remington flopped on the line for a while, but like so many others they were boiled down for oil and tossed over the side.

Stay safe.
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You are 100% correct and it is a shame that inept management put an old and revered company in a position for it to happen.

Ruger's drop off in revenue is just numbers showing how bad it is as there was an article about a month ago I saw about the percentage drop in firearms sales and Ruger is a major player. Firearms are like everything else for sale. When the demand is large the prices increase and the companies do good. When the demand drops the prices usually decrease and the companies begin hurting for revenue and some even close. With our run-away inflation that the government is lieing about and giving out false numbers I am seriously worried about what we are facing. I am well acquainted with the laws of supply and demand in one industry and managed to have my particular job done away with in favor of contractors that did less for less.
 
Remington1911 said:
IMHO they have to have good customer service, they crank out brand new 2022 that looks like it was left in a river for weeks. And people keep going back to them because.....why....oh their customer service is good.

Ok, if the product was good you would not need customer service to start with.
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The product IS good, at least is has the potential to be, after we get past this initial QC blunder on their part which the company is working with me on. I have been carrying a Ruger LCP 1 for over 6 years now, with over 5,000 rounds through it. It's still going!
 
Remington1911 said:
Name a company without debt.....oh you mean like General Motors...too big to fail kind of thing.....they did nothing wrong.

That does not say that mistakes got made, sure it happens everywhere. You don't have to look very far in the gun world to see companies a shadow of their former self, great names like Colt and Winchester are ghosts of once great companies.

My reference to Ruger in buying Remington, is that it could have been a bit much. It is not uncommon for a company to see an area and go....lets branch out that way.....or another company in your same business and go....hay if we buy them we have X more market share. Usually this comes in with more debt, and payments on that debt can be a bit rough, toss in a down turn and it gets real hard to make those payments....and you are looking at Chap 11.

There is a guy on youtube called Company Man, and he does a pretty good job at going over a quick look at different companies rise fall rise again. Many falls are pretty easy to see in 20-20 hindsight. Sears is a good video....many good decisions, Discover Card, many bad decisions, Rolex at sears?

What I am wondering is what did the buying of remington do to the cash flow at ruger, could they really swing it....or did they just look at last years "panic" and go see sales are going crazy we can afford to buy this.....only if that rate of sales stays with you.

You are so correct that if you see an investment company buy something you know it is going to die, it is what they do. I hold out hopes for Ruger (even if I am not a fan of any of their products) and its plans for remington, and Marlin for that matter, I hope they see products like the lever guns, and the 700 action being something that can still be made under a Ruger Banner. Some things I think are gone forever like the Model 60. But hope the ammo and a few models that do not take sales from existing Ruger products come back....from the looks of the lever rifles it looks like they might. I would love to see Marlin give henry a run for their money, I really think they could if they wanted to.
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Ruger bought the Marlin brand and tooling, not the Remington brand and tooling. Rem Arms, not Ruger, now runs “Remington” (same guy running them as before if I recall correctly)

Marlin has a chance to rise from the Cerebus ashes, under Ruger, as does “Remington” branded ammo under Vista (Federal, etc.) Time will truly tell if Rem Arms can fan the Phoenix’s flames (I hope they can.)

Stay safe.
 
Remington1911 said:
Name a company without debt.....oh you mean like General Motors...too big to fail kind of thing.....they did nothing wrong.

That does not say that mistakes got made, sure it happens everywhere. .
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General (Government) Motors is a bad example. The management and workers drove a once powerful and profitable company into insolvency. Ohbamma orchestrated a 60 billion dollar bailout with citizens tax dollars. 50 billion of which will NEVER be recouped....and turned the company back into the hands of the same dolts that bankrupted it in the first place...Rinse, Repeat?
 
Ruger will be fine.

If today Marlins showed up in the previous Cowboy configuration in stores in the calibers I wanted I’d be down there this afternoon to pick up versions in .327 FM, .357Mag and .38-55 Win.

Heck…I’d walk out of Sportsmans with 4 guns if they also released the 39 again. The money is there… just waiting to be spent.
 
Ethan Verity said:
The product IS good, at least is has the potential to be, after we get past this initial QC blunder on their part which the company is working with me on. I have been carrying a Ruger LCP 1 for over 6 years now, with over 5,000 rounds through it. It's still going!
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The point is it should not have made it out the door in the first place.

