I have never worked in a consumer product industry (unless you count nine months in a chewing gum factory) but I was involved in "bean counting" for a machine tool company for thirty-nine years. When I started, in 1966, the company was transitioning from hand operated and small hydraulic sheet metal equipment to numerically controlled sheet and plate fabricating. For the entire time I was there, I was involved in cost accounting for machines up to a million dollars. In 1968, we started a beam punching line, that developed into a large handling system, with punches, cold saws, and fit up stations. Some of these were as much as several hundred feet of conveyors, saws, loaders, and unloader/rackers. If you were in the beam and angle business, you pretty much bought our equipment or were getting along on the ornamental iron business, When that line faded out, we were ready with computer operated punch/plasma machines, that were extremely productive. The last thirty-five years I was there, we never had a losing year, and some years were unbelievably profitable. The reason for the company's success was to always have a new product that made the customer a lot of money. You have to provide a satisfactory product, at a price that makes sense to the customer. Firearms manufacturers are like any other business; they cannot price themselves above what the market will bear. Aesthetics, utility, and price are not always compatible.
By the way, all us bean counters, retired or active, resent that appellation, and due to our profession, we have wide acquaintance within the IRS. Refer to us as bean counters once too often, and we will drop a dime on you!
