How well will gun mfgs. throttle back production to match slumping demand?

i'm not convinced that nw gun production is acceptable.
perhaps i am just odd, but it seems like every gun i really
want is out of production.
for me, it's the used market or nothing.

Ed Ames said:

You will love it. I have had one for years and it is one of my all around favorites. Did you find a 20" or 16"?

That's exactly what I've been talking about. Inventories of that sort of gun are still scraping zero. Yes, there are more ARs than the market will pay $1500 for, but there aren't a lot of interesting guns.

Click to expand...

It's a 20".. got it at bud's since it came up. I have seen them in several places, though.. must be the factory release of inventory.

My last 'acquisition' was the new ruger 45c/45acp. I probably couldn't have found it a couple of years ago, because of the shortages or demand. Perhaps it is just the winding down of hysteria over obama taking our guns.. since he hasn't, yet, people are calming down & not buying them as much. But he got to be the 'salesman of the year' for firearms for 6 years running!

I would suggest that probability is actually dropping on annual basis for 2 reasons for boomers. First, it's a lot more difficult to buy guns today. In some cases what people want to buy is not available to them. In other cases, people don't want to jump through the hoops.

Click to expand...

1) I don't agree that it is "a lot more difficult to buy guns today." There are a few states -- a few -- where it is harder to buy some guns that it was in the past, but since FOPA, and the sunset of the AWB, it actually is easier to buy guns now than it was (more or less) at any time since 1968. (FOPA straightened out some messes made by the GCA.) For the majority of Americans, buying a gun is no more complicated than walking into a gun store, filling out the 4473 and leaving 10 minutes later with their new gun. ANY gun, excepting NFA items. And in the case of rifles and shotguns, they can do that in any state they happen to be standing it (with a very few exceptions), not just their home state.

While buying a gun isn't as simple now as it was up until 1968, and for folks in CA, MA, NJ, IL, and a few other places it may be more difficult if they're looking for a handgun or military-style firearm, I don't agree that it has become much harder to buy a gun than in the past. This is a GOOD time to be shopping!

2) Availability: I don't really know how you can support this assertion. These days there are an unbelievable number of make and models of firearm available to the prospective buyer. Not just a "big three" (four, five ... whatever) of makers but many quality producers. And most of those makers put out a bewildering assortment of models. It may take a buyer a few weeks ... even a few months ... to find EXACTLY this or that gun, if they've got very specific tastes, but anyone who knows enough to be that picky isn't going to be dissuaded by a brief search to find the one they want. Yes, the market and the shelves are pretty bunched up with ARs these days, but if you want a Winchester rifle or a Ruger revolver or a reproduction lever gun in .44-40 -- they're out there and you can have one.

If you're saying a lot of people are going to gun stores, looking around and saying, "Awww, I can't believe they don't have a left-handed Savage 11 in .218 Bee, today! I'm going home, forget this!" well, I don't think that sort of thing happens much. We've got the internet with a handful of nationwide retailers ready to ship you whatever, and gun dealers who will help you scour their networks to find just what you want.

If your complaint is that just what you want is out of production... uh, look, time marches on. I really want an AMC Gremlin. I guess I'm not buying a car because no one seems to make them anymore! Was I really in the car market to begin with? Are there a million folks just like me who will kill the demand curve because they just won't buy a car if they can't have a new Gremlin? I don't think so.

slumping demand...???

who said there was one ??

gun sales today are far above what they were on December 8, 1941AD or even September 12, 2001AD

sooooo.., who said there was one ??

meanwhile in reality

http://money.cnn.com/2015/07/07/news/gun-sales/



busiest june on record

I'm not sure about the thread starter's geographical location, but given his arguments that gun sales are declining, I think his whereabouts are somewhere in La-La land.

Supply and demand dictates everything. If any item is not profitable, they can just shut it down.

Aragon said:

I never made such a premise or limitation. I have never addressed "having" more guns, but the probability of buying additional guns.

Click to expand...

Then why did you quote me immediately above your text? Specifically, why did you quote my reference to the idea of a "boomer glut", or a sharp increase in guns on the used market because boomers (of family, after boomers die) are selling off guns they can no longer use?

Aragon said:

A quick surf through Bud's, a few local gun shops and a couple of local branches of national sporting goods chains shows that supplies have largely recovered.

Click to expand...

LOL...no. Well, OK, things are better than two years ago, but Bud's still runs a very thin inventory. If that's your "recovered" you have a very low standard. It isn't mine.

