Most of the issues with guns missing pieces and shoddy workmanship can be traced to what I call "Corporate Capitalism".
It is the prevailing attitude among companies these days that profits above all else reigns supreme. You can make $10 producing and selling 10 high-quality widgets, or you can make $15 producing and selling 12 mediocre-quality widgets.
Profit is the golden calf. Brand names that used to mean quality and pride are now whored out by corporations.
I actually used to work for Ruger. I ran a CNC machine making parts for P-Series and SR-series of pistols in their Prescott, AZ plant.
It was a temp agency job. ALL positions at the Ruger plant involving manufacturing pistols start as temp agency jobs. I was going through a divorce and quit my six-figures job in insurance to prepare to relocate to Idaho. I needed something low stress and blue-collar, so I was hired through SOS Staffing as a CNC operator. Had I ever actually operated a CNC machine before? Nope. I was a corporate claims adjuster. But I scored high enough on the skills test to qualify for the highest-paying position on the floor. I made $11.50 an hour.
Lower scoring temps went to the firearms assembly line. The lowest scorers went to the finishing and polishing department. $8 an hour. In 2012.
I started on a team of about ten guys. Seven of those guys were Mexican immigrants. One was a former black gang member from Chicago. Another was a typical white kid.
My supervisor was a guy my age. He'd been with the company for three years.
That place had the highest turnover I'd ever seen. I left after 3-4 months since I had my affairs in order and was ready to move. Two people on my team were still there when I left. Supervisor left as well. We worked 5 or 6 ten hour shifts standing at machines just constantly loading and unloading parts. I think I started out making trigger transfer bars for the SR9. I did some slides later, and sights.
After a 6-month probation period, Ruger would then offer you a permanent company position. You got a $.50 an hour raise and health insurance.
Management at the plant was actively hostile towards employees. Some of the most ineffective, caustic, mean-spirited, and idiotic management I had ever seen. Guards patrolled the plant; on the inside. They were there to keep the employees in check and we had to go through a metal detector and have our lunch boxes searched going in and out of the plant. It was a very dehumanizing place with very, very low morale.
One thing that happened while I was there really stood out to me as far as how pride in workmanship has fallen.
I was working a machine that was making the rear sights for the P-Series pistol. I noticed that the 2-dots on the rear sight were not centered perfectly on the notch cut out. They were shifted to one side. I double checked my settings on the machine and they were perfect.
I inspected the sights and noticed that some sights were perfect and others were off to the left and others were off to the right. I called over my supervisor who double-checked the setting. Then he watched me load the sights into the fixture (billet steel base that the parts are affixed to while being machined), watched me operate the machine, then checked the sights and again found a few that were off. Made no sense since on a CNC machine, if one part is off, then ALL parts on that fixture should be off.
He called Quality Control. They came in and did the same process. Halted production for the part and I worked on another machine making different parts for a couple of hours.
QC came back and said they determined that the billet steel fixture that held the sights in place was worn out and was allowing the off-center sights. But they decided to just keep running it and sending out screwed up sights since it was too expensive to replace the fixture and the P-Series was being discontinued anyways.
These are the sights I was making...
I have since tried to avoid purchasing any Ruger products produced at that plant. My father recently purchased a Ruger EC9s handgun. It has a great trigger and functions fine, but it is the least accurate sub-compact pistol I fired in a 3-gun shootout and had the worst finish.
Plenty of guys swear by Ruger handguns, but I worked there and saw the culture of cost-cutting and profits above quality mindset prevalent there.
