IMHO - Ruger is putting out new lines that don't come close to the Ruger quality of just a few years back.
The Ruger name is being used to expalin away a lot of things - even in this thread - ie. If anybody can, Ruger can.
There just comes a point however where you have to step back and look at something with no emotion or sentiment attached.
Since the inception of these new liness, Ruger stock has tripled ~ 10$ in 2009 vs ~ 30$ today.
If you go to Corporate Ruger and pull up the bio's of the board of directors and the officers, it's striking how many of them have so few years in with Ruger.
Jacobi - 2006
Cosentino - 2005
Rosenthal -2010
Whitaker - 2006
Widman - 2010
Fifer - 2006
And finally the only one of what you could call "the old guard" or someone that sat when Bill Ruger was alive
James E. Service - 1992
The officers of the company,,
1997, 2008, 2006, 1973, 2003(rejoined in 2006), 2007, 2001.
The 2006 date of Jacobi joining the board has a lot of significance. In 2006, the future of Ruger was open to a lot of speculation that they would even be around. Ruger stock had dropped to under $6.00 a share.
It isn't hard to figure that a company in trouble is going to want to bring in people to pull them out of trouble by whatever means necessary.
(I'll leave it open to you to read through all the bio's and track down where all the people came from before coming to Ruger).
There is nothing *paranoid* about this in the least.
It's simply the ongoing story of corporate America.
The "old" goes out, in this case Bill Ruger dies/Jr. steps down. Within a short period of time, the company has problems.
In an attempt to pull the company back from the brink, the "new" comes in.
In this case, the new has a history of doing that - and germaine to this - a seemilngly ongoing history.
The Ruger Product isn't what they'll list on a resume, it's the "turning around of Ruger", they'll list.
The LCP and LCR have not been typical Ruger "bulletproof" products. They seem to have more than their share of problems.
That's a departure from the Ruger of the past.
I was around when the Six series and the GP, the Six, the Number1, the Red Label and a few others - came out. They were flawless. Great from the get go and very, very, very few "teething" problems.
Bottom line, Ruger went from being on the rocks to being a Wall Street success story. It no longer has any family ties. It's ripe for the plucking/sale.
The current line of offerings is heavy on new introductions. These new introductions are not the type Ruger built their (rugged/tough) reputation on.
Toss in a new offering of a (street price) sub-$600 1911 clone that looks as good as the SR1911 and has a lot of good features - that has people wondering how Ruger can do it..
My gut feeling is that it won't be long until Ruger get's sold. Their new offerings haven't stood the test of time yet. (The jury is still out on the SR1911 since it just hit the market.).
If/when that happens, history says things don't go well for the buyers of the products.
In the mean time, history also says, when the hands on the reins are guided by making the company profitable/attractive for sale, actual product produced is usually not up to previous products.
The winners are the people that make the decisions and the shareholders.
The losers are more often than not, the customers.
I hate to contemplate somthing like this being in Ruger's future since I like Ruger products - at least the ones I own.
The upside for me as far as I'm concerned is that the Rugers in my safe have a very good chance of being known in the future as "one of the good ones, made before ________(fill in the blank).
The downside for me is that, as attractive as I find the SR1911, I won't buy one.
Less cryptic?
Edit to add - yes JimJC that's my gut feeling.
