I think the situation is for hunting rifles the era of quality large corporation mass produced guns is over. Large business that focuses on increasing sales 5% every quarter is not going to find much satisfaction in the sporting arms market place in the future. Why? The country is awash with good used hunting arms. The number of hunters and places to hunt are diminishing. There have really been no significan improvements to hunting arms in the past 50 years at least some may even go back to the 7x57 and 30-06 . Scopes have seen some benefits from technology but rifles and shotguns not so much. So I think nice hunting guns are going to become the domain of the smaller companies and the majors are going to be one more focused on defense contracts and maybe still provide some cheaper low end mass market firearms.
This, unfortunately. The day of high-quality American hunting rifles is long past, since all of those previous ones still exist. There is only so many people that need a hunting rifle, and the supply outweighs the demand. Quality hunting rifles moving into the future will be a boutique or custom business.
