Good Times seem to be over for the firearms industry for now

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gdnagle

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First off lets not get political about this. Well it looks like the last 8 years were good for the firearm industry and scabbers. We had a good salesmen for firearms. With the fear of banned firearms and the run on ammunition the manufactures went into overdrive. Then the scabbers were out buying up all they could get and resell at extremely inflated prices. Remember 30 round Magpul selling for upwards of $50 each now you can find them at less the $10 each. AR's and AK's double in price when you found them and the biggest of all .22LR. Seems like the firearm industry is taken a turn with all the rebates and price drops. Look at the shield, it can be had for just over $200 with the rebate, I got hooked on this one with the $75 rebate. Looks like the trend will continue at least for 4 more years. I don’t need anymore but for the right price I may change my mind.

Here's a list of some of the latest casualties. I hate to see anyone lose their job.

March 2017- Federal Ammunition lays off 110 employees, cancels hiring of others and returns $1.13 Million Dollars.

March 2017- Remington Arms lays off 122 workers after laying off 241 workers in 2014. Also makes plans to move production out of New York State.

March 2017- Colt Firearms announces layoffs at their custom shop including the director and most of their staff.

March 2017- Howell Munitions maker of Freedom Munitions, & X Treme Bullets announces lay offs due to softening market.

February 2017- SilencerCo announces roughly 50% of their employees will be laid off.

January 2017- Olympic Arms best known for their AR-15's announces they are laying off all workers and going out of business.

What’s wrong with the Firearms Industry ? - GAT Daily (Guns Ammo Tactical)
 
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Panic buying in 2008/09 again in 2012 and later in 2013 (SH)......Panic buying to get a gun/ammo .... but most folks only see the need for one maybe two.

Lot of those guns went into sock drawers or closets......many unfired.

IMO the market was probably saturated, or close to it, back in 2013/14...... except for those just turning 18/21..... and they/most don't have a lot of money.
 
Maybe they will slow down now, and start doing things the right way. Some companies seemed to "keep the faith" while others were carried away with greed. CZ, Savage, and Mossberg are among those that did well IMV, others like big green and our own S&W-not so much.
 
Outside of buying/building several AR 15 I haven't bought anything (new) since 2004. I just found another 1k rds of WWB 9mm in a .50 cal can I thought was empty. I bought them in a 13,500 rd lot from Bass Pro for $4 a box. The gun/ammo manufacturers don't "know" their market. It ain't WalMart "stack it high and some mope will want it" model. The stampede behavior on our part is stupid but we don't know not to run when there is no lion around. On their part, they gear production to news cycles. Right now the only message is "graze away, ain't no lion anywhere in sight." Until next time. Crazy. 50 years ago S&W kept the doors open by making 1K model 14's, then 1K 15's, then 1K 18's. In a revolver world everybody got what they wanted. Now it's "short term finance-produce overcapacity-sell and cut prices-layoff." $.02 please, although somebody can do it for half price. Joe
 
You know I have been telling my friends and family that this would happen with the transition of administration since November as I'm sure of most you speculated as well. What blows my mind is how many people still to this day don't see or recognize the changes in the market already, much less know about all the layoffs and production changes. I'm glad to read that the folks of this forum and others like it, can think for themselves and as Bob Dylan once put it "...don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows".

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Something I would add and this is just what I have seen lately or at least my interpretation. There doesn't seem to be as much traffic, posts, sales, etc on the forums of which I am a member. It seems like the gun culture as a whole is taking in a long needed deep breath. You guys may see it differently but I'd be curious from the moderators or anyone with the data if my assumptions were correct.

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In late 2008, just as an experiment, I put my Sig 2022 and four 16 round Sig mags on Backpage and GunsAmerica. I priced the package at 1K dollars. This is a pistol I had about 400 dollars in brand new plus maybe 30 apiece for the extra mags. I was swamped with people on both sites wanting to buy the package. I even had some idiots offering me a hundred apiece for the mags.

I gave it to my son when he turned 21.
 
I agree with the posted assessment of the "NEW Gun" market but I'd also like to point out that the used/collector market seems to be as strong as ever. I saw a lot of collector guns change hands at the last show I attended and sold several myself.
As an aside: The problem with guns from a manufacturers perspective is they are slow to wear out. I was shooting Trap awhile back with two vintage doubles, A W C Scott SLE and a Parker D grade. The cumulative age of these two is 225 years old and they still are in perfect shooting condition!
Jim
 
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BAM-BAM said:
Panic buying in 2008/09 again in 2012 and later in 2013 (SH)......Panic buying to get a gun/ammo .... but most folks only see the need for one maybe two.

Lot of those guns went into sock drawers or closets......many unfired.

IMO the market was probably saturated, or close to it, back in 2013/14...... except for those just turning 18/21..... and they/most don't have a lot of money.
Click to expand...

True ^^^^^^^^^ too. The ONLY time I paniked buying (a gun that is) was when I paid rougly $200 too much for an ATI-STG 44 .22 with wood box made by the Amish. I probably could hve got that for around $500? but wanted it THAT badly. However--ill not be doing that again.
 
dmthomp32 said:
You know I have been telling my friends and family that this would happen with the transition of administration since November as I'm sure of most you speculated as well. What blows my mind is how many people still to this day don't see or recognize the changes in the market already, much less know about all the layoffs and production changes. I'm glad to read that the folks of this forum and others like it, can think for themselves and as Bob Dylan once put it "...don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows".

