Letter to Ruger

H

Hafoc

New member
I have one of the 50th Anneversary Blackhawks, and goodness, it's a nice piece. Handsome in a simple way, and just that little bit less bulky than the full-sized New Model Blackhawks.

It appears to be built on the same size frame as the New Vaquero. It has the "reverse-indexing pawl" mechanism, so I suspect its internals are the same as the New Vaquero also.

I recently sent a letter to Ruger saying "If, having tooled up to manufacture these, you really do stop making them after only one year, you're doing yourself a great disservice." I suggested they continue making them in .357. I also suggested they try .44 Special, just to have something different, something the gun cranks like me would like.

I said that my fellow shooters and I would "bark like seals to get our hands on somehting like that." A line I stole from someone else here, I think. But that's not the point, that's not the question.

The question is... was I right?
 
4

4V50 Gary

Staff
When I last visited Ruger in '96, they were using an older inventory system whereby marketing determined what was going to sell, look at their existing inventory, and then design a production schedule. Production then gears up to produce everything marketing forecasts. For several months, they'll do a certain type of revolver and then switch over to another, and so on and so forth. This minimizes the "down" time required when a production line stops so it can convert over (jigs and what not) to another gun. The good thing is it keeps everyone employed. The bad thing is if Marketing didn't do its job right, Ruger is stuck with guns it won't move (huge inventory means tied down assets).

So, Ruger may not have stopped producing a gun for a while but it only means there is either enough at hand in the factory or at their distributors or that they won't be producing it for a while until Marketing determines that they can move them. Some guns were produced all the time like the Ruger 10/22, Mini-14, O/U shotguns (very small line).

S&W adapted the Japanese inventory system and keeps only 10k guns on hand. If they sold it today, they'll make it tomorrow and their line is very flexible. They also eliminated about 60% of their management by using the employee quality control circle (workers aren't stupid).

Was your letter a waste of time? Probably not. It's probably one consideration that Marketing gets and feeds into their mysterious pot to come up with the numbers for production. If nothing else, letters get posted so employees can read them and be proud of their work. I recall a photo of a bomb before being mounted on some jet. It was marked, "Sturm, Ruger & Company." One of the employees served in Desert Storm.
 
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