Should we expect a drop in quality from now on?

[12Pump]

For as long as I can remember, people were buying more guns than usual because there was always a threat of a ban looming over us. Clinton back in 1994, Obama for the past 8 years, ending with the strong threat of Hillary being elected in 2016. Now, Trump is in office with the Republicans in total control of Congress, a conservative SCOTUS looks like a sure thing, California's AR ban (or at least total neutering) is now in effect, and all panic-buying is pretty much over. There are now a glut of guns out there!

So now prices are dropping along with demand. Guess what happens to manufacturing when that happens! Manufacturers have to lower prices along with manufacturing methods and start doing other things to save money in order to not take losses. When people were willing to pay big money for a certain firearm, companies could charge those higher prices. But now that AR rifles are as common as dirt, and anyone who wants one pretty much either already has one, or can no longer get one anyway (California), the demand for them is now way, way down. How does a company making them stay in business unless they find ways to cut corners to save money?

Of course, AR rifles aren't alone in this. It just worries me somewhat that quality may now suffer in pretty much ANY firearm we buy from this point forward.

 

[coyotehitman]

The lack of supply and an increase in demand caused the equilibrium price of an AR to shift upward during the panic. The cost to manufacture an AR didn't increase due to the increased demand. I don't follow why you think manufacturers have to cheapen components now that supply is up, demand is down, and the equilibrium price is moving back to where it was. I'd say AR manufacturers reached economies of scale long ago and there is a significant margin built into an AR anyway. The invisible hand does a fine job of managing things like this. I don't think we need to worry.

 

[Arkansas Paul]

I think what he is getting at is that companies will have to lower their prices because of the over saturation of the market.
In order to lower their prices, they will have to manufacture the firearms for less money, resulting in a decline in quality.

I don't know. Maybe.
Probably not though.

 

[denton]

My profession is Six Sigma. One of the surprising things about product quality is that lower cost, higher quality, and greater customer satisfaction tend to occur at the same operating point.

That said, most gun manufacturers don't "get" the quality thing. Other industries do "get" it, and their costs are constantly declining and manufacturing defects are very rare.

 

[12Pump]

The lack of supply and an increase in demand caused the equilibrium price of an AR to shift upward during the panic. The cost to manufacture an AR didn't increase due to the increased demand. I don't follow why you think manufacturers have to cheapen components now that supply is up, demand is down, and the equilibrium price is moving back to where it was. I'd say AR manufacturers reached economies of scale long ago and there is a significant margin built into an AR anyway. The invisible hand does a fine job of managing things like this. I don't think we need to worry.

Well, the AR (we can talk about that one since it would probably be the most affected) is now made by more manufacturers than used to make it before. I imagine it's because the market for them at the time those companies started making it was very hot. But if 50 or so manufacturers is what it took to keep up with demand before, what can they do now to continue making money off them? They can only lower prices so far.

 

[jmr40]

The market will change. Instead of producing common guns and calibers that sell like hotcakes the current trend will allow manufacturers to meet demand for less popular niche guns and ammo. There isn't a huge demand for many guns and ammo, certainly not enough to justify shutting down production of 223 ammo to produce 257 Roberts ammo in the past. Maybe now.

Instead of producing millions of AR rifles, manufacturers will now be able to justify setting up machinery to produce a handful of high quality rifles in some less common configurations and calibers. They will cost more, but I actually think we can look forward to some neat guns in the near future that wouldn't have been economically feasible over the past couple of decades.

 

[12Pump]

The market will change. Instead of producing common guns and calibers that sell like hotcakes the current trend will allow manufacturers to meet demand for less popular niche guns and ammo. There isn't a huge demand for many guns and ammo, certainly not enough to justify shutting down production of 223 ammo to produce 257 Roberts ammo in the past. Maybe now.

Instead of producing millions of AR rifles, manufacturers will now be able to justify setting up machinery to produce a handful of high quality rifles in some less common configurations and calibers. They will cost more, but I actually think we can look forward to some neat guns in the near future that wouldn't have been economically feasible over the past couple of decades.

