The crazy pricing on semi-autos.......

W

Waterengineer

New member
Lets see if I can get a whole thought out on this. Also, does anyone else think this?

I believe the prices on semi-autos has gotten way out of line, particularly for the so called "domestic company" guns, i.e., Winchester and Remington in particular.

A few years ago (2003 or 2004?) Benelli came out with the Super Sport. Yes, it was something different but was outrageously priced when it came out and is still the highest priced semi-auto on the market at $1,775 or so.

My feeling is once the other companies saw what Benelli could command they as they could followed suit coming in slightly below the Benelli price but with good profit.

1. The new Beretta Xplor is around $1,500.

2. The "new" Remington 1100 Competition lists for over $1,600. However, that is basically the same gun they have made for close to 50 years with incredibly small incremental changes. The plain jane 1187 is close to $800.

3. The Winchester Flanigun is about $1500 and the plane jane SX Field is clost to $1,200. These guns also have been around for a long time.

I could continue with Franchi, Beretta, Browning.............

They seem to be getting closer to the prices of two barrel guns. In the past one of th selling points between a two barrel gun and a pumper/auto was the significant price differential. That gap seems to be closing.

With all that says I am a free market capitalist, who understands making a profit. Also, I say this a a person that sheeled out the money for a Beretta SS.

I can't blame the makers for trying to make some money.

But, these prices for semi-autos are getting stupid.

OK, thanks for letting me rant.

Discuss.
 
I'm not in the "gun business" - but I don't think the margins on guns are as high as many things like Furniture, Jewelry, etc ......

I think the price on the Super Sport reflects the price the company had to pay for the "tooling" for that gun / because at the time, it didn't share many parts with other models. However, if the difference between the Euro and the Dollar narrowed / I hope the retail price would come down. The good news - you and I both have Super Sports and like them very much / and paid a lot for them ....... and at a gun show in my area last weekend, there were 2 of them, used, for $ 1,200 .......so some of them are starting to end up on the used market.

I wish guns, cars, furniture, clothes etc. were cheaper/and made better...but I don't know how we're going to turn this thing around except to shop carefully and demand value for our dollars when we spend. If a weapon doesn't stand up to regular use for at least 10 yrs / I have no interest in having it in my safe ......but the Benelli Super Sport has not let me down even once in at least 5 yrs since I bought the first one .....(so its hard to complain too much ).

But just my perspective ...
 
I agree with you Water, and the part that really boils my blood is the price they are charging for guns that don't even have wood or blued steel. That is why I haven't bought a new semi-auto in over 10 years and regret the one I bought at that time. All mine are old shotguns with way better craftsmanship.
 
List and street prices are two different things.

That said, good quality over/unders are still up closer to $2000 than to $1000. With the 1100 you mention, yes, the Competition model has a $1600ish MSRP, but there are also 1100 variants for about half that (street price).

The "expensive" Beretta 391 Teknys has a far cheaper identical sibling in the 391 Urika 2. You're paying more for the prettier finish and nicer wood, same as with the 1100 Competition. If you can accept blued metal instead of shiny metal and plastic furniture over nicely grained wood, you'll pay about half as much (and that kind of goes for the over/unders as well)

I have a rather expensive autoloader (Remington 105 CTi II), and yes, for a few hundred more bucks I'd have had a rather decent O/U. However, I *like* this gun, it shoots well, and doesn't beat my shoulder to death.

If you don't like the prices, there's no need to pay them.
 
OK, after rereading my OP, let me make my point more clear.

When the Benelli SS enterest the market there was a larger price disparity between it and other semi-autos on the market.

As time marched forward the price difference closed between the top tier semi-autos and more modest priced guns (i.e., the Remingtons and Winchesters for example).

And, these companies closed the price gap without making significant strides in innovation or quality.

Jim, yes, I'm glad I have a SS already.
 
Most of those companies are owned by Beretta . Beneli had that cam lock bolt face and inertia recoil system that makes up a lot of the Beneli's price . Beretta bought Beneli and a few other product lines . Now you see the same cam lock and recoil systems on Beretta , Franchi , stoeger and a few others .
 
