I was talking with Mark Slidlinger he was Remington's VP of marketing at one time. We were talking in hunting camp about the direction of manufactures in the market. I told him a couple years ago that the industry was in a race to the bottom.
My point at the time was that manufactures are trying to produce the cheapest out the door guns ever. The days of producing a quality firearm were a thing of the past. The 710, 770,783, the Axis, The Ruger American, The ranch rifle, and the Winchester XPR. Winchester at the time came out with the Wildcat 22 rifle. I was honestly so disappointed that Winchester stepped into the 22 market again and did not have a quality bolt action 22 LR that was the reason we got on the topic of the race to the bottom.
We started to talk about the new companies that were producing very quality rimfire guns like Voodoo. and others.
I told him that the gun manufactures are losing sight of what a gun is supposed to be. When I was a kid Remington's, Winchesters, things of beauty and shot well. They were handed down to like minded family members and those guns are still in service, or could be today.
The problem is manufactures are just producing guns that will get a guy by. They are cheap enough that he can buy one try it and if he doesn't like it sell it and get something else. I fell into that in the late 70's and early 80's. I bought a Stevens 110E which by todays standards is a quality firearm with wood and was a great shooting gun. I also bought a Post 64 winchester featherweight XTR in 1984 that was at the time a BIG step down from the Pre 64. But in todays standards that rifle is a classic with beautiful features.
If a guy wants a quality firearm now days you have to look at manufactures that are not the big guys. Some are fantastic rifles and it was my opinion that those types of rifles were what was spelling the end of the big manufactures.
I hope that we don't look back at these plastic guns with their plastic magazines, plastic sights, and some with plastic receivers and think those were the good old days of rifle's.