Why are revolvers so expensive ?

In addition to the more difficult machining and assembly, I rather imagine that revolver manufacturers have lost any economy of scale that they once had, as semis have taken such a large part of the market.
 
"...A new Colt..." Any Colt will cost more because it has 'COLT' stamped on it. Colt has been marketing on the name for eons. So has Browning and Winchester, among others.
However, as mentioned, it takes more machine shop time to make a revolver. They're far more complicated machines than any pistol.
 
briandg said:
Osborne, those prices came from one and only one source. I didn't cherry pick, I just took what i could easily obtain and gave the true prices from those sources. I spent about an hour putting the post together to tell the true story as best as I could determine it from the perspective of some guy who could just walk into an average store that he has near home or easily find online. That took a lot of work for someone who was stuck on a couch with a migraine. I probably should have picked other places and different guns. I hoped that it would help.

Yes, a Smith .38 cost more than a rough rider. In this case, value isn't getting a gun for the price of a box of cigars. It's getting a gun for the price of a better box of cigars and maybe getting a better or more worthwhile product for a better price. I've got to stop now. I don't want switch the focus to only what I think because everyone has a right to express their their thoughts without someone shouting him down.
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I used on source because Buds has a good variety and you can find what you are looking for in a couple of minutes. I can spend about 10 minutes online and beat Buds prices nearly every time. I've bought 5 new guns this year but only a couple from Buds because I found better prices or they were available locally for a better price and they were immediately available. I bought 3 affordable revolvers this year alone and have accumulated 5 (one was a gift and another used) within the last 10 months which means I seriously shopped. How many have you bought in that time period?
 
I’ve picked up 4 in the last 3 months. All 4 have ended up being S&Ws. I happily paid the premium for the difference in refinement.

Rugers are strong and well built, but they always feel chunkier in my hand. Upside is they are a bit cheaper.

Charter and Taurus both make functional revolvers, neither are the quality of S&W, Ruger or Colt.

You can buy affordable revolvers, but trade off is refinement.
 
It’s an old saying that’s been roughly true forever: “a good revolver costs an ounce of gold”.

Even with CNC machined parts, a revolver requires skilled hand assembly and fussing with precise little fussy parts that are subject to great forces over years and years of use.

Gold is about $1400 an ounce... you could buy a decent S&W for less (or a lemon from S&W, but I digress) or a gem from Freedom Arms for twice as much that ounce of gold. The price is in the craftsmanship.

You can say a lot about Glock, but “beautiful work of the gunsmith’s art” isn’t one of them.

The price differential between Glock and Taurus is a little bit of materials, a bit more Q/C, and a lot of marketing. (25 years ago there were Brazilian revolvers I owned and liked, those days are gone.)

To be really honest, the new ruger revolvers I have gotten are pale imitations of my old single actions.

Good used revolver is all I would consider now.

Old guy final rant: “kids pay a thousand dollars for a stinking cell phone that lasts 2 years but balk at paying $700 for a firearm that will last 100 years”

Get off my lawn, too!
 
briandg said:
Look at a revolver and examine all of the machined surfaces. Look at a plastic pistol and see the simple work.

A revolver's cylinder has 6 boreholes, six locking notches, six precision tabs to rotate the thing, ejection star, machined trigger assembly with a half dozen parts, steel frame and barrel, etc...

A Metal framed pistol is just as complex to make, with hammer, frame, slide, etc but they are made in greater volume.

When you buy a plastic framed pistol you get essentially a steel slide and barrel with a few steel parts that are fitted to a plastic frame that was cast around some components and the rest of it is put together by robots. (probably).

The glock can cost as little as $500 because it is cheap to make and the company wants to sell millions of them. It worked.

The 1911 and other steel frame handguns, if you buy a quality 9mm about in the quality range of a glock will cost you in the range of $800 to even $1,200

You can buy a revolver, a smith in .357 magnum for about $800.

An aluminum frame revolver can be had for less than the price of a glock. $400 dollar range.

A revolver can be a bargain. They are not more expensive than a high end pistol. I can get a boxed pair of vaquero .357s for about $1,700. A super redhawk alaskan for $1,000. A S&W 629 classic .44 magnum sells for $900.

