Sturm, Ruger & Co. (NYSE:RGR) are on a roll. The gunmaker recorded a 45 per cent rise in fourth-quarter sales vs. the same period last year. As msnbc.com’s Motley Fool reports, Ruger’s results easily exceeded Wall Street’s expectations for the gunmaker’s revenue and earnings. And that’s growth on top of growth; in 2011, sales rose 29 percent compared to 2010. Ah, but—is Ruger’s big bad boom stretching Bill’s brand too thin? No ’bout a doubt it: Ruger CEO Michael Fifer loves him some brand extensions . . .
“In 2011, new product introductions were a significant component of our sales growth,” Fifer’s folk revealed. “New product sales represented $98.6 million, or 30 percent, of sales in 2011.”
While Ruger’s new value-priced SR1911 was a huge hit and QC seems A-OK, our SP101 .22 had a 14-pound trigger pull (you read that right) and the new SR22’s trigger stacks like an Amazon warehouse robot.
But that’s just me, bitchin’ and moanin’. We hear tell that Ruger’s got a one-year waiting list for some of its popular products. The company will hit its “million gun sales in a year” target no problem. In fact, Ruger recently raised the target to 1.2m.
If Obama’s re-elected and HR 822 (The National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act) makes it into law, fuhgeddaboutit.