Do you think the quality of firearms is declining?

As I have said before, have friends that work at "The Arms" (Remington). They seem to have a ship first, fix later mentality. The workers know what to reject at times and are overruled by management. I could be specific, but then it might not be good for those I know working there. My uncle and grandfather both worked for Remington as well. I still buy their stuff, but I usually buy locally so I can look it over first.

Back in the good ol’ days...

It cuts both ways in my mind.

I will say this it’s as easy as falling off a turnip truck in getting an MOA shooter in a budget rifle. That was not the case “back in the good ol’ days.” The performance (in certain areas) of today’s firearms when they have the kinks of manufacturing worked out is superior, I would say in general.

But I’ve said it in other threads often we are the final testing stage for new firearms. Just take a look at the threads that talk about someone having issues with their XYZ brand firearm and it doesn’t take long for someone to say, “Just call XYZ they’ll take care of you, XYZ has some of the best customer service out there.”

We also have the internet and social media outlets where we hear very quickly and with great amount how new products are doing. It’s not like back when one ordered froM a catalog waited 10 weeks to receive a firearm in the mail. Things move faster these days.

But as far as fit and finish (look and feel) the old stuff generally blows everything away (blued steel, all edges debured, polished and factory broke in). But there are finishes today that are much better wear resistant (melonite, tenifer, duracoat, cerakote, etc) and finishes that clean up easier (nickel boron, nitriding, etc.). Now some of these have been around for a while but haven’t been used extensively.

Most of the new firearms I buy, before they ever get shot get taken apart and polished and debured by myself. I’ve just got used to it sadly, but when I see what I bought it’s easy to see a couple hours of work makes a big difference in look and performance.

I have no doubt there have always been one kind of issue or another, but the internet has made finding stories of those issues much easier.

On the other hand, any time you reduce the skilled labor force used to hand assemble a product, and instead rely on machines to do it, or unskilled labor, things are bound to decline in quality. But the manufactures need to maintain their profit margins, and it isn't 1920 anymore. So I guess I don't hold it against them.

The good old days were not that good in regards to as an example Smith&Wesson of the late nineteen sixties and early seventies. I was on first name basis with customer service manager at S&W. They meaning Smith&Wesson had quality control issues/issues/issues thus were shipping out junk on a regular basis. Todays market place is different. The old days are gun when the dominate handgun was a double action revolver now its the semiautomatic pistol Glock-SIG-S&W and others.

Sadly, we're getting used to inferior products and just take them as the norm. I don't remember any gun company 30-40 years ago telling you to not expect the gun to work properly until you have x number of rounds through it.

Older S&W's will always be prized for their superior lockwork, fit and finish.

I think the whole industry, like others, has become victim to "marketing." Yes, there have been substantial improvements in some aspects of the shooting sports--new cartridges, better optics, composites for stock manufacturing, etc.--but there has also been a parallel increase in the idea that "if it isn't new, it's old fashioned." So the industry is fragmented, and companies push a proliferation of easy-to-manufacture products rather than focusing on truly superior design and execution. Mass marketing has come to the industry.

That has some good aspects. For instance, it's hard to argue that an AR isn't in "common use." There are tons of them. And while there may be fewer hunters each year, there seem to be more shooters ... or at least people buying guns. So when we talk about "average quality," we have to remember that there are high end gun makers whose quality is outstanding (and spendy) and others who cater to the needs and wants of a fragmented and, at the lower end, price sensitive and less-informed market.

The major manufacturers are giving us what "the market" wants and is willing to pay for. It's just that the denizens of The High Road are more informed than the general gun-buying public.

I think today one can buy some of the highest quality firearms ever made. One can also buy some that are pretty crummy.

Nope, do not think quality has declined. Overall, probably higher quality than in the past, due to better metallurgy, CNC methods, and inspection processes.

Compare cheap-ass guns from the past to today. A Hi Point is so awful it gives me hives. But they do work. They don't break into pieces, wear out rifling after 50 rounds, etc. Hell, even the no-name war zone knockoffs are getting rather good, because they are made in factories set up the way factories are in this century. Now, go back to cheap pistols of the post war era. Things like pot metal parts, that would indeed break under normal use.

There may be some definitions of quality that matter. Fine blueing and wood is less common, but that's not necessarily quality as it matches utility. How is a working rifle made better by fragile finishes and stocks that change the POI when it's humid?

