Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Why aren't factory guns trued?

Yeah, but the automobile industry isn't marketing a product that will last a lifetime or two to a shrinking, aging market.

Actually, they'd spend less money doing it right the first time. Less labor, which is the number one expense in any manufacturing facility, would allow them to do the job better for less.

Matt Williams is exactly right. It;s ignorance and lack of imagination, not dollars. With a modest investment in the right equipment, the big gun makers could economically produce trued and more accurate rifles. It's just like the situation with factory pillar bedding. Everyone assumed that factory rifles could not be pillar bedded economically at the factory, until Savage showed that they could. Savage rifles usually have good accuracy out of the box, as a result.

I think the reason is simple. Most people that buy a box gun don't expect much better than what they get already. Until the demand is there and sales drop there is no motivation for the manufacturers to change anything.

Then there's the basic lack of shooting skill of the average Joe Hunter. Most people can't shoot up to the accuracy level of a factory rifle as it is. If a person can't shoot under 1 MOA with a perfect rifle he's not going to be hampered by factory rifle.

Steely, brass, and Trigger,
The answer is still money. You can look at it from either angle. They do not want to invest the money they may not recoop or they feel they can come out the same in the long run without making the change. Big companies are first and foremost in the business of making a profit. If a change in a product that is going to cost them money is not great enough for them to perceive the customer will provide them comensurately more profit in response to the change, they won't make the change.

To answer the original question. They are trued. Within a certain tolerance. Bullets weigh within a tolerance, jackets thickness is within a tolerance, concentricity of loaded rounded is within tolerance.
The average hunter is using a rifle he inherited from his uncle Joe who never cleaned the barrel anyhow. I hunt with my in-laws who don't even check the zero of their rifles before hunting season. They have no clue how to do it anyhow.
A factory rifle is more than good enough for them.
It would be a waste of money to have a 1/2moa thousand yard gun to shoot whitetails at 50 yards anyhow.
GWN

The true waste is a manufacturer who is capapable of producing such a rifle and not doing it.


The whole situation isn't just a matter of making a more trued rifle, with better tolerances.......It's about making a rifle that's as good as can be made within the average joe's pricerange. They're not doing that now. They're not even attempting to.

When you put a man on the floor as a general laborer for about $10.00 per hour.......You just spent enough money to have a CNC vertical mill on the floor. This is based on per month expense. Of course you won't have your CNC showing up late for work, taking breaks, eating lunch, etc., but I'd say it's a pretty fare trade-off.

If someone on the outside wanted to fund a project to bring a new major firearms maker onto the scene with serious technology, the other manufacturers would be scrambling to catch up, but it would be too late.

Look at archery for instance........They're using state-of-the-art technology to produce bows and components....Every year they come out with better, faster, more accurate bows, as well as better sights, stabilizers, and so on.

The archery industry isn't nearly what the gun industry is as far as volume sales, so why can they do it, but our old faithful firearms companies can't???? Back to my original answer......IGNORANCE.

Matt,

Sounds like a campaign speech to me! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Do you want to let us know how your barreled-action project is coming? Is that a rifle yet?

I am still looking to source a reliable rifle for the journeyman guide or PH at less than custom prices.

thanks...jim

In a hundred years (hopefully there will still be shooting and hunting in America) when someone rattles off the list of great American firearm entrepeneurs - Eliphalet Remington, Winchester, Sam Colt, John Browning, Matt Williams - can we say that we knew you personally, sort of? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />


Seriously - good thread here. I know little about machining techniques but I remember Jack Belk used to lament how a $3 gizmo used in a water pump is held to tighter tolerances than the average American firearm.

Matt,
I would like you to PM me and let me know what a CNC Machinist with a gunsmithing background would be worth in your company. I am getting fed up with living in Minneapolis and the long cold winters here. We get to apply for a once in a lifetime moose permit. Lottery drawing for bear tags and the woods is overrun with Yahoos waving Remington 742's every November.
Great White North

"It's about making a rifle that's as good as can be made within the average joe's pricerange. They're not doing that now."

I would agree with that.