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Old February 28, 2013, 11:08 PM   #1
Texshooter
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LGS rumor concerning S&W???

At the local emporium today and, like many places around the Country, they are still somewhat low on inventory.

Customer came in looking for M&P in one flavor or another.

Counter dude said, "S&W is the hardest pistol for us to obtain right now. They are union labor and their contract only allows them to produce 300 pistols per day - max."

Anyone ever heard anything like this? I believe I heard Colt was unionized, but don't know about S&W. And if they are, wonder if there is some rule like this?
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Old February 28, 2013, 11:30 PM   #2
James K
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Pure BS. If S&W only produced 300 pistols a day, their guns would be a lot harder to get than they are.

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Old March 1, 2013, 12:03 AM   #3
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I'm not an authority in this regard, but I'm pretty sure I heard that S&W is unionized. However, all that means is that the individual workers can only work a certain number of hours per day/week before getting paid very high overtime wages. If their guns are selling, and the equipment can handle higher output, they can always hire more workers to fill the extra shifts.

I agree that they likely make far more than 300 guns per day between all their lines.
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Old March 1, 2013, 12:03 AM   #4
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I actually got the same figure from a S&W rep. It has nothing to do with union rules; it's simply an infrastructure limitation.

That's a pretty good number to be hitting on a daily basis.
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Old March 1, 2013, 12:23 AM   #5
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Smith & Wesson...

If I recall...
S&W historian Roy Jinks wrote that in the early 1970s, the firm was seriously considering ending the line of model 29 .44magnum revolvers due to low sales & a lack of consumer interest in the magnum caliber.
Jump to 1971's classic cop drama; Dirty Harry, www.imfdb.org & when the film was a major Hollywood hit, the US demand for the big .44 model 29 sprang up.

My point is that US gun companies are not set up to mass produce 1,000s of weapons everyday. I honestly wouldn't want a major firm like S&W, Ruger, SIG-Sauer, Glock, Beretta USA, Walther, HK, etc to cut corners or lower the specs to speed up production demands.

The gun mania and 2A mess will end someday. Things will go back to pre-Sandy Hook(12/2012) as for the shooting sports industry.
Some MSRPs will stay high I think to cater to the uninformed gun buyer or "weekend Rambo" types just because of the #s.
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Old March 1, 2013, 12:46 AM   #6
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Quote:
Counter dude said, "S&W is the hardest pistol for us to obtain right now. They are union labor and their contract only allows them to produce 300 pistols per day - max."
Nonsense. Not a lick of truth to it.

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Old March 1, 2013, 12:57 AM   #7
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Just because they make 300 a day or not doesn't mean they are being made that ffast. It could be built(assemblyed) that fast though. I could have 10,000 rifle/handguns in a warehouse just needing a slide to frame mounted and count that as "built 10,000 guns daily".

And by "300 guns or what ever their number is really" thats not per model #, its per unit total. So I could have 20 guns in my company that people buy, and 5 of x model and 15 of y model daily made. I am sure more Shields/M&P 556 are made than 8 shot revolvers.
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Old March 1, 2013, 01:15 AM   #8
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I don't know about Smith and Wesson, but Ruger certainly exceeds 300 units per day. Between 3/31/2011 and 3/31/2012 Ruger built and shipped 1,254,000 guns...that is 3435 guns per day if they worked 365 days during that year.


Ruger CEO Mike Fifer commented "We believe that Ruger is the first firearms manufacturer to build and ship more than one million firearms in one year."

That is a lot of guns...

http://www.ruger.com/news/2012-04-11.html

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Old March 1, 2013, 07:54 AM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Servo
It has nothing to do with union rules; it's simply an infrastructure limitation.
The solution is simple: dust off the the 3rd-gen metal-frame centerfire autoloader production tooling that has supposedly been mothballed at the Houlton, ME plant, and put the M3913, M5906, and M4506 back into production.
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Old March 1, 2013, 08:02 AM   #10
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My local gun dealer

My local gun dealer was telling me that the wait time for wheel guns was much longer right now because they take longer to produce than semi-autos. He stated most makers are primarily building semis right now because they can make far more of them per day. He was telling this to someone that was looking for a particular wheel gun.
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Old March 1, 2013, 08:24 AM   #11
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Interesting read: http://www.atf.gov/publications/fire...pdate-2012.pdf
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Old March 1, 2013, 09:23 AM   #12
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I believe the 300 a day figure is just the M&P Shield line....doesn't include the others being produced.
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Old March 1, 2013, 10:32 AM   #13
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Quote:
TEXSHOOTER SAID:.....Counter dude said, "S&W is the hardest pistol for us to obtain right now. They are union labor and their contract only allows them to produce 300 pistols per day - max."

