Smith and Wesson

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Hornady Steps Up

February 19, 2013 by 4 Comments

Like firearms manufacturers Ruger and Smith & Wesson, Hornady, makers of ammunition, components, and reloading equipment, has stepped up to the plate with their own gun rights letter generator. The letter is a bit different than the others but it still can be sent to Congress, the State House and Senate, and other state level officials. More importantly, unlike Ruger and Smith & Wesson, the message can be edited and you can add in your own verbiage.

I know this is not the same as a personal letter that is mailed or faxed. Nonetheless it helps build numbers and numbers are important. The Ruger letter has been sent over 4.9 million times.

Here is their basic message that you can customize as you see fit. The message is stronger and more to the point than either of the letters from Ruger and S&W.


As a voter who believes in the U.S. Constitution, I am writing to express my views on gun control legislation currently being discussed in every level of government. I am one of over 100 million law-abiding American citizens who responsibly owns firearms for target shooting, hunting, personal and home defense, and collecting. I care deeply about the Second Amendment, and I am closely monitoring legislation that would restrict my right to keep and bear arms.

I am saddened by the tragic events in Newtown, Connecticut, but I believe that efforts to impose new restrictions on me, a lawful and responsible gun owner, are misguided and unwarranted. The so-called “Assault Weapons Ban,” which for a decade restricted the sale of semiautomatic rifles and limited magazine capacity to ten rounds, did not reduce crime, according to a report by the U.S. Department of Justice. And since the expiration of the ban in 2004, violent crime has declined.

Your focus should be on real solutions to the problem of misuse of firearms, such as strengthening mental health care and improving the quality of data supporting the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).

Do NOT pass more gun or magazine laws; instead, work to enforce the thousands of gun laws already on the books and help step up prosecution of criminals who commit violence and misuse firearms.

We need to be calling, faxing, and writing weekly to all of our elected representatives. We may not have the billions of Mayor Bloomberg to buy out of state congressional seats but I learned a long time ago that money, though important, isn’t everything in politics.

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Smith & Wesson Steps Up

February 2, 2013 by 6 Comments

First it was Ruger who provided an easy way to contact public officials about gun control. Now it is Smith & Wesson. They now have a page where you can send a pro-gun message to your elected officials in both DC and your state capitol.

I’m glad to see gun companies stepping up for gun rights and not making secret deals with administration officials. I don’t think we are going to see Smith & Wesson make the same mistake that they made during the Clinton Administration.

If you haven’t used either the Ruger or Smith & Wesson pages to send a message, why not?

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And Gun Control Would Have Prevented This How?

December 17, 2012 by 1 Comment

Perhaps the gun prohibitionists would care to explain this and how any new gun control laws would have kept these guns off the street.


Truck driver Elliot Perez and his accomplice Michael Murphy were indicted in US District Court in Bridgeport, CT for stealing 111 firearms from Smith and Wesson.

According to the indictment against them, on November 8, Perez had a scheduled delivery of guns to pick-up at Smith & Wesson in Springfield. He was supposed to pick up five boxes of firearms to bring back, but ended up taking an additional three. Driving back down to Connecticut, he allegedly stopped at his Bridgeport home and met with Murphy before bringing the truck to his company’s warehouse in Stratford, where he unloaded only the five that he was supposed to deliver.

The indictment charges that on November 15, Perez and Murphy sold one of the stolen guns to another individual. Five days later, when questioned by ATF special agents, Perez allegedly lied and said that a “black male” at Smith & Wesson had instructed him on which boxes he was supposed to load onto the truck, adding that he had dropped off all of the cases of guns at the company warehouse.

At the time of the two men’s arrests days later, Stratford Police had only been able to recover 28 of the stolen guns.

Charges include conspiracy, possession of stolen firearms, trafficking, and making false statements to a law enforcement officer.

Perez was not an employee of Smith and Wesson. He worked for a trucking company contracted to handle transportation services for S&W.

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As The Stock Markets Tumble….

November 7, 2012 by

The stock market is seeing an across the board sell-off today. As I write at approximately 12pm EST, all major stock market averages – the Dow, S&P 500, and the NASDAQ – are down approximately 2.3%. Part of it is news from Europe that a recession there is all but a certainty and part is the election results along with the “fiscal cliff”.

Coal stocks, as might be expected given Obama’s jihad against coal, are down even more.

But guess what two companies are seeing strong increases in their stock prices.

That’s right – Ruger and Smith & Wesson. Currently, Ruger (RGR) is up $2.40 or a 5.38% increase while Smith & Wesson (SWHC) is up 77 cents or an 8.14% increase over yesterday. Both of these are pure plays on the firearms market.

The ammo makers Olin (Winchester) and ATK (Federal) are down. However, they have other businesses besides just ammunition production. ATK, in addition to making ammunition, is a significant defense contractor while Olin is a big producer of chlor-alkali.

UPDATE: Bloomberg TV has noticed just how well gun makers’s stock is doing today as well.

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25 Months And Counting

July 10, 2012 by

June 2012 marks the 25th straight month in which the number of NICS checks made during the month surpassed the number from the prior year.

Graphic by NSSF

From NSSF:

The June 2012 NSSF-adjusted National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) figure of 846,437 is an increase of 24.5 percent over the NSSF-adjusted NICS figure of 679,840 in June 2011. For comparison, the unadjusted June 2012 NICS figure of 1,290,210 reflects an 11.4 percent increase from the unadjusted NICS figure of 1,157,714 in June 2011.

Graphic by NSSF

As the NSSF noted, June 2012 was a 24.5% increase over June 2011. However, the difference between June 2012 and the earlier years is very significant. June 2009 and 2010 look to have about 600,00 adjusted NICS checks or a quarter-million less than this year. That is a large difference!