Bud's is an example of what i was talking about with shops putting every gun on display to make it look like they have full counters, but...I just looked, they have three G4 G19s W/15rd mags in stock. Think about that...a national retailer, and one of the most popular guns on the planet, and they have three in stock. That's their whole inventory of that model. And they leave the listings even after the guns sell, so you can tell that Bud's has never sold Ruger's 4" sp101 in .327 Federal, for example.

Can you imagine Amazon using a unique product listing for each instance of a product they will sell? Brownell's having a unique catalog entry for each 870 barrel in stock? No. Even guitar shops have floor models on display and inventory in the back.

Aragon said:

Who cares if the hoops are "highly regional" -- they still exist -- often in the larger (if not the absolute largest) markets in the US like California.

Click to expand...

I care if they are. I lived in California. Don't any more, but I did. Frankly California is a weird market for reasons that have nothing to do with the law. Guns are very much socially stigmatized there, by most people, to the point where admitting you own guns can be a bit like admitting you eat dogs.

Aragon said:

They have a material impact on gun sales, like it or not.

Click to expand...

A hard to quantify impact, especially long term. Go back to 2000 and tell me the sales outlook for AR pattern rifles. Laws change.

Aragon said:

I was responding to a specific (and incorrect) comment about boomers. It doesn't matter how big of a part of the market they are in this context -- the original comment was wrong.

Click to expand...

What comment were you responding to? I ask because your response doesn't make sense for the comments you quoted. You claim the comment was wrong but it seems like you are.

Aragon said:

Only you are suggesting I am. "Fail" indeed. Given your interesting comments about lack of supply, perhaps it's you that needs to "Go, look at the world"?

Click to expand...

I am suggesting it, though. And if your best example is Bud's, yeah I have looked at the world, and the world has been found wanting.

usfan said:

It's a 20".. got it at bud's since it came up. I have seen them in several places, though.. must be the factory release of inventory.

Click to expand...

The 20" is a genuinely useful all purpose gun. You probably know a lot about it but I'll share my three tips:

1) keep an eye on the screws when shooting full house .454. They do back out.
2) Brownell's sells a spring kit for $25ish. It is a challenge to install (100% possible, but a challenge) but makes it so much easier to find spent brass. It goes from throwing empties 10' to dropping them on your shoes, and improves the trigger too.
3) Stevesgunz.com peep sight.

The 16" didn't really click for me until I held one, but the only way to make it better would be to make it a take-down..

usfan said:

My last 'acquisition' was the new ruger 45c/45acp. I probably couldn't have found it a couple of years ago, because of the shortages or demand. ...

Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure I heard a Ruger exec, interviewed a few years ago on GunTalk or similar, say that Ruger was moving production capacity to hi cap magazines and semi-autos to meet surge demand. That was about when they dropped the .480 and the like. So you probably wouldn't have found it a few years ago because Ruger wasn't actively making that sort of thing even when it was in their catalog.

They are now, which means recovery is starting, but we have a long way to go.

Sam1911 said:

1)
2) Availability: I don't really know how you can support this assertion. These days there are an unbelievable number of make and models of firearm available to the prospective buyer.

Click to expand...

I make that assertion, and stand by it, because it takes months or years to find what I want. There are hundreds of guns I have seen in magazines but never in real life, but more to the point when I find something I would like to own that ends up being a multi-year search as often as not. I'll admit I don't knowingly pay more than MSRP minus a few %, but still....

Background checks hit an altimeter high last month, slump?

A few folks have noticed AR 15 sales are lower than 2012 when 2 "events" spiked sales. Prices are lower and supply plentiful on this one type and folks love to generalize trends. Joe

Ask the 80 percent lower manufacturers how those sales are going.
And ask the component manufacturers how those sales are going.
And ask Palmetto how their upper and lower build kits are selling.

We're seeing a rising proportion of people using kits to complete 80 percent firearms and those numbers do not fall within the NICS dragnet.

Aragon said:

...
The question is How well will gun mfgs. throttle back production to match slumping demand in order to keep prices high?

Click to expand...

Faulty goal, and faulty approach. Gun manufacturers should be [re]focusing their production capacity to keep profits high.

It would be insane for them to throttle back when there is still clearly unmet demand. It looks like some need to shift from ARs to something else, but shifting is not the same as throttling back.

It is also wrong to think highest price = highest profit. Research market elasticity and related concepts. Being able to halve a retail price can double your profit in the right market.

I'm done. I have more guns that I can ever use, and looking back, I can do without half of them. I love guns I love cars also, but 2 new cars are way more than enough for a guy who doesn't drive 10,000 miles per year.
Time to re-evaluate. What is another gun going to do that the others don't. Shoot farther make a larger hole? I don't think very much. cut down to 2 calibers 9 and 45. Plus a couple long guns. what the heck do I do with more of the same, I am not new at this, 4 decades of shooting every kind of shooting sport I was interested in.
It would have to be something really unique, a "game changer".