A rather ordinary 1911 at the same place goes for $1,000. Upper scale 1911s with some custom features will cost well into the $2,000. and up range.

Don't look at an M&P and compare it to a steel framed revolver, or even a steel framed pistol. It's apples to prunes.
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Well said
 
When you consider that a revolver involves forging the frames and barrels or in Rugers case casting the parts from a one time use ceramic mold and the the final machining, polishing has to be done. A stainless gun can be smoothed and polished and the exterior is finished. A blued gun has to be hand polished and then blued. And bluing does not hide flaws. It shows them up. Then add in all the hand fitting and wood grips sanded to fit the frame you get a better idea of why a good revolver cost what it does.

In the book "Glock, Rise Of Americas Gun" it stated at that time it cost Glock about $100 to make each gun. There is no extended polishing done. Most of the parts are molded plastic and stamped flat metal pieces with a minimum of machine work done and it really raises the question of not "why do revolvers cost so much" but why do Glocks cost what they do?

I have a S&W SW9VE 9mm. A Glock knock off. And comparing the S&W to the Glock they are very close. The S&W cost me $325 new with a $50 rebate and two free factory mags. So about $200 or so in value. The Glocks are being sold at close to a 500% mark up. Why? Because people are willing to pay it. My BIL (newly minted cop) just bought a Gen5 model 22 Blue Box and he paid around $350 IIRC. And I promise you Glock still made money on the sale.
 
I can only say that I like my glock because it fits well to my needs and fits my hands. It's a better fit for me than the others I looked at. Yep, it made someone a lot of money, and it cost me more than alternatives, but in the end I got what I paid for. I could have saved money but I wouldn't have had the satisfaction of a gun that really works well for me.

I wish that I could pick up a K frame for a few hundred.
 
briandg said:
I can only say that I like my glock because it fits well to my needs and fits my hands. It's a better fit for me than the others I looked at. Yep, it made someone a lot of money, and it cost me more than alternatives, but in the end I got what I paid for. I could have saved money but I wouldn't have had the satisfaction of a gun that really works well for me.

I wish that I could pick up a K frame for a few hundred.
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I picked up a 67-1 and 686-1 in the last few weeks for about the equivalent on a Gen5 19 for each. There are deals to be had out there for them.
 
"Old guy final rant: “kids pay a thousand dollars for a stinking cell phone that lasts 2 years but balk at paying $700 for a firearm that will last 100 years”"

This is exactly why I don't own a cell phone! I'd rather buy an extra gun every 2 years! hah
 
30 some odd years ago, I bought a dot-matrix printer (at the time state of the art) for about $200, and a Remington 870 Express for $189.

Which one of those do you think is still working? Which one of those is still worth $200 (or more?)

Hint: It ISN'T the printer!!
:rolleyes:
 
IIRC it was Ruger's introduction of investment casting that lowered the costs of manufacturing revolvers significantly.
 
Colt crucible in the sixties may have pioneered it as well. Now we take investment casting as de rigeur, and have gone a long step forward in it by making sintered parts. When these things were starting off, they gathered a whole lot of hate, just as aluminum parts and plastic frames. but now? No big deal. All of the people who care about forged and machined parts are either dead or senile. Right?

A thing that just came to me was the contender. He brought the pistol out with investment cast frame. That big flat chunk of steel was often slightly flawed and cleaning it up was impractical. So they designed the Puma engraving. If there was a bubble they could engrave it to remove the bubble, and if it was in an odd place they could weld the spot.

In the past it was quite difficult to get a blank contender to engrave. You really had to go through TC itself to get one, as the weren't really sent to the market. The perfect ones were saved for the professionals.

Forty years ago, budweiser quietly started to add rice to their beer's recipe. Oh, boy, what a scandal that innovation caused. Such hate and revulsion. Of course, it gained ground in Mississippi, because the rice came from mississippi farms. Now coors has brought in a new innovation by using corn sugar (from natural corn). Budwieser has proudly announced that they make their beer from nothing but (chemically treated) rice, barley, hops and water. Something that they denied for months.

Innovation scares americans. Not the country as a whole, but that dumb, panicky mass that doesn't want to lose their solid grasp of life.
 
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