The Gun Industry - A Bright Spot In Obama's Amerika

There have been some interesting moves announced in the last few days.

ATK has bought the Caliber Company for $315 Million - Caliber is the Parent of Savage Arms/Stevens.  This gives the company a top-class gun manufacturer to go with their firm base in the sporting firearms business:

ATK will integrate Savage within its Sporting Group business. ATK's Sporting Group is the established leader in sporting and law enforcement ammunition and shooting accessories. ATK's ammunition brands include Federal Premium, CCI, Fusion, Speer, Estate Cartridge and Blazer. ATK's accessories brands include BLACKHAWK!, Alliant Powder, RCBS, Champion targets and shooting equipment, Gunslick Pro and Outers gun-care products, and Weaver optics and mounting systems.

(Savage Model 12 Palma rifle)

Ruger, as I've talked about before, has had great growth in its stock prices, and more demand than they can keep up with.  They've announced they'll be opening a third manufacturing facility.  

According to Mr. Fifer (CEO) and the slides shown at the Annual Meeting, they have identified three "attractive sites" in the states of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas. Ruger is not planning to build a plant but rather is seeking a manufacturing facility of about a quarter million square feet that is not being used currently. Fifer says they are looking for something relatively new, that has "phenomenal electricity", and good transportation  that is located in a community that is Second Amendment friendly. The community should also have a good existing workforce and a number of engineers.

This should allow them to get up and running in less time than putting up a building.

Finally, Remington has announced that they'll be expanding an ammo plant.

Some companies have been reluctant to add additional manufacturing capabilities; if the demand for ammo comes to a point before they can recoup their costs, the manufacturers will be left holding rather large bills. Domestic ammo manufacturers have been operating at capacity for nearly a decade straight because so many companies are reluctant to expand.

Remington isn’t one of those companies. They’ve pledged a whopping $32 million to expand their Lonoke, Ark. plant with the construction of an entirely new manufacturing facility. The expansion is expected to be up and running at full capacity by the summer of 2014, with ground broken for the new building by the second quarter of this year.

I've got to say that poster Inagada Davida (great name) at Angry White Dude has written a very interesting perspective on the ammo shortages, Got a Brick of .387 Boomenlouder?, with a few facts I had never heard.

This ammo shortage actually started back at the beginning of Gulf II- what was that, 2003? Mobilizing an army to go halfway around the world is no mean feat. To save ourselves some time and effort, we called on our allies. One thing the Middle East is already set up for is war, right?

We borrowed 2 billion rounds of 5.56 from Israel alone. That manuever saved something on the order of a Panamax cargo ship’s worth of logistics. Ever been on a Carnival cruise? That’s a Panamax ship. Picture one full of .223′s. The deal we made with Israel was that we would replace their ammo with US made ammo as soon as possible. That’s one deal, for one caliber, with one ally. God knows what else we swiped from whom.

Note his assertion of borrowing 2 billion rounds from Israel a decade ago agrees with the Guns.com statement that ammo plants have been at capacity for a decade.  Go read. Worth your time.