Why No Ruger Lever Action Replicas?

The Ruger model 96 was in 44 magnum, but it didn't look like a classic lever action.

The market is already saturated with options such as the Henry and Marlin. For historic models, Uberto and Petroeselli from Italy have that covered. Just no market.

I want to agree, but the market is already flooded with 1911's and AR's. That didn't stop Ruger from making these. I don't know why they never did. But I'd bet a replica of a Savage 99 would sell.

I'd also like to see Ruger come out with a tough dependable pump shotgun at a moderate price. Something a step up from the 870 Express and Mossberg 500, but priced less than a Wingmaster.

Ya they had the 96 with the rotary mag, but it didn't sell well enough for Ruger to keep producing them.

Costs a ton to tool up a new production line, I'll guess they don't see enough of a market to fire a line up

jmr40 said:

I want to agree, but the market is already flooded with 1911's and AR's. That didn't stop Ruger from making these. I don't know why they never did. But I'd bet a replica of a Savage 99 would sell.

I'd also like to see Ruger come out with a tough dependable pump shotgun at a moderate price. Something a step up from the 870 Express and Mossberg 500, but priced less than a Wingmaster.

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Ruger has a subsidiary that does castings for a number of companies making 1911's--so required little in tooling or investment. AR's have become generic and the whole design was made for cheaper and easier construction--again, easy to Ruger to enter with little investment.

Ruger's specialty has been making and using cast receivers and then doing minimal machining. It may simply be that Ruger's strengths do not match up with making lever actions at a profit that Ruger finds reasonable.

Outside of the CAS/SASS/whatever-cowboy-style-shooting crowd, is it really that big of a market for lever actions? Seems to me that the majority of the (younger) shooters jump on the AR/semi-auto carbine platform.

Speedo66

Probably because of initial start up costs might be too prohibitive to bring a quality lever action to the market place. They may also think that there's not enough of an active market to get their investment back out of it. Less expensive to make ARs and synthetic stocked bolt action rifles than a blued steel and wood stocked lever action.

The cost of tooling and the final product machining. Besides, they are probably at capacity making what they supposedly do best, why branch off?

Because I’ll died and idiots are running the company into the ground.

The folks at Ruger aren't dumb. They saw that Marlin didn't make it selling lever action rifles, and decided that they didn't want to go down that same rat hole. And just how many lever actions does Winchester/USRAC/Miroku sell these days when the racks of just about every gun store in the nation are well supplied with used Model 94 carbines?

The lever action was headed for the last roundup except for deer hunting calibers. Then came the cowboy action groups and the renewed interest in western firearms. Since then 1860 Henry, 1866,1873,1876 and so on Winchester repros have been covered by the Italians pretty well. Brazil has also covered the Model 92 quite well. Japanese Winchester's are great guns, but very expensive. So really no profit for someone else to jump in there.

And as mentioned, you can buy or build a really nice MSR for a lot cheaper than you can buy a Winchester repro. Just an 1866 Uberti is close to, or over $1000.00 now.

Mizar said:

Outside of the CAS/SASS/whatever-cowboy-style-shooting crowd, is it really that big of a market for lever actions? Seems to me that the majority of the (younger) shooters jump on the AR/semi-auto carbine platform.

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That is a good question.

I was in the market for a new 1894c several years ago. Just for the nostalgia of it and having 357 handguns. After I couldn't find one locally, I started thinking about the Ruger 77/357. So much for nostalgia.

A couple years ago, Gallery of Guns mistakenly listed Rugers old 44 mag. lever gun. I kinda wondered back then if that was a way to gauge customer interest in such a gun?

I could see Ruger entering the traditional lever market if Marlin ends up going out of business.

That's assuming they or some other corporation doesn't buy up the remnants of Marlin and "reboots" it.

Whatever happened to all the I need a 'Mare's Leg' folks?
I would have a bit of interest in a Winchester 95 in a carbine length that shoots 7.62x ??

Market analyses and trends.

jeepnik said:

Because I’ll died and idiots are running the company into the ground.

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That's comical. Ruger has no debt, runs on cash and has turned a profit every year of its existence.

Who'd have thought there was a market for single action cowboy revolvers?

If Ruger did lever guns, they'd probably have plastic stocks, but be much cheaper than a Henry.

Youngster said:

That's assuming they or some other corporation doesn't buy up the remnants of Marlin and "reboots" it.

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That already happened, hence the term Remlin.

It would seam to me somebody is going to figure out that people are foaming at the mouth for a 357 mag lever gun with a side loading gate. Someone here hinted that Henry is coming out with a side loading rifle finally. If it's not as butt ugly as a big boy, and not called a silly name like a big boy, I'll probably be interested.

Mizar said:

Outside of the CAS/SASS/whatever-cowboy-style-shooting crowd, is it really that big of a market for lever actions? Seems to me that the majority of the (younger) shooters jump on the AR/semi-auto carbine platform.

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Just a minor point: Around here where I live, lever actions have become extremely popular. The reason is that up until a couple years ago, you could not deer hunt with a rifle. It was shotgun slug, muzzleloader, or handguns. In Ohio, there is a list of specific cartridges that are allowed. They are all supposed to be straight walled cartridges so for example the .30-30 is not a legal caliber. Anyway, as soon as it became legal to use rifles, everybody I know (including me) immediately bought a Marlin lever action rifle in .45/70. A lot of people I talked to wanted to buy a .444 Marlin but couldn't get one. I know several other states around here did basically the same thing. So on a regional level, lever action rifles may have very well become the most popular rifle sold for the last two or three years.

If I had known back then that the Ruger rotary magazine was long enough for a 320gr WFN, I would've bought a 96/44. I just wish they'd been stocked in walnut instead of birch.

444 said:

A lot of people I talked to wanted to buy a .444 Marlin but couldn't get one.

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Kind of funny, the 444 fell by the wayside over the years, but if it was released as a new caliber today in the 336 it would probably be a big hit in the straight wall states.

The later .444's with the 1-20" twist have a lot going for them.

The old 1:38 guns have a lot going for them also.
This might come as a shock to you, but I have owned a .444 Marlin for years

A guy was telling me that he was at a gun store about an hour away from here and they had contracted with somebody (I think he said, CVA) to build them an exclusive version of their single shot rifle in .444 Marlin and this one fairly small store, in a small town sold 300 of them last year.

I guess he must be talking about some variation of this: https://cva.com/product/scout-444-marlin-stainless-steel-with-camo-stocks/