Quote:
TIPOC SAID:.....Nonsense. Not a lick of truth to it.

....actually, it is true S&W handguns are some of the hardest to get right now. My LGS told me the same. How it is for other dealers may vary tho.
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Old March 1, 2013, 10:35 AM   #14
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According to BATFE, which requires manufacturers to report the number of guns they make each year in different categories, in 2011 (most recent year data available on-line) S&W manufactured 406,151 handguns, which would equate to 1113 per day assuming 7-days/wk production, 1,562 if only 5-days/wk.

LINK
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Old March 1, 2013, 11:32 AM   #15
eman
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I received this email a couple days ago, don't know if it's fact or not.


REPORT FROM GUNS & AMMO:

S&W: Running at Full capacity making 300+ guns/day-mainly M&P pistols. They are unable to produce any more guns to help with the shortages.

RUGER: Plans to increase from 75% to 100% in the next 90 days.

FNH: Moving from 50% production to 75% by Feb 1st and 100% by March 1.

Remington: Maxed out!

Armalite: Maxed out.

DPMS: Can’t get enough parts to produce any more product.

COLT: Production runs increasing weekly...bottle necked by lack of bolt carrier’s.

LWRC: Making only black guns, running at full capacity...can’t get enough gun quality steel to make barrels.

Springfield Armory: Only company who can meet demand but are running 30-45 days behind.

AMMO: Every caliber is now Allocated! We are looking at a nation wide shortage of all calibers over the next 9 months. All plants are producing as much ammo as possible w/over 1 BILLION rounds produced weekly. Most is military followed by L.E. and civilians are third in line.

MAGPUL: Behind 1 MILLION mags, do not expect any large quantities of magpul anytime soon.

RELOADERS: ALL Remington, Winchester , CCI & Federal primers are going to ammo FIRST. There are no extra’s for reloading purposes... it could be 6-9 months before things get caught up. Sorry for the bleak news, but now we know what to expect in the coming months. Stay tuned, we’ll keep you posted...

Related commentary from Bob Owens:

They didn’t know when they’d be getting anything back in stock, from magazines to rifles to pistols. Manufacturers are running full-bore, but can’t come close to keeping up with market demand. It isn’t just the AR-15s, the AK-pattern rifles, the M1As, and the FALs that are sold out. It really hit me when I realized that the World War-era M1 Garands, M1 Carbines, and Enfield .303s are gone, along with every last shell. Ubiquitous Mosin-Nagants—of which every gun store always seemed to have 10-20—are gone. So is their ammo. Only a dust free space marked their passing. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Every weapon of military utility designed within the past 100+ years is gone. This isn’t a society stocking up on certain guns because they fear they may be banned. This is a society preparing for war.

Barack Obama, Dianne Feinstein and the rest of the Statists have done more to promote gun ownership than the NRA ever did. Well done, Democrats!
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Old March 1, 2013, 11:46 AM   #16
Mike Irwin
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As far as I know, and up to about two years ago, Smith & Wesson was NOT a union shop.

300 handguns a day sounds about right given their equipment capabilities. Those would be, I would suspect, the dedicated lines making 300 a day.

If you convert the other lines to make handguns, I suspect the number would got a lot higher.

In order to manufacture more handguns, they would have to make capital investments in exceptionally expensive machinery, and that would not just take money, it would also take a lot of time, months if not more from order to installation to production.
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Old March 1, 2013, 12:46 PM   #17
Glenn E. Meyer
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They are backordered on accessory parts, I know. I've been waiting on one of their sights for quite a bit for a revolver.
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Old March 1, 2013, 03:12 PM   #18
tipoc
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Quote:
Counter dude said, "S&W is the hardest pistol for us to obtain right now. They are union labor and their contract only allows them to produce 300 pistols per day - max."
I thought it was obvious that the guy was blowing smoke. But I guess it isn't obvious to all so to spell out why there is no truth to it...

First...Maybe S&W is the hardest gun for that shop to get right now. Might be because they have not paid their bill, or the distributor is backed up, who knows why. We do know it is not due to the reasons he gave.

