WestKentucky
Member
Guys like Bill Ruger, Carl Walther, Oliver Winchester...are they rolling in their graves at what their companies have become?
Are company founders rolling in their graves?
- Thread starter WestKentucky
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I doubt it. Sure the fit and finish of all is not the same but it is a business and they produce what people want and afford. Ruger has a very good and economical line of rifles that are very accurate and reliable. The walther ppq and pps are very good reliable firearms. Winchester I am not familiar with but look at the repro levers, I would be happy to own one. Heck, I bet each of them would own a lowly glock to see why it works so well.
22-rimfire
Member
I doubt the founding fathers are rolling in their graves relative to gun control. As you know, there were differences in opinion even then. But it would certainly be interesting if one of the founding father scholars could take a hard look at what this country has evolved into since the late 1700's.
Sunray
Member
Ollie would likely be aghast that his is owned by foreigners now.
The Founding Fathers of your country were all rich white guys. Your civil war had 'em spinning. There being unelected civil servants making law by regulation would too.
The Founding Fathers of your country were all rich white guys. Your civil war had 'em spinning. There being unelected civil servants making law by regulation would too.
Sistema1927
Member
Solomon full well understood this situation almost 3,000 years ago:
"because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil." - Ecclesiastes 2:21 (ESV)
"because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil." - Ecclesiastes 2:21 (ESV)
Dog Soldier
member
I would think they were setting on a fluffy blue cloud smiling. These were all men creating profits from engineering and marketing. Their company profits and stock are at an all time high.
Jim Watson
Member
I think Bill thought you should be able to buy a 15 round magazine. Just a coincidence that was the capacity of his 9mm of the day. He found that if you sup with the Devil, you should bring a long spoon. The Left Liberal politicians cheated him along with the rest of us.
HoosierQ
Member
I read somewhere the Oliver Winchester never fired a gun in his entire life. Not sure if it's true. He was a clothier by trade and a financier. The gun business was a good one to start in back in the 1850s.
Bill Ruger is unjustly criticized about his part of the AWB. Ruger had political connections. The AWB was going to pass, everyone knew that, it was just details that had not been ironed out such as magazine capacity. The most common numbers being suggested were either 5 or 7 rounds. Ruger used his influence to get it to 10 rounds, he and everyone else knew 15 wasn't going to happen. So yes, Ruger was the leader behind getting a 10 round magazine limit. But when you know the whole story it doesn't seem so bad.
Panzerschwein
member
I'd image the tactical line does have Bill Ruger doing gymnastics and spinning like a Polaroid picture in his grave.
Acera
Member
It is not just the AWB stuff that makes me glad bill Rugers is dead, but a combination of a lot of his other actions and statements.
Two best days of the companies history, day he founded it and the day he died.
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Two best days of the companies history, day he founded it and the day he died.
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J-Bar
Member
That is a bit harsh.
Tomorrow I will be playing cowboy with a pair of his Old Army percussion revolvers. In a couple of weeks I will be in a deer stand with one of his #1 rifles. His company's products provide a lot of fun for a lot of people. Give the man credit for being a good gun designer and a savvy businessman, at least.
It's not all about Bill Ruger, who is commonly trash talked because of one statement cherry picked at a politically opportune time.
He didn't write the AWB but did design, build, and manufacture guns, first and foremost. If we want to discuss how gun design changed from a makers first marketable model, how about Sam Colt? It wasn't that long before his company landed a major government contract building the 1911. They went from improving rotating cylinder guns with an inefficient bulky overall shape to one with the bullets stored in detachable magazines in the grip, operating a moving slide that reloaded by recoil, with a capacity larger than was previously possible. Major design change and a major change in manufacturing, too.
He was likely spinning trying to keep up with the massive change in America going from a benchmade shop production to Industrial Age factory - and even the factory itself was larger in proportions than most buildings in town. Colt was using machinery that Sam Colt would not even see invented.
Wonder how he would appreciate watching a cold hammer forged barrel machine operate? It's what is used in nearly all handguns and most rifles in first tier manufacturing. MIM? That would keep him up at nights and there's no telling where he would land on that subject. And then there is the realization that foreign makers in some inconceivable locations would copy the 1911 - Turkey? The Philippines? Eastern Europe? And that Americans might prefer them because of costs? Much less revolvers from Italy or Spain.
Explain to Sam Colt why someone would buy from offshore, a foreign import lookalike gun which is a copy of what his factory was making. He'd have to accept that guns have become a commodity item, not specialty manufacturing, and that "the common man" is what made that market exist. Half price guns from overseas just like his?
Lots of questions and speculation about what an early founder might think about things. What should be apparent is that they have their own prejudices about how things should be - they invented their particular model, not what someone else did, and they offered it to the public with their name on it. It was highly personal in their startup years, but later? That's when companies have to change to an administrative system of oversight that choose the better answers - like Colt making 1911s, which were nothing like what Sam Colt started with. At some point you have to let go of what you created and allow it to move in ways you never saw coming. Just like children. And about all you can do is support them doing well, regardless of how you think it should be done.
Lead, follow, or get out of the way. Ruger as a company has made that transition and survived quite well. So did Colt. It's the ones who don't survive their founder which are failures. Those guys are the ones who may not rest so peaceably.
He didn't write the AWB but did design, build, and manufacture guns, first and foremost. If we want to discuss how gun design changed from a makers first marketable model, how about Sam Colt? It wasn't that long before his company landed a major government contract building the 1911. They went from improving rotating cylinder guns with an inefficient bulky overall shape to one with the bullets stored in detachable magazines in the grip, operating a moving slide that reloaded by recoil, with a capacity larger than was previously possible. Major design change and a major change in manufacturing, too.
He was likely spinning trying to keep up with the massive change in America going from a benchmade shop production to Industrial Age factory - and even the factory itself was larger in proportions than most buildings in town. Colt was using machinery that Sam Colt would not even see invented.
Wonder how he would appreciate watching a cold hammer forged barrel machine operate? It's what is used in nearly all handguns and most rifles in first tier manufacturing. MIM? That would keep him up at nights and there's no telling where he would land on that subject. And then there is the realization that foreign makers in some inconceivable locations would copy the 1911 - Turkey? The Philippines? Eastern Europe? And that Americans might prefer them because of costs? Much less revolvers from Italy or Spain.
Explain to Sam Colt why someone would buy from offshore, a foreign import lookalike gun which is a copy of what his factory was making. He'd have to accept that guns have become a commodity item, not specialty manufacturing, and that "the common man" is what made that market exist. Half price guns from overseas just like his?
Lots of questions and speculation about what an early founder might think about things. What should be apparent is that they have their own prejudices about how things should be - they invented their particular model, not what someone else did, and they offered it to the public with their name on it. It was highly personal in their startup years, but later? That's when companies have to change to an administrative system of oversight that choose the better answers - like Colt making 1911s, which were nothing like what Sam Colt started with. At some point you have to let go of what you created and allow it to move in ways you never saw coming. Just like children. And about all you can do is support them doing well, regardless of how you think it should be done.
Lead, follow, or get out of the way. Ruger as a company has made that transition and survived quite well. So did Colt. It's the ones who don't survive their founder which are failures. Those guys are the ones who may not rest so peaceably.
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