Part of the price issue you are mentioning is due to the poor exchange rate for the US dollar on the world currency markets. Customers demand high-tech synthetics, ceramic-coated or hard-chromed action parts, Kevlar and graphite fiber, titanium, aerospace aluminum, etc, and these are not cheap and will likely never be cheap. Another part of the equation is the rising worldwide price of metals since we started our little adventures in the sandier areas of the world. Another part is the overall cost of operating is being spread out over fewer firearms produced. And yet another part is the one mentioned, US makers can increase the price of their offerings when the competition's price is skyrocketing. But I don't think anyone is gouging, since all firearms prices are going up and not just US- or foreign-made guns.
 
Ok, I think I understand your point better -- you're saying, "the low end guys are riding on the innovators shirttails" .....without doing anything new or different ...

I think that's probably true of gun prices in general / as the low end guys see any of the higher end guys make something a little different - especially if they charge a little more for it / even if the low end guys don't change a thing in their guns - they just raise prices and tag along.

I see the same issue in DA/SA handguns and in 1911's too .....where the higher end mfg's do something a little different or a little better... and it tends to drag the prices of the lower end mfg's up with them.

But until the lower end mfg's reach the point where they have product in stock that is not selling at the higher price ...they'll continue to do it. I know you're an educated consumer when it comes to guns in general - but I see a whole lot of buyers / and salesmen in shops - that really have no clue about "a general class of guns - like semi-auto shotguns in general" - and they can't differentiate between models, or explain price issues between models .....and they sell a lot of guns based on nothing but price alone vs long term durabiltiy, innovation, etc / or what was the latest coolest thing written up in the gun magazines.

The problem is - I'm not sure if its good or bad ?? Buyer gets a gun he likes, at a price he likes - shop sells a gun they have in stock ..... and I see the same thing on cars ...... is a Toyota Land Cruiser at $ 75,000 a better deal than a Chevy Tahoe at $ 40,000 ......do I need a car that will run for 10 yrs and 200,000 miles or should I trade it in every 3 years ...what's my best buy ?? - what makes me feel the best ??
 
Keep in mind, though, that the shotgun enthusiast crowd tends not to be all that keen on new and innovative designs. In my experience, they seem to prefer the tried and true, even if a new modification is in fact an improvement.

Before I bought my Remington 105 CTi II, I did quite a bit of reading, and it ended up being between that and a Browning Cynergy.

The Cynergy, by all reports, has a better hinge system than the Citori, but did the shotgun enthusiast crowd pick it up and love on it? Heck no, they called it ugly and shunned it as being unnecessary. Browning eventually had to introduce a "Classic" model with more traditionally shaped wood furniture to get some people to pay any attention to it. You'd think these folks were planning to put the gun in a museum, not use it at the club or in the field.

The 105 CTi II, granted, had a troublesome introduction, but I had not read any real problems about the reintroduced "II" model, and mine worked perfectly out of the box. When I gave a shooting report on a shotgun oriented site, people immediately began crapping all over the gun, even those who'd never shot one. If it wasn't too expensive it was a failure prone design (not true for the redesign), and if not that, then it was just ugly and an unnecessary innovation that the market didn't need. I decided that if that's the way people respond to a shooting report there, I didn't need to be part of their fellowship and haven't been back since. Beretta has the 391, why bother with the CTi? Well, if we thought that way, why'd the 391 ever get traction over the Browning Auto or the Remington 1100? You'd think a light semiauto with nearly no recoil, a great trigger, and the ejection of empties right in front of you would be applauded. No, much the opposite.

Some companies may just ride the coattails of the innovators, but the fact is also that the innovators tend to catch ten different kinds of grief just for attempting to innovate. Easier to keep selling what you always have, just raising the price to keep even with the competition even though your R&D and tooling costs have long since been covered.
 
I'd rather buy used, if I was in the market, but I'm not. But a Montefeltro for $600 almost got me interested. There are so many great shotguns, that are used and worth every penny that many folks are asking. Some people just gotta have new, and if nobody buys, the prices will come down on most but the super exclusive models.
 
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As a machinist....

I can say that there is NO WAY in this wet wild and crazy world it costs that much to manufacture most of todays guns. the machines that are out there now-a-days can do what 4 machines did 10 years ago! True, starting up the manufacturing process of a new model takes money and time, but like was said before, the 1187 and 1100 and the winnies have been around a long time and have had very insignificant changes. I work for a company that makes a lot of gun parts (desert eagles, ruger sr556, etc.) and it is pretty easy to make the parts for the gun with todays machinery. for example, the bolt carrier for the ruger sr556 costs $65.00 a piece when all is said and done. machined, heat treated, plated and laser engraved. the rifle sells for $2000.00...somebodys looking to line their pockets.