You have been on gun forums for a while, you know this is not a one off.....it happens.....and more then it should happen, but hay the customer service is great they are really working with me on getting this right. Baaa.

Your QC sucks rocks and has for a very long time, the only thing that keeps you alive is that customer service.
 
Riomouse911 said:
Ruger bought the Marlin brand and tooling, not the Remington brand and tooling. Rem Arms, not Ruger, now runs “Remington” (same guy running them as before if I recall correctly)

Marlin has a chance to rise from the Cerebus ashes, under Ruger, as does “Remington” branded ammo under Vista (Federal, etc.) Time will truly tell if Rem Arms can fan the Phoenix’s flames (I hope they can.)

Stay safe.
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Thanks for clearing that up. I thought they bought both lock stock and barrel. I remember reading about the high hopes in the ammo area after the deal was done....Ruger bought remington, hopefully the ammo will start to flow again. I thought it was all of remington. I will do some research and learn more, this is what I get for assuming.

Oh well, they have all marlin I guess, hope the lever guns make a good comeback, but I doubt I will ever see a new 60 again.
 
gifbohane said:
General (Government) Motors is a bad example. The management and workers drove a once powerful and profitable company into insolvency. Ohbamma orchestrated a 60 billion dollar bailout with citizens tax dollars. 50 billion of which will NEVER be recouped....and turned the company back into the hands of the same dolts that bankrupted it in the first place...Rinse, Repeat?
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It is an example of a once great company going to hell because of bean counter decisions on the product.....same thing as the gun companies I talked about.
 
Remington1911 said:
I am not sure the "panic" buying is slowing down, the stores I have been in seem to report many new people still coming in. We have two years left to go, and who knows what will happen next. I am not saying it is time to panic, but if you are buying a gun because of "panic" that is far from over and worse now then it has been before.
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I think it did slow down. Housing cost has gone up as has the price of gas, food, and everything else you can think of. During the past two or so years of panic buying, the government was giving away thousands of dollars in free money, people were purposely not paying rent and utilities, and no one was really in debt yet.

I and many others used at least a portion of that money to buy firearms back then with the free money. Now most already have what they need or are being frugal.

The proof is in the pudding. Sales are already down and are dropping even more for most manufacturers. In response, most manufacturers are producing less which may account for some of the shortages still. I guess they learned their lesson after they over produced during the Obama years and when they thought Hillary was going to win which resulted in 3.5 years of record low gun and ammo prices.
 
If Ruger is a reflection of the industry, a combo. of factors are probably at work, inflation, no lockdown, ammo prices are among those factors.

Ammo availability at affordable prices affects gun sales? Fix the affordable ammo problem, and watch sales climb. The average hobbyist seeks an affordable hobby given his income, and monthly discretionary spending quotient.

Simple math: how many dollars are left over monthly after other bills. If ammo is expensive, it takes away from his/ her ability to buy other gun gear instead.
 
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Hikingman said:
If Ruger is a reflection of the industry, a combo. of factors are probably at work, inflation, no lockdown, ammo prices are among those factors.

Ammo availability at affordable prices affects gun sales? Fix the affordable ammo problem, and watch sales climb. The average hobbyist seeks an affordable hobby given his income, and monthly discretionary spending quotient.

Simple math: how many dollars are left over monthly after other bills. If ammo is expensive, it takes away from his/ her ability to buy other gun gear instead.
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It could also be a little like Harley Davidson, are motorcycles down because HD is down, pull out over 750cc cruisers and the sales are actually in a plus, put it in and the entire motorcycle thing is down. So is it a case of sales being down for just that one company.
 
Styx said:
I think it did slow down. Housing cost has gone up as has the price of gas, food, and everything else you can think of. During the past two or so years of panic buying, the government was giving away thousands of dollars in free money, people were purposely not paying rent and utilities, and no one was really in debt yet.

I and many others used at least a portion of that money to buy firearms back then with the free money. Now most already have what they need or are being frugal.

The proof is in the pudding. Sales are already down and are dropping even more for most manufacturers. In response, most manufacturers are producing less which may account for some of the shortages still. I guess they learned their lesson after they over produced during the Obama years and when they thought Hillary was going to win which resulted in 3.5 years of record low gun and ammo prices.
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Could be, another plus in the row of the current admin.

I am just shooting in the dark here, I have not done any of my own research.....I really should shut the hell up till I educate myself a bit.
 
