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Product Consolidation

Corporate Fuckery, Finance, The Gun Thing

…as Ruger might call it, or as others (like myself) might call it: “heritage destruction”.

Ruger officials confirmed industry chatter this week that it would immediately stop producing four models, while it will halt production of several others at the end of the year. 

Production of four revolver lines – some going back to 1958 – would be suspended, effective immediately: 

    • LCR
    • SP101
    • GP100
    • Bearcat

On Tuesday, the company announced changes to several current-generation product families as part of its ongoing Ruger 2030 strategy.

“These decisions reflect our review of consumer demand, evolving market preferences, manufacturing complexity and the long-term profitability of each product family,” Abbey Clary, Ruger’s director of media, advertising and public relations, told Guns.com in an email. “The goal is to focus our resources on the products consumers want most today while creating capacity for future product development and manufacturing modernization.”

I leave it to y’all to decide what Clary really means with the above corporate wafflespeak, but a decent summary might be:  “If you ain’t gonna buy ’em, we ain’t gonna make ’em”.

Fair enough.  Revolvers, and the people who love shooting them, are clearly a dying market (literally, in the latter case).

But the good news doesn’t end there, oh no.

A larger group of products are nearing suspension, with their final planned production runs through the remainder of 2026. They include:

    • SR1911
    • LC Carbine
    • PC Charger
    • PC Carbine
    • LC Charger
    • Redhawk
    • Super Redhawk
    • Blackhawk
    • Super Blackhawk
    • Single-Series (Six- and Nine) revolvers
    • Vaquero
    • Ruger No. 1
    • 77-Series rifles
    • Hawkeye
    • Ruger Precision Rifle

…leaving one to ask, as the article does, well what the fuck is left?

Rifles:

  • Mini-14 rifle
  • Ruger 10/22
  • Ruger American Rifle
  • Harrier series AR-15s

Pistols:

  • LCP Security 380 and Security 9
  • RXM
  • MAX-9
  • Ruger 57
  • 22 Charger
  • Mark IV

How nice of them to leave us with at least the 10/22 and Mark IV.

Ruger are quitting the 1911 market (probably because their offerings sucked green donkey dicks, so no great loss there), and ditto the “precision” rifle market (because people who do precision rifle shooting generally go for higher-quality platforms like Bergara, Howa and Sako, while for the budget-conscious, there’s always Savage).

Oh, and the relaunch of the excellent Red Label shotguns is irrelevant, because Ruger’s outsourcing the production thereof to Connecticut Shotgun Manufacturing (CSMC) so it’s just a label on someone else’s gun.  I suppose we should be glad that they’re using an American gunmaker instead of some backyard Turkish suppliers.

As a one-time corporate marketing puke myself, I can understand why Ruger is doing this.

As a lifelong gun enthusiast — and a lifelong Ruger buyer — I’m feeling nothing but gloom and despair.

It makes all sorts of sense, financially speaking;  but the joy of shooting Ruger’s incomparable revolvers has just left the building, after kicking people like me in the mouth.

I’m not sure I’ll ever buy a Ruger product again.

Nonsense

Military, The Gun Thing

Occasionally, something really stupid appears on Teh Intarwebz, like this:

I don’t even know if the Twatter account is real or not (I suspect not), but I do know several things:

  • wasting this Islamist scrote with a WWII rifle would be a romantic gesture, and today’s .dotmil is not renowned for its romantiscm
  • using the venerable .30-06 Springfield cartridge would likewise be romantic, but that might suggest that when someone absolutely, positively must be killed, all cartridges since the .30-06 are inadequate — in other words, using the boolets that we’ve been giving our boys to shoot the nation’s enemies since the 1940s won’t be up to snuff for the intended purpose
  • …which in turn would lead to suspicions that the 5.56 NATO poodleshooter is, indeed, a poodleshooter (as the late Jeff Cooper famously stated) rather than a lethal projectile
  • while all this time, the 7.62 NATO (.308 Win) is saying, “And what am I?  Chopped liver?”
  • and does the .dotmil even have any Garands in the arsenal, other than those decorative things used by the Marine Guard of Honor at Arlington National?

None of this passes the sniff test.

Those who know me well (and there are a few of you out there) will know that I am a romantic soul, and should the above silliness be true (instead of some puerile fantasy), I would be the first to do a Happy Dance.  (Better still that the bullets — of whatever caliber — were dipped in bacon fat beforehand, but that’s a discussion for another time.)

But let me be the first to say that even though I have considerable misgivings about the little .223, I would suggest that the simultaneous arrival of seven of the things in the heart area would have the same outcome as seven .30-cal bullets:  instantaneous death to the recipient.

So really, this is all a fuss over nothing.

Just as long as the deed gets done, I’m happy with the choice.

One idle question remains:  who gets to form the firing squad?  Will they call for volunteers from the military police?  Logic would suggest that be the answer, but for all I know, the .dotmil are planning to hand it over to the snake-eaters in SpecFor.

Science Proves Me Right

Men & Women

Back in my yoot, I often made a play for a woman, and when met with the near-inevitable rebuff, I used to tease them by saying, “You know, if you don’t use it, it’s going to grow closed!”

All that said with complete ignorance of female physiology.  However:

Let’s be blunt: can a lack of sex hasten ‘vaginal atrophy’ or ‘shrinkage’ post-menopause? Yes, as it can contribute to a faster decline in vaginal elasticity.

Thank you, Science Boys, for coming to my rescue.

Of course, I hasten to add that my mocking comment never ever resulted in a change of decision by the lady thus addressed.  In fact, on one memorable occasion, I got this response:  “Well, I’d rather it grow closed than have sex with you!”

Women can be so cruel…