Smith & Wesson’s Downfall??

[s3779m]

I suspect the "Trump Slump" has more to do with the fall in S&W's sales figures than MIM parts.

Well, Trump was following "Salesman of the year" so don't be too hard on him.

[Chainsaw.]

Perhaps fuddy duddies hung up on the PERCEIVED inferiority of MIM and the presence of a passive safety feature are withholding their cash flow, which in turn means lower sales, which in turn means needing to throttle back production.

[Don P]

They talk about a great up and coming company that had several changes of ownership and now is mysteriously struggling....

Some folks were let go by S&W and they just slid over to Ruger. That's why you are seeing Ruger double action revolvers coming out of the factory set up for moon clips and in 10 mm and 9 mm configurations as well as the standard 38/357 calibers. They were also the primary sponsor for the 2017 IRC held at Universal Shooting Academy in Frostproof FL. supplied and gave away 4 handguns at the match

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by T. O'Heir

"...MIM parts..." Perceived as being some how lower quality. Even by Ruger aficionados. Ruger's entire business is based on investment castings.

You are aware, I hope, that MIM (Metal Injection Molding) and investment casting are two totally different processes, right? Investment casting is used for larger parts, such as slides and receivers. MIM is used ror small parts, such as hammers, triggers, sears, etc. Mentioning investment casting as a follow-up to a comment about MIM is very much a non-sequitur.

[Nathan]

Perhaps fuddy duddies hung up on the PERCEIVED inferiority of MIM and the presence of a passive safety feature are withholding their cash flow, which in turn means lower sales, which in turn means needing to throttle back production.

I think I agree with this, even though I think you called me a name!

BTW, it's not perceived....you have to lower part stress and toughness levels by design to apply MIM parts because MIM's structure on a micro level is it's weakness. A slurry of plastic and metal flow into a mold. Oversized parts come out, they shrink as plastic binder comes out and are very hard. They are made to size and have little to no fitting or final machining. What do you think they look like under a microscope? Swiss cheese?

[mete]

Let this metallurgist try to explain things !
It all started with Powder Metal [PM] where metal powder is compressed in a mold , then sintered [ heated ]to bond the powder. A fairly old process .BTW Remington made guns AND powder metal parts for years .These parts were for many applications .During Viet Nam we made helicopter bearing retainers that held a bit of oil so that a helicopter could safely land if oil lines were shot out !
The next step was MIM [metal-injection -molded ] using a slurry of metal powder ,molded ,heated to drive off the polymer, then sintered to bond the particles.
Somewhere the bean counters found they could use it for every gun part .But they were thinking only 'bottom line' not proper gun engineering !
Being retired some info sources are not available but I did learn that FORD is using it make a truck engine part that needs the highest performance ! [yes I do drive an F-150].
So the problem was inappropriate application and poor quality !