Springfield Armory recently took the plunge into the AR market with their "Saint". Wouldn't put them on the same level with Colt, BCM, etc. but they seem to be fairly popular.
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Springfield Armory recently took the plunge into the AR market with their "Saint". Wouldn't put them on the same level with Colt, BCM, etc. but they seem to be fairly popular.
Well.... Ruger fans that own a Red Label over/under for bird hunting and a Super Blackhawk for walks in the woods and a 77 for elk, but have looked down upon the AR15 as non-sporting, might just buy one, they will love the gun, and then we hopefully get to count them as supporters of the black rifle and being able to own it. That's good.
We've had many come through classes and they've been, well, not great, but as OK as many other brands. Problems have included FSB pins (not tapered) coming out (one came out of the box missing one), chamber issues, staking issues. I have tried to contact Ruger about these but never received the courtesy of a reply, that's disappointing.
My impression, not all they could be, but they can be with a little post-purchase attention.
True enough.Quote:
Additionally Ruger "can" make a great anything if they so desire, to state otherwise is foolish or disingenuous.
Unfortunately it seems the bean counters get involved more often than not. Why spend an extra few dollars per rifle when the intended market won't pay the increased end cost or won't even understand or know the difference?
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I suppose none of this is terribly surprising especially given the price on the standard model. I saw these at a show recently for $449 before tax. Heck we're talking Glock 17 money for an AR15! That's pretty amazing in itself.
So what would happen if Ruger went a bit further with these guns and made something very close to a Colt 6920? I assume it would be about the same price as the Colt. If price and features were equal would anyone buy the Ruger? With that said, I personally wouldn't have a problem spending a little extra for certain things like a GI bolt carrier or a front sight base that's not propriety.
Something else to keep in mind while we're all bashing Ruger. It used to be the case that Ruger supplied something like 80% of the hammer forged barrels to the market and supplied barrels to a number of other companies as OEM. I don't know if that's still the case but I'd think it still is.
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This is not about any particular brand, it's just in general about one segment of the industry.
Taper pins instead of straight pins: no cost, we're doing it anyway. But-- let's say somehow it costs another $.50 / gun
Correct chamber. No cost... just use the right reamer. Let's go nuts and say it takes our engineer 3 months at $88K / year to figure it all out and get the right dimensions and talk to the barrel maker / department. That's $22K, reamer no cost as we were gonna buy them anyway. Amortize over, I dunno, two years' production, lets just say it's 22,000 guns total. Cost / gun: $1.00
Stake the friggin' carrier key screws. We're doing it anyway, let's just make a radical change here and do it right. No cost but let's say the staker operator drops a box of carriers on a foot and it somehow costs the company $.50 / gun.
There's your couple bucks a gun. Sheisse, let's double it and really get paid for doing it right, we'll charge another $4.00 / gun! That and the money saved on warranty, and the increased sales realized when folks get the message we're serious about making good guns.... who would not pay another $4.00 / gun for one that doesn't suffer from these chronic problems?
That ought to work, but I'm far from being a sales guru. Spend another $2.00 / gun? What I sometimes see seems to indicate that some of them won't spend another $.17 / gun to make sure it's safe, reliable, and durable. It's so blatant sometimes that I just don't know what to think. They don't know? They continue to not know these things, year after year, decade after decade? I'd like to think that because the alternative is, they know.... and they care more about the $.17.
I recently learned of an incident where the good guy was nearly killed / crippled / lost limbs, possibly due to a known problem in a certain firearm design (there's no proving of course that he would not have been shot if the gun had worked right). There are no doubt a great many more involving many other firearm types that "just jammed" at the worst time.... when it was really due to "we saved $.17 / gun, dang man, that's $1700 a year, you know?". It's a bunch of crap and the industry should by God be held to a higher standard.
Ned,
Your points make sense and are hard to argue with. Especially in Ruger's case where they're making many of their own parts. It might be slightly different if they were buying carriers or barrels from another vendor.
Unfortunately it seems that many of the companies involved in making/selling firearms have almost given up on quality control. I guess it must be cheaper to skip a good going over and just ship guns out knowing that most won't see much use. Fix the one in one thousand that actually gets shot enough to reveal a problem and not worry about the rest?
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