And the top end still exists, if you wish to pay for it. Think it's prohibitively expensive? Worth looking at inflation calculators before you make that judgement. Being lazy, this is the first one I ran across, but please feel free to find your own examples for rifles:

A broomhandle mauser, with nice wood, nice blueing, and lots of hand fitting of parts, is for sale for $35 in 1899. But the way inflation works, that's about the same as $1100 today. Which is pretty on par with a nice quality service pistol today, and there's a range of totally acceptable ones running down to under half that price, retail.


If you think you hear lots more issues with guns: That's bias at work. Your brain tricking you. Some is that you hear about every issue now we're all connected up. A lot is simply forgetting what happened in the past, because we're set up to recall current, localized threats.

Think again how many designs, and companies, went entirely away for being awful? Think hard about how much bad stuff big and revered makers did in the past; just two from Colt are the Double Eagle and All American 2000. Awful guns.

Yes, there are still custom gun makers that will sell you a blued, hand fitted rifle for about the same money (adjusted for inflation) as a pre-64 Winchester cost back in the day.

CNC machining and engineering has enabled gun makers to make a product that is mechanically equal, if not a little better, than in the old days. And a hell of a lot cheaper. Just not as pretty.

I was at the range a couple of months ago and a guy showed me his new to him pre-64 Winchester featherlight in 270. He was as proud as a peacock. Then he showed me a target that he had just shot. Maybe a 2" 3-shot group. His response was "good enough for hunting".

commygun said:

Finishes are certainly declining. Polycoats and matte finishes instead of the bluing common to even pedestrian guns in days of yore.

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I certainly agree with this post. When looking at tables full of new firearms at the Tulsa Gun Show, I rarely see one that catches my eye. That doesn't necessarily mean a drop in quality; that being a subjective appraisal. On the plus side, many barrels are better coming out of the factory. The out-of-the-box accuracy has improved because buyers have demanded it. Because of the readily available information on the Internet, buyers can pick what they want. I've bought several new and a few used guns (rifles, shotguns, pistols) over the last few years and I do think my older ones are better, both in appearance and function. My new ones are mostly very good shooters as are all of my older ones. Only returned one rifle, a Savage Model 25 in 22 Hornet. Savage made a new one that works and looks fine. And as I think about it, quality is for sale everywhere; you just have to pay for it.

Elkins45 said:

but the actual functional quality of guns is better than it ever was.

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Agree with this..

I think quality is better, they are not as pretty though. Blue steel did not die as a cost cutter, it died because it did not prevent rust nearly as well the new finishes. That was its original purpose, to prevent rust. Wood went the same way. People were spending extra money to buy replacement stocks on guns. Manufacturers saw and adjusted to the market, by the way they charged extra to do this and people wanted and bought them.

As far as quality, revolvers stayed around as long as they did as the predominant hand gun because autos were not considered reliable. Watching a friend of mine try to get a 1911 to shoot JHP in the mid 80s was a horror story. An expensive horror story.

Personally, I think we are living in a golden age of firearms.

The best thing about "The Good Old Days" is remembering them they way we want, not the way they really were.

I managed a gun store / indoor shooting range in the early 1980's. The quality of S&W revolvers sucked so bad we had to send many back for repair before we would put them out to sell.

I have a beautiful, unfired nib S&W Model 25-5 4" barrel with blue finish. Sure is a nice looking gun. Probably will not shoot worth a hoot as the cylinder throats are way oversize. I brought it when they first came out as a duty gun but department policy required .38 or .357 so I never shot it. After I learned about the oversize throat problem left it as a safe queen. I'll sell it one day to someone that ohs and aws about the bluing, wood grips, pinned barrel being in the box with the paperwork.

In 1996 I brought my grail gun...a new nickel plated Colt SAA in 45 Colt. Absolutely a total piece of junk. Nickel peeled off the gun, cylinder throats .457 - .458". Even Bob Munden could not get it shoot accurately. Colt refused to do anything about the cylinder returning it with a note saying the gun was within specs.

Personally I also think we are living in "The Golden Age of Firearms."

For those of us that live in Free States we can pretty much buy anything we want given our bank account can stand it.

You want a rifle with wonderful bright blue finish and beautiful well figured walnut? Just buy one. They are out there. In fact with the Internet, Firearm Discussion Forums and Gunbroker you probably will not have to search very long.

Or how about a weatherproof stainless steel rifle with synthetic stock and high quality optics that will survive a two week hunting trip in rainy, cold weather such as the Northwest or Alaska with no maintenance? Again easy to find with lot of choices.

Handguns? How much can your bank account stand? How about a Freedom Arms Single Action Revolver? Arguably the highest quality S.A. made. Or a custom 1911 from Wilson Combat?

