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Several factors involved in decline of sporting rifle sales
Any time there is a liberal president, there is a spike in sales of black rifles and handguns going back to the Bill Clinton years. So the Obama election explains why everyone wants to own an AK-47 and a case of ammo, but why are there slow sales of model 700 Remingtons and such?
For one thing, the economy has been soft. Perhaps that is putting it mildly. If one's job is gone or threatened, he or she is hardly going to spend a week's wages on a new deer rifle.
I know I am an old outdated geezer still living in the dark ages, but talk about sticker shock. Just look at the price of a new rifle and scope combo.
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Another factor that enters the picture is that a rifle is a long-lasting product. Unlike an automobile, which wears out every five or six years, a rifle, given decent care, will last a couple of lifetimes. Rare is the rifle that is shot out. Most are ruined by neglect or accident.
A rifle that is put away wet will rust, rendering it nothing more than a piece of junk. In my gun room is a broken stock from a Browning rifle. The break was the result of hunting accident in British Columbia when a horse rolled on the hunter's safari-grade .300 .
When you buy a rifle, however, you are buying a product that will take a beating and keep on working and doing its job.
So we have a product that is rarely replaced because it is worn out, but instead replaced because one just wants something different. No wonder sales suffer when the economy goes bad.
However, there may be another factor that enters the picture that few want to talk about.
As I look around and see fewer and fewer deer, the big game we hunt the most, I see less and less a reason to invest in a new deer rifle. The powers to be seem to be worried that the deer population may be found distasteful to the timbering industry. So we seem to be sacrificing the hunting industry to cow tail to those that cut trees. I can't help but wonder just how much more money is brought in by the timber industry than the hunting industry and is the deer herd really that detrimental to the growth of hardwood trees?
I realize I am taking a simplistic approach when I use a local example but I have observed land go from field to forest despite large deer numbers.
In the late 1960s, we farmed 50 acres of ground for about four years but decided its distance from the main farm was a problem.
Today, this piece of land is mature trees and second growth. Among the trees are tulip poplar, maple and cherry. I have no doubt but that our local deer herd numbers peaked from about 1975 to about 1995, which would include the years when these trees were growing. Despite high deer numbers, the land went from field to forest.
Much the same could be said about a 95-acre farm just up the road from my house. In the early 1960s, you could see from the road to the next hillside, about 600 yards.
Today's growth of cherry trees prevent that, and in fact, some of the trees are marked to be timbered. These places went from farm fields to woods despite the deer and high numbers of deer. Yet there are those that want to lower deer numbers even further. Could there be a hidden agenda to destroy hunting?
Is it any wonder we don't invest in another deer rifle. Maybe I am day dreaming, but just maybe I am right and the reason sporting rifle sales are off is multifaceted.
Even the State Game Lands, which were purchased with the hunters' money, are managed with things other than hunting purposes in mind. There is little doubt that the last decade has witnessed a decline in the sale of hunting licenses. Should we expect anything but a similar decline in sales of sporting rifles and shotguns?
• I recently saw something advertised that I thought was interesting and would be of interest to others. As I mentioned before, military-style rifles have become tremendously popular and the AR-15 style leads the way.
Now, P.S.E. is offering a crossbow attachment for AR-style lower receivers. As I understand it, the conversion is not cheap but it should be popular with those who want to hunt with their AR-style rifle in bow season.
It's a unique Idea.
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