Quality of todays firearms?

I think today's guns are probably the best quality than they have ever been. We have or fondly remember the better guns from yesterday but we tend to forget the tons of really poor quality and lousy guns that were made then. I'm 67 and remember a lot of the poor quality guns that were made in my youth. My mother had a really lousy and poor quality H & R 32 break top revolver that was truly scary and dangerous to shoot. My Dad and some really lousy shotguns and I had a very poor quality 22 rifle. My 2 old shotguns are late 40 or early 50s vintage and they are far from good quality (only have them because I inherited them from a favorite cousin). We remember and have the good but forget about the crap that broke or wore out and was thrown away decades ago.
 
Remington has mutiple recalls, everyone says buy older marlins, buy older smith and wessons, buy older pre 64 winchesters, buy older colt pythons, etc. Ruger firearms prices have gone up to rival smiths, $1000 for a good bolt action .22 from ruger?. Why does it seem like non american companies have better quality control, almost more innovation. CZ, Benelli, Browning, etc. I want quality american guns.
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The answer is complex and may be dominated by economics.

For example, let's say today that 80% of all hand gun buyers will spend no more than $500.00 to buy a handgun. It is the consumers opinion that $500.00 should be enough to produce a handgun that they feel is satisfactory. That is what consumers do when the purchase something, they state their opinion, it is like voting.

The company may be able to produce a high quality firearm for $500.00 and then one day something changes, the price of steel goes up, health care costs increase, workers demand higher pay, etc., something changes the costs to produce the handgun. At first the company shifts profits from going to bonuses to cover the higher costs, but at some point that doesn't cover it. The entire process of development comes under review and waste is identified and removed. Waste is one of the things a company can control so it will try and control it. Waste could be corrected by removing inefficient employees. Waste could be corrected by shortening supply chains, removing middle men, removing a step such as polishing the inside of the magwell that no one seems to notice, etc. When all of the waste is removed that can be the next thing may be to look for different materials and manufacturing to reduce cost. On and on the process goes, removing waste and reducing costs, until the efforts result in a product that no one wants to buy. At that point the consumer opinion will shift. Say another company is producing a hand gun that costs $650.00. Everyone raves about it. People start buying it. Now the customer has shifted his opinion and will now pay $650.00 for a handgun. The company making the $500.00 has to figure out how to get into this new market. Their reputation may be damaged because they produced "junk" that had lots of recalls. Their shop needs re-tooling, not only in machines, but in employee skills to make the new $650.00 hand gun. The company may not recover, or may decide it will now compete with the "cheap" guns out there, because there are 20% of the market that thinks there is not much difference in any of the handguns. This could lead to further reductions in staff and quality because now they are competing for a smaller slice of the pie, maybe move manufacturing to Asia, etc.

Why do European products seem to be better? Maybe the keyword is the "seem" to be better for the price. I have a CZ bolt action rifle that cost around $650.00 and I could have got a Ruger that cost $350.00. I like both companies. Why did I buy the CZ? Because I wanted it more.
 
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I understand that quality exist today for more money. I understand americans want cheap over quality. But when you look over the vast majority of products on the market we aren't reinventing the wheel. Most american based guns are based on designs that are 40-100 years old. I just figured that after that amount of time that these designs in fact should be perfected. Todays cnc machines are capable of exceptional accuracy. One machine now replaces a dozen people from the past. We should be in a golden age of firearms not dwelling on firearms made 30 years ago.
 
I understand that quality exist today for more money. I understand americans want cheap over quality. But when you look over the vast majority of products on the market we aren't reinventing the wheel. Most american based guns are based on designs that are 40-100 years old. I just figured that after that amount of time that these designs in fact should be perfected. Todays cnc machines are capable of exceptional accuracy. One machine now replaces a dozen people from the past. We should be in a golden age of firearms not dwelling on firearms made 30 years ago.
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Let me express some of my frustration with things and I think it will be apparent that I too think things should be better than they are.

I love architecture, especially Gothic. When in Europe I always make my way to a Gothic cathedral. Just look at the vaulted ceilings, and how the ribs on the carved stone work in strength and beauty at the same time. And to think they carved it out of stone with chisels. Then I look at a modern building, all plain and simple and think, "We could have computer controlled machines carve the most beautiful fixtures and 3D printers make the most magnificent moldings but we don't even bother."

I love cars. I was reading about the 2012 (I think that was the year) Dodge Challenger with the Hemi. You would think the Hemi would be perfected by now right? Well, at 6,000 miles people were having catastrophic engine failures in the automatic transmission versions of the car. The culprit, the time chain was described as a chain from a bicycle, and all they had to do was put the same chain used on the truck engine and this would have never happened.

I love firearms too. I bought the Sig 238 HD as soon as the came out. It was a SIG, it was a direct copy of a Colt Mustang, so what could go wrong, a quality company and a gun design that was 40 years old. Well a friend of mine mocked the little gun so much that joked one day, "You know SIG's slogan, To Hell and Back Reliability? Well the should change that to be To Hell with Reliability." I really felt I was the beta tester for SIG and wondered how it got out the door. SIG is a good company and they made things right, but it does cross one's mind that with today's experience and precision machinery that flops and failures should not happen. But yet they do.

Why do flops and failures happen? Is it an American problem only? Is it cultural?

I still think it is economics that are at the root of the problem and it manifests itself in a myriad of ways.

Imagine this scenario, a company with a brilliant machinist that has been working for 18 years. Some "bean counting" accountant trying to cut costs looks at this machinist's salary, the cost of paying full retirement, etc., and convinces the boss to lay him off and replace him with two persons right out of college. Next thing you know things are out of spec because the new guys didn't now that machine X likes to get out of adjustment and machine Y is due for a new part, etc.

Now the story can go the other way as well, you have an old employee that will not learn how to operate new machines or use new techniques but the company will not let the person go out of loyalty and they fall behind the curve.

There are infinite things that cause this, and I wish we were past it, but we are not.

I am by profession a computer programmer. I have a graduate degree in Computer Science and I have worked for the top companies in desktop computing. I have seen the following pattern over and over, a bunch of programmers get together and make a product and they grow this product into a company. Somehow the business guys get their foot in the door, usually invited in because there are real business needs, but the guys I refer too really believe that management is what makes success and they soon work their way to the top. As soon as the CEO of a tech company isn't a tech person the technology of the company starts to falter. The more that the engineers say no the more they hire managers to say yes. I asked a manager once if they believed they can manage what they can't do. "Can you manage programmers when you don't know how to program?" "Yes I can", the replied. "How?", I asked. "I can ask questions that provoke thought and guide the process" the replied. "How do you know when a programer is lying, when the programmer is actually working hard, when the programmer is doing a good job?", I asked. They couldn't answer, yet they thought they could identify waste and improve the software process. That is just simple bull crap.

So I understand your statements. It boils down for me to a question of economy and finance.
 
Things are made to a cost, a few tool marks won't make any difference to a firearms performance. Want to get better quality you will have to pay for it. That goes for most things not just firearms.
 
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