On the other end for a inexpensive (not cheap quality), reliable simple to operate pistol look no farther than the High Point C9. The dang things work well and are accurate enough to hit the intended target. YouTube videos show them doing incredibly stupid things to them to make them quit working and the dang things "take a licking and keep on ticking."

It was not that long ago that a new 1911 needed a trip to gunsmith before they were reliable for self-defense.

Each generation and sexes have different preferences. I don't particularly care for the polymer, striker fired semi-autos. However my wife loves her S&W M&P 9mm. (Since I believe "2 is 1 and 1 is None" I sucked up and brought her a second one as backup).

I am trying to adjust to Smith & Wesson new revolvers with the two piece barrel and other changes. The biggest reason I have not brought one is I absolutely hate the Internal Lock. However my interest in the Model 69 keeps growing and if I take the plunge I will remove the I.L. (and wonder why I brought the dang thing when shooting it).

BSA1 said:

The best thing about "The Good Old Days" is remembering them they way we want, not the way they really were.

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This is a big part in this discussion. My 80 year old buddy recently bought a pre-'64 Winchester for $900 and considered it a great deal. The gun had had a lot of engraving and stock carving and was worth, to a collector, much less than a pristine one. My buddy went on and on about how accurate the "old" rifles were, but we were not able to get this one to shoot inside two inches, despite having a really good looking bore.
An old, old gunsmith years ago told me that one in four M70's was a shooter out of the box. The rest needed some work. He went on to say that many of the old timers remembered wrong about Winchester's accuracy...My buddy also bought a Ruger American in 6.5cm that shot well under an inch, right out of the box, for under $500. He now says, and I agree, that it is crude and ugly, compared to the Winchester.

Others have already stated my thoughts.
I wasn't around for any of the good ole days but I imagine the internet makes it more visible just how many "clunkers" there are. I bet in 1950 you got a gun and if it worked for you and the handful of other folks you knew that had one you thought it was as good as can be, even when it may have been, by today's standards, a bad gun. I think manufacturing methods have gotten a lot better so we see products that perform more consistently.

On the flip side, companies probably DO try to squeeze the most profit out by spending as little time testing as possible. As someone else said, they're using customers as beta testers but overall I'd wager guns are probably better.

The number of home built and pieced together ARs on gun sites is what bugs me. That and you see the title for a gun you might want only to find out it’s been altered because the owner thought it was Kool and now can’t sell it because of such

BSA1 said:

The best thing about "The Good Old Days" is remembering them they way we want, not the way they really were.

Personally I also think we are living in "The Golden Age of Firearms."

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I agree that the quality of firearms are constantly improving... due to better metallurgy, computer design, CNC machining and most of all the litigious nature of our current society (like it or not).

"The Golden Age of Firearms." was the 90's after the wall fell and you could buy battle proven finely engineered and built fire arms for mere pennies of their manufacturing costs!

commygun said:

Finishes are certainly declining. Polycoats and matte finishes instead of the bluing common to even pedestrian guns in days of yore.

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This is absolutely true. For a milestone birthday gift last year, I selected a new Classic Series Smith and Wesson Chief's Special/Model 36. As a gift, the gun will have a special place in my collection, but I can honestly say that the blued finish is lower in quality than the new Taurus Model 82 .38 Special I bought a few years ago.

As to the overall quality question posed by the OP, I don't know. I think that Chief's Special is probably a very good gun. One of the best performing S&W revolvers I owned was a Classic Series lock model 586, which I traded recently for another collectible. But that gun was built maybe 10 years ago, so maybe the quality has declined since then. I've lately been carrying a Kimber Micro 9 and I'm impressed with the quality. Going back to my first comment about finish, the Micro 9 is, IMO, an example of how modern gun makers can make a weapon look really nice and classy without relying on the labor and skill intensive bluing process.

Finishes are certainly declining. Polycoats and matte finishes instead of the bluing common to even pedestrian guns in days of yore.

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If you look at more durable finishes as “bad”.

Jeff Burgess said:

The number of home built and pieced together ARs on gun sites is what bugs me. That and you see the title for a gun you might want only to find out it’s been altered because the owner thought it was Kool and now can’t sell it because of such

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This post brings up another point for me. When the AR craze first emerged a number of years ago and not knowing anything about them, I didn't have much interest in buying one. But, I have followed the evolution of them and have to say, God bless American capitalism and the free market!! The quality and variety of available useful features is nothing short of amazing; in fact it is overwhelming. Having acquired a desire for one for coyote hunting, I'm warming to the idea of owning one. I plan to take a young, very knowledgable friend with me to a shop that builds custom models. The young friend to help with decisions. I can get target grade barrel, a trigger to my liking, and a few sensible features along with a smooth functioning bolt assembly. Will also get a custom finish. Found this vendor at the Tulsa gun show and delighted to learn that he is only a 30 minute drive from my home. He ships the rifles to a shop in Wichita for the custom finish. All of this is now available that was not even heard of a couple of decades ago. The guy told me that he decided to offer this finish to customers and bought 20 of them to start. He sold 19 of them in 2 weeks and has lots of custom orders he is working on. I'll have to wait in line.

