Inflation has a lot to do with it, but other factors are limiting purchases too. The manufacturers themselves should be to blame for some of it.
The market is somewhat stagnant. The lack of product innovation is taking its toll. Consumers are begging for new quality product and it’s falling on deaf ears. In Smith’s case, there are still some revolvers in demand and the debacle with Thompson Center left a hole in their portfolio. Guys are simply growing weary of the same old commodity firearms - plastic pistols, plastic rifles….everything that’s shipping regularly is a “budget” gun. Those guns will always have their place, but can’t consume the market.
Without new innovations and upper end offerings, shoppers are fatigued. They’re not churning and trading for the latest and greatest. The rifle market is really lacking, as is the shotgun market. Hardly anything upper end available in mass quantities from Beretta, Benelli, Winchester, Browning, Remington, Kimber…the list goes on. And upper end is now defined as models that were previously available as standard offerings. Stainless rifles, wood stocked rifles, wood stocked shotguns are all slow to ship.
It’s a different time and the manufacturers own a bunch of that blame. I don’t feel sorry for them. Publicly traded companies are slow to react because of all the hoops. Too many levels of approval and individuals trying to justify their jobs. If they spent more time building what the consumer wanted instead of building what they wanted to build, things might be a little different.
I’m home with flu and bored. I’m also tired of manufacturers not owning the blame for a soft market.
Lotta sense there, coming from a guy on the front lines, so to speak.
I can attest to the dismal situation with regard to the situation with nice guns, in my case a Browning O/U. Ordered one, and it was eight months before it showed. Nothing fancy, just a 725 Field. By then I’d given up and bought a nice used one. The deciding factor was that the dealer said they couldn’t tell when it would show, and that they had no way to check, but a call to Browning after four months revealed that there were none slated for that dealer for at least another two months, and no telling beyond that. The availability can’t be helped, but a phone call doesn’t seem to be a lot to ask.
I agree too on the quality what’s being shipped. It’s very hard to get enthused by yet another Tupperware®️ rifle with a crappy black finish and yet another unique detachable magazine that going to cause someone a lot of trouble someday when it’s lost or breaks and there are none to be found. Ever see spares for sale in the same shop where the rifles are available? Me neither, and I won’t buy such an animal before securing a couple of spares. Hell, based on the posts here, a lot of them that come with the rifles are defective. Same applies to pistols of course. AR, Glock and 1911 mags are practically convenience store items, but not so with the latest Turkish knock-off of a knock-off.