You may be right about this. I remember back in 1994 when the Clinton ban happened, it was a the time when high capacity 9mm pistols were all the rage. People wanted companies to make smaller guns that were more concealable and carryable, but they didn't respond by making them. Then the ban came, and then the manufacturers finally started making smaller guns for the smaller mandated capacities (10 rounds). More recently, small handguns are being made even more due to concealed carry being legal in more places than in the past. However, I see the AR rifle market being about to collapse. It's not just the threat of bans being eliminated, but also because of bans that have recently taken place, such as in California, which totally dries up a once-hot market.

 

[BrocLuno]

I think folks will either compete on price or on quality... I don't see them doing both. So in teh parts business, it'll be your choice. Me - I'll look for quality

 

[Dog Soldier]

If you are old enough you remember "Tail Fins" and big engines. They disappeared with high high over head cost. Many car companies and models disappeared. The demand for smaller cars caught on.
We have many more AR manufactures than the future markets can sustain. Many will fail and close down. The Big question is what firearms will become the next high demand rifles, handguns etc.

 

[hdwhit]

12Pump wrote:
So now prices are dropping along with demand. Guess what happens to manufacturing when that happens!

What happens next depends on the strategy the particular manufacturer chooses to follow.

It seems logical that some will choose to focus on lowering the cost of their product in order to still meet their return on investment (ROI) targets with lower sales volume and lower revenues. For such companies, costs may be reduced in the quality assurance functions and quality will suffer. Since established companies like S&W and Ruger already have low cost product offerings, the less well known companies will have to significantly undercut the established companies and many will find this path leads to oblivion.

Others that have the resources to do so may choose to significantly improve product quality and carve out a niche as an insurgent premium brand or a reasonably priced premium brand. This would increase margins and allow ROI targets to be met with lower sales.

Still others may decide to re-think the AR in the same way Universal re-thought the M1 Carbine and distinguish themselves to the market that way. There are as many ways to respond to changes in an environment as there are managers to formulate strategies and they do not all inexorably lead to chasing lower costs resutling in lower quality.

 

[gspn]

It just worries me somewhat that quality may now suffer in pretty much ANY firearm we buy from this point forward.

First everyone was worried they'd ban guns. Then everyone worried that prices would never come down. Then the Supreme Court. Then they worried about Hillary. Now that they can't worry about those things...you're worrying about the potential for a future quality decline?

Quit worrying. Just go shoot and have fun.

 

[Kendal Black]

During the Obama boom, there were quality problems as some manufacturers rushed guns out the door. It is plausible that the market readjusting post-Obama will create new quality problems, in the way the OP outlines.

So I suppose you always need to be careful what you buy.

I hope some manufacturers will produce quality products going forward, seeing it as a way to get lasting customers and good word of mouth. I'm not sure what we'll need to pay for that...

 

[Dog Soldier]

Many gun owners are old enough to remember the Anti-Gun movement of the 1960s. It looked like the end of the 2nd Amendment Rights. Rifles with scopes were on the Ban list as were handguns etc. Shooting Sports and hunting were under siege.
The quality in firearms dropped. S&W as example changed owners many times. The Lear Siegler Heating company bought S&W and quality dropped. I was employed by Tomkins Engineering London USA Group, when they bought S&W. That was another low in S&W quality. They were anti-gun to the core. They gained the contract to rearm the British Police. I recall the wreck of the Mdl. 29 production.
I have not seen the quality of our production rifles and handguns improve over the Pre-1960 offerings. So there is reason to be concerned.

 

[LiveLife]

There may be exceptions but no, I do not believe we will see drop in quality of "popular" guns, not unless the manufacturer don't want to stay in business.

I remember the quality of new guns in the 80's and 90's compared to today. Big difference in overall quality and now guns the consumers desire and expect must meet much higher standards of quality and performance.

Why?

Because due to CNC machining and multiple manufacturers competing for market place, competition has improved the overall consistency and quality of firearms. During the past 40 years, companies that produced poor or so-so quality firearms were either closed or bought out by another company like Auto Ordnance. Even Taurus has recalled/discontinued and improved pistol models due to market pressure and losing safety related law suits. And whatever happened to Caracal? After several horrendous recalls due to poor material quality defect failure, even moving manufacturing to USA did not help the company.

We have seen multiple generations of models from Glock, S&W M&P, Springfield Armory XD, etc. with subsequent generations improving previous generations. What used to be premium upgrades are now common standard features on pistols and rifles. So why has firearms quality and performance improved over time?

