07-15-2012, 12:18 PM
For a small rifle shop, this is an extremely difficult market to be in right now. Because of the uniqueness of the AR15 market, where retail customers can buy out critical components from the production cycle, small shops have to fight hard to get anything they don't make in-house.
The parts distributors do really well, but they too have shortages on barrels, bolt carriers, and bolts right now. Notice how lowers aren't really on-sale anymore like they often were over the past few years? That says a lot about demand, because lowers have been priced to sell over the past 3 years, even during Obamageddon 1.0.
As pointed out, does a small shop invest in tooling and employees to ramp-up capacity, only to have the EPA shut them down next year, while incurring more costs with worker's compensation regs, OSHA, State taxes, etc.? There are a lot of big questions about the future, even with demand as high as it is.
The parts distributors do really well, but they too have shortages on barrels, bolt carriers, and bolts right now. Notice how lowers aren't really on-sale anymore like they often were over the past few years? That says a lot about demand, because lowers have been priced to sell over the past 3 years, even during Obamageddon 1.0.
As pointed out, does a small shop invest in tooling and employees to ramp-up capacity, only to have the EPA shut them down next year, while incurring more costs with worker's compensation regs, OSHA, State taxes, etc.? There are a lot of big questions about the future, even with demand as high as it is.