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

SOME people are too lazy to do any research--I did mine. At one gun show a couple years ago--some guy with abig grin on his face-was bragging about an AR style rifl he just way over-paid for--and ammo that was well over-priced. I dont remember how much he bragged about spending for this stuff? about $2,500?? Anyway, I knew a dealer who had the exact same rifle this guy overpaid for--for about $500. The ammo I told him could be got at that time, at Academy for less then $100-for the four boxes he bought for about $400. Ive never seen a grin disappear that fast.

As the French Foreign Legion is fond of saying: Tant P..
 
Well buy while it's cheap!

To me the last 8 years were no different than any other time. I would never even entertain the thought of maxing out credit cards to buy an umpteenth gun or $100 mags or triple overpriced ammo! I have what I have and I'm fine with that. There are more important things for me to worry about​ then yet another gun, mag, caliber. When I did see a good sale I bought but otherwise there is no gun I need so much that I'll be willing to pay double, triple, quadruple prices

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Their sales are down, what can you expect after an 8 yr surge? At least there's no concentrated effort, in Washington, to put them out of business. No matter what business you're in, there will always be peaks and valleys.
 
Like all businesses, the firearms industry caters to those who purchase their product, and with changes in administrations comes changes in the market demand. The industry however is potentially missing out on an untapped market and this may be an excellent time to go after that market. The market to which I refer is the individual who doesn't hunt or target shoot, but is thinking of self defense. While the firearms industry markets the heck out of this scenario in gun magazines, when do you remember seeing an ad in magazines outside of this area? In other words, instead on just running ads in the American Rifleman and Guns and Ammo, they should look into running ads in other forums, such as the numerous magazines that appeal to women. The printed media is under assault by the web and are more likely to accept advertising dollars from areas they may not have 10 years ago. While some will undoubtedly refuse advertising dollars from Remington or S&W, what about places who provide training, and aren't advertising selling guns? Would Women's Day refuse an ad for self defense classes? Maybe, maybe not. A lot would depend on how the ad was presented, I'm sure. But the end result would still result in increased sales of firearms and the miscellaneous paraphernalia that goes with it. Even other media forms like newspapers, radio and TV may be willing to accept these new sources of income. Then there's not-so-fringe magazines like Popular Science and Popular Mechanics, along with other male oriented magazines like bicycling or other sports. The question then becomes, is the firearms industry willing to support this effort? For the past 8 years, they've had sales handed to them on a silver platter. Would they be willing now to fund a campaign that would only advantage them peripherally? To those who may be missing my point (I have that effect sometimes, sorry!) start an advertising campaign promoting learning self defense, especially geared towards those most at risk, women, older people, minorities and even the LGBT community. You don't even need to mention firearms, just protecting oneself. The forearm concept will come naturally. Nor does the industry have to fund the training, simply suggesting people interested in defending themselves should seek out local training. Naturally, it would be a great idea to form an association of these types of training facilities, which I suspect would happen quickly, if it hasn't started already. I can't quote any statistics, but strongly suspect that the majority of people in this country are not gun owners, and that is a huge untapped source of sales for the firearms industry, if they are willing to do what needs to be done to reach those people.
 
Tom S. said:
Like all businesses, the firearms industry caters to those who purchase their product, and with changes in administrations comes changes in the market demand.
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Manufacturers were probably geared for 8 more years like the last eight. They got taken by surprise, too.

Here in Kalifornistan it's business as usual. Barring anything legal, next year mail order ammo will go away & we'll be doing background checks when buying & PPT of ammo will be illegal. I'm looking for fire sales around November by scalpers sitting on tonnage that will be illegal to move in January.
 
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Fishslayer said:
This has been happening with women for some time. Now it's happening in the LGBT community with a definite eye towards self defense and they are going fairly high profile in social media. Not sure what's happening in their advertising & such, I don't keep an eye on those publications. ;)

Manufacturers were probably geared for 8 more years like the last eight. They got taken by surprise, too.

Here in Kalifornistan it's business as usual. Barring anything legal, next year mail order ammo will go away & we'll be doing background checks when buying & PPT of ammo will be illegal. I'm looking for fire sales around November by scalpers sitting on tonnage that will be illegal to move in January.
Click to expand...

Look on the good side of things....dealers in border states will be getting rich off you guys...........
 
The slow down was expected.

But in the last 8 years or so, "duplicates" have abounded and naturally the markets were glutted even before the end of the 8 years.

By "duplicates" I mean the proliferation of all kinds of AR manufacturers and parts, ditto if you look at the 1911s.
No one could off the top of their head even guesstimate the
number and names of the manufacturers.

And then, of course, the plastic fantastics!!!! Not just a manufacturer offering models in every size imaginable but
a whole burgeoning of "baby Glocks" from manufacturers I
never heard of. The plastic fantastic market is about as glutted
as one could imagine.

In terms of handguns, the "proliferation" in revolvers has remained modest; to be sure that's because so many eschew
the revolver as something to even consider purchasing. But
I think revolver sales have remained steady if small. And I
look at it as good news about the Korths/Nighthawks, the Colt
new Cobra with hopefully a few other D frame models to come and lastly the Kimber 6.

From what I've seen at sporting stores==the ones catering to the higher end guns, i.e. some shotguns, bolt rifles, older name brand autos and revolvers==continue to do very well.

Another factor is that with the spread of concealed carry, a lot
of gun store/ranges have opened up and this has spread out
and thinned what each of the stores can make in profit.
 
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