The service is costly, but saved a week's work. Had the work been larger scale there would be economic benefits in adddition to higher quality.
There's the answer. Machinery that's equal or superior to doing it by hand makes sense . . . IF you're producing enough volume to justify the cost of the machinery, and IF labor costs increase significantly. The American sxs industry was basically dead by 1960. Then along came sxs from Japan, imported by American firearms manufacturers like Ithaca, Winchester, and Browning. Today, we're seeing no sxs from Japan (but a lot of OU's--greater volume), and the Spanish sxs trade, which largely replaced the Japanese in the mid-price market, is now on the ropes as well. When Browning brought out the Cynergy, they brought together a group of outdoor writers to put the gun through its paces. Several of us tried to talk them into bringing the BSS back. Seems all the Miroku employees who'd made the BSS had retired, and Browning was not interested. Look at the problems Ruger encountered producing the Gold Label. Makes you wonder whether setting up to make sxs mostly by machine makes bottom line sense these days??
Last edited by L. Brown; 06/27/13 10:17 AM.