Remington1911 said:
It could also be a little like Harley Davidson, are motorcycles down because HD is down, pull out over 750cc cruisers and the sales are actually in a plus, put it in and the entire motorcycle thing is down. So is it a case of sales being down for just that one company.
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HD is a lot like the wood and blued steel gunmakers; geared towards an aging clientele. Many, if not most, are at the point in life where they are slowing down on sporting purchases like motorcycles and hunting arms.

The poly-striker pistol / AR crowd is often younger, which is still a growing market.

But, as was said above; the “Trump stimmilas” and “Biden bucks” are all spent, inflation is touching 9% monthly, gas pricing is down “40 straight days!!”, yet it is still $5.50 a gallon here in Ca. As for the renters who have had a two-year (and growing!) moratorium on non-payment evictions; those notes will be coming due soon.

Tough times to be an economist.

Stay safe.
 
I like Ruger but I've noticed, in certain guns at least, a good sized price increase and that general availability isn't that great either, largely their Blackhawks/Super Blackhawks. GP100's used to be mid $600 guns not that long ago, now they're mid $800 dollar guns and look how much the SRH had increased, they're nearly a $1500 MSRP gun now, insane.
 
SDGlock23 said:
I like Ruger but I've noticed, in certain guns at least, a good sized price increase and that general availability isn't that great either, largely their Blackhawks/Super Blackhawks. GP100's used to be mid $600 guns not that long ago, now they're mid $800 dollar guns and look how much the SRH had increased, they're nearly a $1500 MSRP gun now, insane.
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I am not a real fan of any Ruger handguns other than maybe the LCR, but they are not alone. Ruger I'd being singled out in this thread, but EVERY MANUFACTURER HAS GONE STUPID on their MSRPs. IMHO, a lot had to do with price gouging and being opportunistic. Now that most of the country is suffering financially, and sales are dropping with firearm manufacturers, prices will drop and we will see a bunch of rebates.

I do not feel sorry for Ruger. They price gouged with the rest of them. The rest of the manufacturing, corporate, retail demographic mostly supported Liberism, became woke, and were antigun. So be it... They didn't care about gun owners when they raised the price substantially when there was a shortage and a lot of demand, I don't care about their bottom line when their demand and sales decrease.

I do not want Ruger, S&W, Kel Tec, PSA or any American firearms company to go out of business, but I want them be accountable for their price gouging.
 
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plainsdrifter said:
Well the drop isn't because of me, I bought three Rugers in the past six months. A Max-9, a SP101 and a Vaquero.
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How will you feel after the value on the guns you purchased drop and they are being sold for much less than you paid?
 
Economy is weird.
In an inflationary season, it's "better" to spend money "in the now" while it has value, than try and save it, and have it reduce in value.
But, with inflation, especially, stagflation, increased costs of all needed consumer goods means having less to spend on "discretionary" spending.

And that latter hits hard in the firearms market. Which virtually relies on the amount of discretionary spending available.

Now, Ruger has several problems facing it. Like having spent sizable sums to try and better its market position. While having any number of other manufacturers out in the market competing with them.
Look at all the competition in revolvers, and self-loading pistols.

Part of what Ruger is seeing is the inherent "lag" in investing in new markets, you have to develop the new products, then advertise them, then get over all the "initial reluctance" that's built into our community before you even start seeing profits. RemArms is more than passing illustrative of this, pushing out the last of the ready-to-assemble 870s has not helped them at all. Until they get their manufacturing processes (and QC) running at "full speed" again,they are stuck with the "reputation" of the junkers they put out to generate sales, any sales.
 
Everything is a mess right now, as you can't point to any one thing, but all, inflation, high price on all commodities, slowdown in the economy, high shipping cost, housing and rental cost up, interest up, gas still way up, even after dropping some, free money is now gone, so no more free guns, food cost through the roof, on and on. Pick any of those and you have the answer. One thing that turns me is the primer mess. I get the need to make the ammo, instead of sending out the primers only, but that hurts the major shooters, and I,m having a hard enough time keeping the guns I already own, feed. Sure, Ruger made a 5.7 to go with the FN crowd, but who wants to buy a gun that has no ammo? I am just now finally seeing 5.7 being sold, but the price is out there, and if you don't pay it, it's gone. Tough business model for all businesses now a days. Hope they stay in business, as I like Ruger, and own alot of their revolvers! LOL
 
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