Not every auto assembly line worker is a race car driver.
Face it. Much of the stuff needed to assemble a firearm could be done with trained monkeys.
A lifetime ago (or maybe 7 years...) I left my high-stress 6 figures job in the insurance industry to focus on my divorce and relocation. I was living in the Prescott, AZ area and needed a manual labor job with enough pay to cover expenses while I sold my house and got ready to move North.
I saw an opening at Ruger Firearms through SOS Staffing, which was a temp agency.
Basically, you applied at SOS, then filled out a questionnaire, then took a test. Based on your score, you were placed somewhere in the Ruger plant in Prescott.
The highest scores resulted in being placed as a CNC Operator at $12.50 an hour. The lower scoring people were placed in the polishing department at $8 an hour.
I was a former Naval Aviation Structural Mechanic and very mechanically inclined, did well on the test, so I was offered a job as a CNC Operator. I was placed on the line that made trigger bars for the SR series. We also made sights and did some machining on slides. I was in a group of 10 or so other men. We worked 10-12 hour days, 5-6 days a week.
I was the only one in my group that even owned a firearm, much less understood how the part I was making impacted the operation of a firearm. Every other man on my team was under 25 years old and was Hispanic, except for one black guy that I became friends with. All of them had been working there less than 6 months. My "boss" was a white guy in his 50's that had been there 3 years.
All the guys on my team knew was how to push the buttons and use the supplied jigs to make sure the part was within spec. None of them had the knowledge I did in how radiusing a corner relieved stress on the part, or how a second longer in buffing an edge could make all the difference in the world on trigger feel.
My supervisor recognized the value in my knowledge and experience and tried to get me to become a full-fledged Ruger employee, but I could see how the middle-management at the plant was completely ignorant of firearms and dismissive of quality. I have a few stories of total incompetence and failure at Ruger that I witnessed. Besides, becoming a Ruger employee meant receiving a mediocre increase in pay and mediocre health benefits. I quit after three months and moved North.
The point being: There is a huge difference in employing someone who can push buttons on a machine and someone who is knowledgeable about how firearms work and has a passion for them. Most firearms manufacturers don't care one bit about employing quality people and only care about the bottom line.
