Anyone who has perused these forums long enough will undoubtedly encounter posters lamenting the loss of yet another respectable gun company who sold out. This can be for various reasons, including but not limited to cutting corners/cheapening the final product, siding with anti-gun legislators, refusing to sell certain products to civilians, etc.
I am having trouble following what John Wayne is trying to ascertain. He wants to know what companies have "sold out," then mixing issues of quality control, product development, limited customer base, and/or political issues. In other words, a firearms company that does just about anything that we don't like is a company that has "sold out."
"Selling out" is the process of taking a side for profit, betraying the wants or needs of a person or persons who don't benefit. Sellouts are often those who change sides for gain or profit, though I have seen posters in the past claiming to be "sold out" by the opposition, which really isn't being sold out as much as benefitting from a position they already support.
Just because a company does something you don't like doesn't make it a sellout.
What gun companies haven't "sold out?"
I found it very interesting that JW noted Winchester going down hill in '64, but had not heard of anything bad about Remington. As has been quite the story of late, Remington cut corners back in 1947 on the Rem 700 and related lines by not opting to add a 5.5 cent improvement to the Walker fire control system that would have kept the gun from being able to fire for reasons other than pulling the trigger.
I was also suprised not to see 1970s Colt being included in quality control issues. He did include Colt for the smart gun technology Colt toyed with for several years which quite to the contrary has turned out to show how problematic such technology is on numerous levels and has helped to squash some of its demand.
So S&W sided with the Clintons and we were all up in arms because S&W put locking mechanisms in their fire control system which did not have to used by the customer, but everyone hated them for giving gun owner the option of locking the gun in that manner or not.
Kimber has been accused for its selling of specialty 1911s to departments in CA where the government is unfriendly towards its citizens on gun issues.
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=372284&highlight=S&W+boycott
The same went for Colt, S&W, Glock ...
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=309136&highlight=S&W+boycott
A boycott was called for Glock when it stopped selling to an importer for Canada.
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=323146&highlight=S&W+boycott
FN ...
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=312595&highlight=S&W+boycott
RRA
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=216090&highlight=S&W+boycott
I can't recall anything mentioned about the following companies, but something has probably been said:
Remington - trigger locks, quality
Springfield Armory - trigger locks
Aside from H&K "hating everyone" with their restrictive gun sales, I found it laughable that so many pro-gun folks who talk about protecting their rights were so up in arms against H&K for protecting their intellectual property by stopping GSG and others from making H&K pattern or lookalike guns. The irony is just amazing.
I also find it a bit ironic that nobody was crying foul when Colt was stealing Kahr's designs to use in Colt guns like the Pocket 9, but were mad at Kahr for protecting its rights.
Speaking of Kahr, I seem to recall the cries for boycott because Kahr's owner was the son of the founder of the Moonies, the Moonies being anti-gun, not that Kahr's owner was active with the Unification Church or anything like that, but simply because he was the son of Sun Myung Moon and therefore is likely influenced by an anti-gun organization.
In my mind Seecamp comes as close as any company who has never sold out to cost cutting, laws, OR lawyers.
I seem to recall that Seecamp's original little .32 was developed with the use of just one cartridge, Winchester Silvertips and often would not work well with any other make or model. Talk about limiting a gun owner's options! Okay, I actually don't see anything wrong with the dedicated cartridge from a rights perspective, but if folks wanted to cry foul about Ruger's limited mag capacity and with gun lock-friendly companies, then to be fair, you have to also include Seecamp.
I swear, we are some awfully fickle, judgmental, and shortsighted folks sometimes.