adcoch1 said:

I think we just have the internet now, and we hear about all the problems. Also, new models are coming out all the time, and so many companies buy parts from other suppliers, you just can't rely on a brand name any more. Plus our expectations are higher than they used to be. So overall, no, I don't think guns are getting worse, but we hear about all the growing pains. I do believe some companies sacrifice quality with the materials used, but they are trying to sell to a price we can afford.

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I think we have the Internet and hear about all of the RUMORS as well. The Net makes the old "telephone game" pale by comparison. WAY to many third, fourth, thousandth hand retelling of something someone heard once from a buddy's friend who had an uncle whose bartender saw something once......
Add in the the current patience level of a gnat, the demand for instantaneous gratification and above all, wanting top-tier quality for bargain basement pricing and you get today's gun market and makers trying to please everyone all the time - an impossible task. Folks WANT quality, they just don't want to pay for it.

This is one of those threads that are so subjective that it’s hard to pin anything down.

Is nostalgia a factor? Of course. Just imagine how many Winchester fans in 1966 were shouting how lousy the guns are now compared to three years earlier... even though most Winchester rifles back in 1963 weren’t tack-driving accurate (to be kind). New FN made Winchester rifles gun-to-gun are better at putting bullets into small groups than the pre 1964 ones were.

I, too recall the days when almost every Colt 1911 .45 I saw being shot was very finicky with anything other than GI type hardball. My current S.A’s and Ruger 1911 pattern pistols have been boringly accurate and reliable with everything they have been fed... right out of their boxes. No additional tweaking needed.

I also remember a LOT more gunsmiths, there was one (or more) in just about every town. Now they’re hard to find. Is this a product of better reliability with modern-made stuff or just the slow dying out of a craft, I really don’t know.

On the other hand, Look up how many times Remlin has been used as a curse word to describe Marlin rifles. Off kilter sights, ill-fitting stocks, poor polishing under bluing, actions gritty and rough coming out of the box, etc. That is a direct product of cutting corners and working for bean counters and share holders and not for the pride in your company’s reputation. In this case Marlin quality has suffered, and I won’t be buying one without a JM on the barrel. Nothing clouded by nostalgia in this case, Cerberus sacrificed a lot in order to turn a profit on their takeover. Maybe they’ll get it right, but I’ll let others roll the dice on those guns.

There are pluses and minuses to older and modern firearms, but on the whole I think modern guns are made and operate just as good, if not better, than older ones.

Stay safe.

I've spent the last 20+ years of my career doing process improvement in multiple industries.

Some industries "get it" and some don't. The auto industry does get it, mostly fueled by competition from Toyota which is absolutely fierce about constantly doing process improvement. They have done process improvement so well and so long that US manufacturers are at a substantial production cost disadvantage, and likely will never catch up.

If the firearms industry had been doing the same, a firearm with a defect would be a rarity, and the price in constant dollars would decline year over year. We're not seeing that.

Cost of Poor Quality, COPQ, is the cost of all scrap, rework, customer support that would be unnecessary if the product were perfect, canceled development projects, and unproductive meetings. Hewlett-Packard estimated that their COPQ was around 37%. As quality goes up, costs go down and customer satisfaction goes up.

If I could find a firearms company that really wanted to change, I'd be overjoyed to help them.

I'm just disappointed that the prices are increasing in direct proportion to the quality's decline. I pull out my 36 (adjustable sight, 3" square butt) and compare it to my 442. Yeeks. My 29-2 compared to my buddies late 29. My 1952 Model 70 and my 2000 Model 70. (stock on the latter fits better and does have better figure but the action is gritty).

I remember Ruger M77 rifles for $279 in the early '80's. Yes they had wood stocks and blued finish. If you were lucky you got a 2 moa rifle.

Now you can get a Savage, Mossberg, or other rifles in that same price range that are tack drivers. Sure they're not much to look at but what's the real purpose of a rifle?

That Ruger, in today's dollars would cost $728. Those Savage and Mossberg rifles are $105 in 1982 dollars. A 10/22 was about that price back then.

While I love a nice looking gun when it comes down to dollars on the counter I'll take function over form any day.