When I was poorer I had two guns I called my own...a Carl Gustov M96 Mauser made in 1916, and a S&W m37 Chief's Special Airweight from the 1970s. Both had long stories about how I got them. Both were - in my mind anyway - do-it-all self defense target hunting apocalypse guns. Both were pretty marginal for the uses I both had, and envisioned, for them, but they were "all I needed" (because at the time they were all I could see a way to have).

Of course at the time I had basically zero opportunity to shoot. It took me eight years and moving from an urban to rural environment to actually shoot the Mauser the first time. The m37 wasn't quite that bad but it was only taken to a range every few years. Nowadays I shoot/use guns a LOT more (still not as much as I "should") and in a far broader range of circumstances.

Nowadays I have my guns I buy because they can't be taken to California and I want to celebrate being out from under that mess, and the guns I buy to take to California because shooting in wild BLM land is fun, and the guns for working with new shooters, and the guns for being retro, and the guns for specific roles like silencer host, and....and I have more fun this way so I might as well enjoy it while I can.

Ask the 80 percent lower manufacturers how those sales are going.

And ask the component manufacturers how those sales are going.

Click to expand...

has anyone seen the complete 80% kit advertised on MidwayUSA.com ?

if i did not have what i do have (many) i would go for it. ...

The only prices I have observed that have dropped is for ARs. Nothing else has really changed and there still does not seem to be an abundance of firearms at retail stores. So, I am guessing that the alleged sales slump is fiction.

If there is a slump, you reduce production on the stuff that sells slowly or you do it in batches or lots and keep them in inventory until shipped to distributors.

Aragon said:

What if the "slump" continues? Holding higher inventories certainly isn't the answer -- that's very costly. Reducing production is an option but that too can harm a company's revenue and ultimately its profitability.

Click to expand...

Every business, in every field, eventually faces the same choice: Reinvent or die.

Sometimes reinventing means changes to the product, sometimes changes to how the product is sold, and sometimes it is the whole business focus. And not every business can change. Canon and Nikon successfully transitioned from the film to digital camera eras, Kodak and Polaroid not so much.

Aragon said:

In other industries, competitive markets often trigger lowered prices in order to spur sales. That's already happening in the gun market but I'm curious how far it will go?

Click to expand...

Is it? In 2009 I paid $529 for a 20" barrel stainless steel M92 in .454 Casull. Same gun USFAN was recently talking about. I don't know how much he paid but I suspect it is about the same or higher.

About a year ago I bought a Ruger Blackhawk .45acp/.45c convertible for $514. Today they are listed for $532.

A year ago I was seeing Canik 9mm pistols for $299-329. Recently I saw the same model advertised for $399.

In 2007 I could buy AR lower receivers for $50 without much searching, a bit less if I try, and spend up to a few hundred for fancy brands. In 2015 I can do the same.

I don't see a slump in gun prices.

I do see a return to normal for a handful of specific guns that people were speculating would become more legally encumbered.

Aragon said:

If the market for guns was truly open and without stigma, a Glock-like pistol could be purchased for something between $99.99 and $149.99, but that's not the US gun market.

Click to expand...

That's like saying that if restaurants were in an open market without stigma you could have Alinea food at Burger King prices. It just doesn't follow. The market is regulated, yes, but not in a way that forces the outcome you imply.

There are $100-$150 pistols. I can buy a brand new 9mm pistol within that range at any gun show and quite a few shops. That means manufacturers can survive at that price point.

The reason there aren't more $100 pistols is that people are generally willing to pay more. In a world where Canik can command $300 as a total unknown, and creep upwards from there, why would you expect a "Glock-like" pistol to sell for less?

Aragon said:

If the market for guns was truly open and without stigma, a Glock-like pistol could be purchased for something between $99.99 and $149.99, but that's not the US gun market.

Click to expand...

There are pistols in that price range such as HiPoints and Jimenez Arms. The problem with firearms in that range is that they are unrefined and unreliable. There is no way around it; quality costs money. You just can't produce a good reliable firearm for $150, even in an open market. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, granted you know how to produce it or have the equipment and experience to do so.

justice06rr said:

You just can't produce a good reliable firearm for $150, even in an open market.

Click to expand...

Even if you can, if the market is willing to pay $600 for your brand you are going to end up selling for $600.

That is true. I have always wondered how all these poor folks in other countries can afford these fancy smart phones that run hundreds of dollars each even with a contract? Can it be that prices reflect the market they are being sold in?