I for one say screw high prices, buy a mossberg auto for $500. send a message to the gun makers.
 
I've never understood the rationale for the hefty price disparity existing between a company's semi-auto shotguns and their pump counterparts. For instance, why in the world does a Remington 1100 cost a couple of hundred dollars or so more than an equivalent 870 to make when the two guns share the basic design parameters and cost to manufacture factors for most of their common parts (stocks, receivers, barrels, trigger groups, etc.)? Does an 1100 really cost that much more to produce than an 870? I rather doubt it.
 
Buying a cheap Mossberg is exactly the wrong message in my opinion. In the mid and low end guns there is a race between the manufacturers to see who can produce the biggest piece of crap. There are too many buyers that are only concerned about saving $25 on the price of a gun. Every time one company takes a shortcut to knock $10 off the price of a gun the competition has to find a shortcut to shave $20 off the price to remain competetative. The Mossberg 500 and 870 express are a perfect example. Mossberg and Remington have both tried to produce better quality at a slightly higher price, but buyers left them on the shelves to save a few bucks. In the long run we all suffer from sub-par quality.
 
In 1976 I bought a new Rem 1100 for $179.00. It still looks and shoots as good as the day I bought it. When I see todays prices on auto loaders I'm glad I hung on to it.:D
 
I just bought an 1187 youth model for my boy . He just got into the schoolastic clay target program at my gun club . This gun is such a rough POS that most of the time it wont cycle so he has no idea if he can even shoot a double . I am so sorry that I bought this gun for him and I paid close to 600.00 for it .Yes the club smith has looked it over and over and he keeps telling me I see a lot these with all kinds of problems . This is not what I expected as far as quality goes not to mention performance . This gun for what it is was way over priced and a big disappointment for me and the 12 yr old . I do think its time to do something about the quality and pricing of some of the autoloaders out there .
 
I think another factor folks may have overlooked is that the local boys have to also compete on the LOW end of semis with the Turkish and Chinese stuff that folks clamor for because of one thing - they're cheap. Since they do not make enough on those (MY opinion), they will try to make it up on another product line.

Quality costs money - and good quality costs good money.

There's an old adage that goes something like - You want it bad? You'll get it bad. And the worse you want it, the worse you'll get it.

Comparing today's prices with ones from ten or twenty years ago is just foolish - compare car prices or home prices from that same scenario. Perhaps the folks whining would like their WAGES to match those 20 year-old gun prices. Add in increases in things like taxes, insurances, benefits, ad nauseum, and prices go up. And yes, there is this thing called profit. Companies need profit to stay in business. People don't seem to mind paying a lot of money every month for a cell phone or satellite TV, exorbitant prices for cheaply-made sports shoes, or $4.00 for a cup of coffee - some hot water filtered through some beans......but a gun maker making a profit? To some it seems Un-American...........
 
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"why in the world does a Remington 1100 cost a couple of hundred dollars or so more than an equivalent 870 to make when the two guns share the basic design parameters and cost to manufacture factors for most of their common parts (stocks, receivers, barrels, trigger groups, etc.)"

Different stock. The 1100 has a tube in it for the recoil spring. The recoil pad on my 1100 is real compared to the hard rubber-coated plastic thing that came on my Express.

Different receiver. In many ways.

Different barrel. The gas ports if nothing else. The 0-ring and a bunch of stuff that has to be timed right to work.

Trigger groups? I've never really compared the ones on my 870 and 1100.

But then, I only paid $328 at Wal-Mart for my black synthetic 1100 5 or 10 years ago. :)
My 870 Express cost $199.95 on sale in 1993.

John
 
the two guns share the basic design parameters and cost to manufacture factors for most of their common parts (stocks, receivers, barrels, trigger groups, etc.)? Does an 1100 really cost that much more to produce than an 870? I rather doubt it.
Click to expand...

The 1100 and the 870 do share "the basic design parameters" for most of their common parts. Just because they differ in small ways does not account for the wide disparity in price between the two shotguns. Compare the recoil pads between a Wingmaster (not an Express) and an 1100 and you won't find much difference between the two. I don't know what you mean by "a bunch of stuff (on the 1100) has to be timed right to work". There are timing issues with the 870 too but both guns are set up for mass production and require no hand-fitting or other labor intensive measures before they're cranked out for sale.
The 870 may be lacking a few O-rings but the 1100 doesn't even have action arms...:rolleyes:
 
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