Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Ruger Confounds Logic Sometimes

I'm also sure the gun companies are quite happy to know there are a bunch of high school teachers, insurance adjusters, lawyers, diesel mechanics, computer programmers and ranchers who could do a much better job of predicting what guns the American public will buy than their own people. The next time a marketing guy comes up with an idea like the .225 Winchester and 6.5mm Remington Magnum they can just fire him and place an ad in the Campfire Classifieds. They'll have their pick of 1000 experts.

As a southpaw I can't bash Ruger one little bit. They've given us the LH Hawkeye in more calibers than just about all the other gun makers combined except Savage. .204, .223, .22-250, .243, .25-06, .270., 7mm-08, 7mm RM, .308, .30-06, .300 WM, their RCMs plus the .375 Ruger.

And while they quit cataloging them, they've continued to make short runs of LH stainless rifles in .270, .30-06, .308, .223 and .300 WM.

In the meantime Remington dropped their short action LH rifles and Winchester and Kimber refuse to make them at all.

Knowing full well that LH rifles are a small niche and even a lot of southpaws buy right hand rifles (*$%@ traitors!!!) I've sent the Ruger CEO a couple of emails thanking him for keeping us in their thoughts, prayers and production schedule.

Ruger has always done this type of thing. Numerous products have been announced and never see the light of day...

Marketing people who are out of touch with the reality of what the consumer wants is not a trait inherent to gun companies. Just look at pickup manufacturers....

I can't stand left handed people, but I agree. Ruger does a good job of spreading the wealth. My brother was born backward also, and has remained a Ruger guy for just that reason.


Travis

Exactly.

Ruger is a business. When Bill ran the company he often made guesses based on his gut feelings as a shooting loony, and was right more often than he was wrong. But he was wrong sometimes, and since he passed away it's become a much larger and more profitable company.

This thread is beginning to remind me a lot of the stories I hear from EVERY manufacturer of firearms, ammo, reloading equipment, components, etc. They're constantly told by individuals that they should chamber X cartridge, make Y bullet or Z ammo. Most just nod politely and say, "We'll take it under consideration."

But I do know a few individuals who, in such venues as the SHOT Show, reply, "And how many customers can you guarantee will buy it?"

The usual reply is, "Me and my brother-in-law, for sure."

Whereupon the company guy says, "Go find another 10,000 brothers-in-law and we'll talk." Depending on the day, the reply may not be that polite.

Companies that mass-produce rifles, ammo, bullets, etc. by their very definition aren't much into making custom rifles, ammo, bullets. etc. They're not going to tool up to produce a few dozen rifles that the guy and his brother-in-law could "produce" themselves if they were willing to pay $500 for a rebarrel job.

There's more to predicting what people will buy than taking a poll. Polling will get you an answer as to what people want, but not what people will actually pay for.

Polling gave us the Edsel. Big, powerful, expensive - and introduced during a recession.

Yep, ask Remington.

Public: I wanna .35 Whelen! I wanna .35 Whelen! I wanna .35 Whelen!!!

Remington: Okay, here ya go. Bolt rifle and a pump rifle.

Public: (sound of crickets chirping)

Billy,

One potential problem with a public poll on new products is a few people over-loading it to what they want.

The crickets chirping isn't because of public apathy, it's because remington couldn't market Vodka to a russian alcoholic.

They consistantly screw the pooch when it comes to marketing and product development and then blame the public. They're idiots many times over. SAUM? 30AR? etronix ignition? 22" barrels of model 7s?, loading the 260rem with 140gr bullets at 2400fps?, bringing out the 7mm-06 oops, 7mm express oopps again, 280remington, 6mm remington with 1-12 twist that wouldn't shoot deer weight bullets, but market it as a "duel" purpose gun?

You must remember the ads for the XGI.

I'll mirror what JB said, but will use Browning as my example. For darnnear 20 years I suggested, asked, and begged Browning to chamber the 250 Savage in their wonderful Micro Hunter rifle. They already make it in .243, so there'd be no physical impairments to making it in .250 Savage. And it would make a simply delightful deer rifle for the smaller-statured (or geezers like me.) Nope.

They claimed there'd be no demand. I countered with the sales record of Savage's limited-production runs of that chambering - all of which flew off the shelves. "That's was probably the whole market," said the Browning whizkids.