Consumers now access internet and online forum discussions and good/bad firearms information is distributed faster than ever. Gone are the days of "brand name reputation" and here are the days of instant YouTube video reviews with actual shot groups recorded real time. If companies lower quality to lower price/increase profit margin/improve sales, other higher volume companies like PSA will replace them in a heart beat with comparable or better quality and performance.

 

[roscoe]

In all likelihood, given the hysteria from 2008-2016, we have a relatively saturated market, unless manufacturers figure out how to open up new markets (buyers other than white men over 40). They have done a bit with marketing to women, but they will have to reach out to other groups, and some have been historically supportive of gun control. And to reach those markets, they will have to figure out how to break the association guns have (in some quarters) with confederate flags and pickup trucks. It could be done, but frankly it might alienate some existing gun consumer groups, and they will face considerable resistance from some parts of those communities. I am sure they have been thinking about this, but it would a tough balancing act.

But in the meantime, I expect quite a few AR manufacturers to go under. Handguns seem to be produced by more established corporations and are a bit more resistant to short-term market fluctuations.

 

[hdwhit]

12Pump wrote:
How does a company making them stay in business unless they find ways to cut corners to save money?

There are myriad ways to reduce costs without "cutting corners". Reduced demand and oversupply doesn't have to translate into diminished quality.

It seems to me it can be taken for granted that manufacturers that:

• Don't have a solid relationship with an established seller network,
• Don't have adequate cash reserves,
• Don't manufacture their own components and thus have the ability to "squeeze" their suppliers for lower costs,
• Are essentially "assemblers" and not "manufacturers" and are thus dependent upon their supplier network (instead of the other way around),

are likely to go out of business - or at least file for bankruptcy court protection - in the coming months.

Those manufacturers who can establish relationships with established seller networks (i.e. Academy, Bass Pro, Cabela's, Dick's, etc.) and maintain them seem likely to survive without needing to resort to draconian meansures to control cost that impair product quality.

I look for this to largely follow what happened to commercial M1 Carbine producers in the mid-1980's. See
http://www.m1carbinesinc.com/carbines.html As companies start to face oblivion, their quality will suffer and that will lead to lower sales thus creating a vicious circle. The ones that can adapt and continue to find outlets for sales will survive.

 

[Dog Soldier]

Production has changed and been accepted. I don't think in the days of machined steel and hard wood many of these new guns would have sold. We are buying castings, sheet metal and molded plastic firearms. today.

 

[Oolong]

I'm willing to bet a lot of ar companies will be conglomerating and fighting for military and police contracts. That's not counting that if trump gets all 8 the ar market will dry up like scotch in fajita meat and force the lazy bums to either make better ARs for cheaper or make something new, the only problem is that making something new requires skill and time, when analyzing how long the made took I imagine that they'll find a middle ground in making American copies of foreign guns like fals, H&Ks, and stuff because the designs are proven but rare.

 

[Solomonson]

...So now prices are dropping along with demand. Guess what happens to manufacturing when that happens! Manufacturers have to lower prices along with manufacturing methods and start doing other things to save money in order to not take losses...

That's some very odd thinking. Have you ever considered just how much of a margin there is in making and selling firearms compared to other consumer products? The answer is: A LOT.

Take a close look at an AR. It's a very simple machine. Without external matters artificially driving up their demand, they're bound to sell for less while still making a profit

I suspect were in not for all the laws, outstanding quality AR's would be available around $199.95 There's still a lot of fat to cut which scares some who paid fatty prices.

 

[Tirod]

Yes. Most buyers will continue to see a drop in "quality" for the rest of their buying days.

That has been the trend in the past and will continue. What is the cause? When people perceive "quality" as being manufactured from certain materials and done in a way that requires hand fitting, then the maker changes anything to improve the product and their profits, it's seen as a big step down in "quality."

Like, the Winchester Model 70 in 1963. What changed? Winchester was going broke having the assembly line hand fit parts that were actually LOW quality, ie with a specification allowing large tolerances. Those parts were also expensive to make, using older methods with high costs. What they did was improve the part's manufacture and even resorted to making them a new way, which was more precise and didn't need hand fitting. What did the public say? Winchester "cheapened up" the gun with stamped parts not cast or milled from solid bar. What did Winchester say? We avoided bankruptcy and kept our work force and our place in the market.

