doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Ugartechea is done?

Just saw something about Ugartechea shutting down operations in a post on the 16 Gauge Society webpage. Anybody here know the back story?

http://www.doubleshotguns.com/ugartechea-statement.html

See:

http://www.bilozir.net/index.htm

"Ugartechea has stopped production of guns. They cite a weak market, labour and financial problems."

That's a neat summary.

The same factors that effectively killed Laurona, Zabala Hermanos, and (to a large degree) Pedro Arrizabalaga, did the same job on Ugartechea.

I regret to say I don't think it ends here; there will be other makers closing.

Word is finally getting out big time. See here:

http://www.shotgunworld.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?f=126&t=443314

An interesting look at a specific industry and how that industry survives or doesn't survive. Was it the constant barrage of bad press by American gun writers decades before of soft parts and weak metals used in 'price point' guns demanded by American buyers and supplied by Spanish makers during that period?

Yet look at the French gun industry. They have even a worse reputation here but they could care less. Their industry survives through French demand and French demand only and could care less if they export a gun to anyone. Has anyone heard of a Georges Granger except for a few double gun aficionados? Does he care, no.


Given today's gun environment where the double gun is universally accepted and mostly exempt from the world's restrictions on gun ownership you would think that these builders would be swamped with orders and demand just through the citizenry of their own country would far exceed supply.


Yet we have another builder disappearing at a time when you would think that the world wide market conditions would put them squarely in the money.


Strange times, strange industry.

If there was ever a complaint about French steel in guns lobbed on the internet, I haven't heard it. The French figured out first how to produce steel tubes, and a Frenchman was directly involved in getting American gun producers to use them.

Georges Granger has been dead for many years. Richard Levi owns the name, and the company. There were only three people who worked there when I was in France. A lot of the disinterest in selling guns abroad for them is the fact that they don't believe they are producing anything that would go in a blister pack at a retail store.
You show up in St. Etienne, get measured, show him your shooting style, have dinner with him, tell him how you will use the gun, leave a deposit, Richard will build you a gun.

There won't be any issues with reputation, either.

I think we are seeing the tip of the iceberg of what will be huge societal changes in all of Europe, a mostly bloodless revolution is underway, and it is largely out of the control of traditional Europeans.


Best,
Ted

yet, beretta and browning seem to be doing ok, with their high priced and ugly over and under guns...

Citizenry today is attracted generally to clickety-clacks, long shells---tools--- and not what Ted is talking about: splendid doubles within everyman's price ranges.

Figuring out a viable marketing strategy these days is very, very hard. Do you go for volume, at the low end price point, which has very little profit in it? Do you go for the top end with much higher margins but very small volume? Can you find a mix that will give you enough volume and profit at the same time? And if you miss you are doomed to go under.

then add in the worse problem that you are competing with cheaper gun making sources like Turkey, which is turning out a decent, lower price point gun and getting a decent reputation for it being reliable. Once they have taken that market away from you then they will move up into the mid priced guns and try to do the same. Is this not exactly what the Spanish gun makers did themselves 40 years ago? It is now their turn to see it from what must have been the British and Belgian perspective as they watched their buyers shift buying patterns to the cheaper guns from Spain. What goes around comes around.

If you think hunting and firearms ownership was about "everyman" in Europe, you are badly confused, King.

The only market left for hunting implements of any pay grade, is right here. I gave consideration to a bespoke Spanish gun about a year ago. It was Kyrie that gently pointed out it simply didn't make sense. The same gun, purchased used, and restocked, right here, was still far less money than new. Huge consideration for a working stiff like me, but, I doubt the idle rich are terribly interested in buying something that is worth 25% of what they payed for it, in a year.

So it goes with Spanish guns.

Best,
Ted

Hey go easy on those Beretta and Browning O/Us. Some of us like them.

There is a used Ugartechea SxS 16 ga in the Gunstop in Minnetonka Mn. I handled it and would have bought it if the barrels were 28', vs 26".