Interestingly, the time-corrected price points for most firearm models which have been continuously produced throughout the last several generations have tracked slightly BEHIND inflation, meaning less hours are worked to buy the same firearm today than in past generations. This is ONLY accomplished by reducing manufacturing costs. Skilled labor time investment is being minimized, both by innovative automation of some processes and by reducing high duration labor activities for aesthetic finish.

Demonstrably, many models which CANNOT be more cost efficiently produced, either due to design or by market tolerance for aesthetic of the model, are falling by the wayside. We see this in the levergun market - leverguns require a lot of machining steps, and in general, quite a bit of hand-fitting and tuning. Equally, largely the folks buying leverguns are either wanting a nostalgic piece with clean finishes and nice wood, rather than matte bluing and polymer stocks, OR they’re wanting a modern twist on a fast firing rifle, with upgraded features for adaptability... nobody seems to want a cheap matte blue and polymer levergun which costs $500, not when a bolt action will shoot farther and smaller for $300. So Winchester failed, Marlin has failed multiple times... the days of the $250 leveraction Dirty Thirty on the shelf as a budget friendly option are over... they simply can’t be made at that price point and folks don’t want the version which could be built nearer to that price. Equally, we’ve seen Colt floundering for a few years, discontinuing then reintroducing various models - their raison d’être AR-15’s even - because they weren’t profiting sufficiently on the models, and now ultimately, we’ve seen Colt fail deeply enough to be acquired by CZ. Remington collapsed, Savage became an unfavorable investment (again)... yet Ruger’s stock prices have steadily sustained growth in and out of panic eras as they are continually innovating to reduce manufacturing input costs...

Fine firearms are still out there to be bought, but a buyer has to realize a $200 pricetag in 1975 would be equivalent to $1000 in 2021, so a buyer can’t pretend a $350 budget friendly rifle in 2021 is meant to be the equivalent of a $350 rifle purchased 30+ years ago.