1). S&W is not a union shop. 2). If they were union, nothing in any union contract I've ever seen, heard of, or read that limits or can limit the amount of product a company can produce. 3) What he says simply defies common sense on the face of it. Well, "common sense" if you know anything of S&W or the firearms industry and what it's going through right now.

I thought that was self evident that and that this thread wouldn't last but 3 or 4 posts. I was wrong on that.

There has been a rush to buy firearms, all firearms, in the wake of the Connecticut shootings and the talk of new restrictions. If you have not been around a bit you won't have noted that guns have been flying off the shelves, new and used, handguns and long arms.

All AR type guns disappeared from shelves a few weeks ago. Ruger ranch rifles did as well. Any semi long guns sold out quickly and went on back order. This includes the S&W M&P variants. Folks who did not want an AR 6 weeks ago pre ordered them a several local stores out my way. Into the store and no stopping on the shelves. The same across the country according to forums like this one.

All the gun manufacturers are behind in orders. Not just S&W. They have all geared up to meet the demand. A shipment of Glocks came in to a local gunatorium the other day and was gone in 2 days. Normally they stick around weeks and months. Demand is high. Many are worried that their access to any type of firearm may be limited so they are voting with their feet and buying now. Same with ammo.

So on the face of it, with all manufacturers running high and all being hard to get, on the face of it what the counter guy said don't jibe.

The demand took manufacturers by surprise. They have commitments to law enforcement and the military which they can't break off.

The other thing the counter guy said was they "only make 300 pistols a day-max". 300 revolvers? 300 semis? or does he mean 300 wheelguns and semis total? Or does he mean 300 total guns ARs and handguns? Does he include Houghton, Ma. and the Springfield plant together or just one of them or does he know at all? Likely he read or heard some figure somewhere and is spinning a story with a grain of some truth to it but a good deal of smoke.

The heart of his story is that union labor is holding back S&W. S&W is non union. It's hard to get some guns because demand is greater than the manufacturers abilities to keep up at this point.

You may have noticed that's it harder to get ammo as well. Well that's because the union says they can only make 3000 rounds a day.

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Old March 1, 2013, 03:16 PM   #19
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S&W must be a LOT smaller company than Ruger if 300 units a day is maximum capacity. I know Ruger does 3,000+ a day. With that being said, I can't find Rugers on the shelf either.
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Old March 1, 2013, 03:55 PM   #20
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The link below is an article related to Ruger which sort of goes along with the current discussion. Ruger reports a 52% production increase and a $27 million investment in their facility in 2012. They also state that some of their production has been hurt by their inability to get high demand parts from suppliers.

http://money.cnn.com/2013/02/28/investing/ruger-ceo/
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Old March 1, 2013, 05:51 PM   #21
Super Sneaky Steve
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If Ruger makes 3,000 a day then why have I been on a waiting list for over a year to get a 4" Redhawk in .45 Colt?
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Old March 1, 2013, 08:44 PM   #22
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Quote:
I actually got the same figure from a S&W rep. It has nothing to do with union rules; it's simply an infrastructure limitation.
300,000,000/300/365= 2740 years until the gun shortage is over!

But good news, toss in Ruger's larger contribution and the timespan drops to 249 years until everyone in the country has a gun and the panic is over

TCB

(our population's gotten large enough that we get to have fun with our own "Marching Chinamen" scenarios )
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Old March 1, 2013, 09:29 PM   #23
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Quote:
My point is that US gun companies are not set up to mass produce 1,000s of weapons everyday.
Ruger crossed the 1,000,000 threshold for guns made last year in August - doing the math will tell you how many they produce in a day
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Old March 1, 2013, 09:42 PM   #24
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Ruger CEO Mike Fifer commented "We believe that Ruger is the first firearms manufacturer to build and ship more than one million firearms in one year."
Nonsense...he needs to look Mosin Nagant production numbers in 1942. Over THREE MILLION rifles produced out of two factory complexes, and 2.8 million of that from Izhevsk alone...plus SMGs, pistols, machine guns, and artillery. Ruger may be busy, but they don't hold a patch on Soviet wartime production.
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Old March 1, 2013, 10:02 PM   #25
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Quote:
Nonsense...he needs to look Mosin Nagant production numbers in 1942. Over THREE MILLION rifles produced out of two factory complexes, and 2.8 million of that from Izhevsk alone...plus SMGs, pistols, machine guns, and artillery. Ruger may be busy, but they don't hold a patch on Soviet wartime production.
I think he was probably speaking of domestic commercial firearms...not arms produced by state run manufacturers or contract military arms.
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