The problem is that consumers want high tier merchandise at Box Discount Import pricing. So we have gone from machined forged guns with hand fitted parts - the 1911 - to the M17 with CHF barrel, stamped trigger frame, MIM parts (I assume, hard to tell) and a polymer grip. Well, the M17 cost less than $210 on contract. The 1911's the Marines bought were over $500.

Now, define quality in terms of service life and numbers of breakdowns. Nope, the 1911 is not the leader, not by a large margin, and was even in question after WWII when the Army released a new pistol trial specification. They saw an expensive and breakdown prone problem child. Try to convince someone who actually used it in their self defense of that, or get them to trade for the M17, tho. Not happening. We get used to a certain state of the art in material, manufacturing processes, and the style that goes with it - and declare that our line in the sand about quality.

Not so much. What we miss seeing is that guns offer better features for the money. A polymer .380 today is more accurate, likely longer lived, shoots more powerful ammo, and weighs a good 30% less than it did in the 1960's, while being smaller, more corrosion resistant, and better made. It has parts made more closely to the blueprints and doesn't need extensive hand fitting to adjust it for reliable operation. Nonetheless people flock to the older carbon steel guns with rust peeking out along the sharply machined corners and cracked wooden grips. Because it's "better." No, not really, it's a Curio and Relic, and the ATF creating that classification means more now when manufacturing techniques are turning over more rapidly than when it was first created.

But the shooting public will decry the modern gun as being cheap and declare quality is going down. The real problem is the consumer not knowing what to compare it to and where things came from.

Put it in this perspective, if doing things the old way produces quality, then we should be striving to make cars more like the ones built in the 1920's, right? Things were built better then from what I hear about it from gun owners. Or, maybe not.

 

[Legionnaire]

My profession is Six Sigma. One of the surprising things about product quality is that lower cost, higher quality, and greater customer satisfaction tend to occur at the same operating point.

That said, most gun manufacturers don't "get" the quality thing. Other industries do "get" it, and their costs are constantly declining and manufacturing defects are very rare.

I don't know about the general trend, but think denton is on to something here. Improvements to manufacturing operations should both increase quality and reduce cost. And I'm trying to reconcile this with the various threads about the poor quality control Ruger has demonstrated with the recent introduction of the GP100 in .44 Special. Many (including me) found an unacceptable gap under the front sight, and chamber throats that are oversized. Some who sent their guns back for repair are not happy with the results. Whatever the reason, something is not up to par with Ruger's quality control right now.

 

[LiveLife]

Many gun manufacturers have experienced design/production/quality control issues.

Those that properly and timely addressed them and provided great customer service kept their customer base. Those that did not, lost their customer base and consumers spent their money on their competitors.

Just look at Caracal and Taurus with their law suits and recalls. It will take some time before their past customers buy Caracal/Taurus pistols again and some may never buy from them.

In comparison, Glock/XD/M&P have steadily improved their pistols over the years to meet their customers' needs/wants and I do not believe they were all simply "features" improvements.

Are M&P 2.0's triggers better than first generation triggers? You bet. Are later model owners complaining of rusting of slides/magazines and lack of accuracy as much now? Nope.

How about RIA pistols? In the early days they had issues and their magazines sucked. Now they are the "Glocks" of 1911s. What they improved were more than just "features".

Keltec is releasing 20" bullpups and my guess is the "quality" should be better than their first generation carbines. I guess time will tell and I am sure Keltec owners will post their experience.

How about PSA rifle kits? Based on various reviews and range tests, they are getting smaller shot groups compared to rifle kits of past years. If quality did not change, then what changed to produce smaller shot groups?

 

[Ignition Override]

bought a 12Pump:

With a superb S&W Sport II 'AR' 'M4' (mine has perfect operation) bought last spring, it would really surprise me if that company loosens its standards.

Does Sig produce their AR-styles rifles in the US? Any changes in operational quality noted?

The FN 'AR' rifle used at the shooting club by a guy last week was reportedly top-notch..
It was manufactured in the US (ii rem. correctly), but he didn't say when.

 

[Fine Figure of a Man]

In a free market the quality and price of any product is set but the consumer.
Lower demand will lead to higher quality, lower price or both.
Whether or not we have a free market is debatable.

 

[M1key]

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