It should be noted that NICS checks are not a perfect correlation with firearms sales but are a strong indication of general trends in firearm sales. Some states such as Kentucky, Iowa and Michigan use the NICS system for their CCW permit application checks as well as checks on active CCW holders. Conversely, in states such as North Carolina where the Concealed Handgun Permit is an approved substitute for a NICS check, purchases by permit holders will not be counted.

I don’t think we can know conclusively if this continuing trend in the increase of NICS checks is due to the fear of an Obama reelection or just the rise of Gun Culture v2.0. I do know that strong sales have been reflected in the stock prices of companies like Smith and Wesson. Today, the stock hit a 52-week high at $9.50 per share which reflects a four-fold increase in share price.

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Some Pocket Pistols Seen At The NRA Annual Meeting

April 14, 2012 by 3 Comments

I looked at a number of the sub-compact pistols today at the Annual Meeting. Patrick, a reader of this blog, was interested in a comparison of the Sig P938 and the Sig P238 in terms of the difficulty of pulling the slide. His mother is disabled, wants a pistol – not a revolver – and has difficulty pulling the slide on many smaller pistols.

To make the test somewhat objective, I had the Complementary Spouse do the testing of the slides. She is a health care professional and has some understanding of the challenges that those with weaker hand and arm strength might face.

First, we tested the Sig P938 which is their sub-compact single stack 9mm pistol. She didn’t find it hard at all to rack the slide on the P938. It fit her hand well, had rear sights that allow the racking of the slide against a pocket, and decent 3-dot sights.

Next up was the Sig P238 Scorpion. It was easier than the P938 and was the easiest to rack the slide of all the guns tested today.  It is a single-stack, single action pistol in .380 ACP. The single action trigger pull of both pistols seemed about the same though I didn’t test it on a trigger scale.

You can see a size comparison of the P238 and the P938 below. They seem to be relatively the same size.

The third pistol tested was the Colt Mustang in .380 ACP. Many have said that the Sig P238 is merely a clone of the Mustang so it was an obvious choice for comparison. It seems to have a heavier spring than the P238 and is about equivalent to the P938. The sights are similar to a GI model 1911. To me, these sights were less user-friendly than those of the Sig P238 Scorpion.

Finally, given all the buzz about the Smith and Wesson M&P Shield, we thought we should add this to the mix. It is the single-stack sub-compact 9mm (and .40 S&W) version of the M&P. The Complementary Spouse found this the hardest to rack of all the pistols we tested and wouldn’t recommend it to Patrick’s mother. She had some difficulty racking slide. It fit my hand well but I did find the trigger pull to be mushy and not crisp.

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The Stock Market Is Down Today

March 22, 2012 by 2 Comments

The headline from the Wall Street Journal at midday is “U.S. Stocks on Track for Third Decline.”

U.S. stocks fell after weak economic signals from the euro zone and China raised fresh concerns about slowing global growth.

After rising to multi-year highs in recent days, major benchmarks extended their retreat into a third session on Thursday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 65 points, or 0.5%, to 13060 in midday trade.

Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index shed 9.4 points, or 0.7%, to 1393. FedEx FDX -4.29%was among the biggest decliners, after delivering a disappointing earnings outlook and cutting its economic growth forecast. The Nasdaq Composite slid 13 points, or 0.4%, to 3062.

However, you would never know that the stock market was down if you were following firearms manufacturers Ruger and Smith & Wesson.

From Active-Investor.com on Ruger today:

Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc. (NYSE:RGR) is up 8% today at $45.68. RGR has traded 428 thousand shares this morning, about double its average volume. RGR shares are up this morning after the company announced it was not taking any new orders at this time due to overwhelming demand. The company added that it will begin taking new orders again sometime in May. The company has a market cap of 873.65 million.

And this on Smith and Wesson Holding Corporation from Active- Investor.com under the headline “Market Down Despite Jobless Claims at Four-Year Low, NASDAQ Stocks to Watch”:

Smith & Wesson Holding Corporation (NASDAQ:SWHC) is up 10.85% this morning at $7.65. SWHC is up on heavy volume today with 2 million shares traded so far, well above its daily average of 931 thousand shares. Smith & Wesson shares are rallying alongside its rivals today after Sturm, Ruger & Co. announced it has stopped taking new orders due to overwhelming demand. The company has a market cap of 503.52 million.

Investors seem to be pushing up RGR and SWHC while ignoring CSGV and VPC. Go figure.

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Investing In Guns And Ammo

January 23, 2012 by 8 Comments

With the SHOT Show having just concluded this past week, I thought it might be a good time to look at investing and the gun industry. As NSSF President Steve Sanetti noted in his State of the Industry address at the SHOT Show, the $4.1 billion firearms and ammunition industry is one of the bright spots in the economy.

Eighteen consecutive quarters of sales growth, as evidenced most recently by an all-time high number of mandatory point-of-sales background checks in December, and during the worst recession since the great depression, would be an enviable feat for any industry. Yet we have achieved it…

If, like most investors, you are saying to yourself that you’d like to invest in an industry that is actually doing well in our poor global economy, when it comes to the firearms industry there are very few choices available. The reason is that much of the industry is in private hands and are not public companies. By public companies, I mean those whose stock trades on a stock exchange.

As I noted, much of the firearms industry is in private hands. Companies such as Groupe Herstal (FNH, Browning, and Winchester firearms), Colt, Beretta, Steyr Mannlicher, and the Freedom Group (Remington, Bushmaster, DPMS, Dakota Arms, Marling, H&R, etc.) are all privately held. While the Cerberus-owned Freedom Group may eventually go public, they pulled their Initial Public Offering back in April 2011.

So where does this leave investors?

In the United States, Sturm, Ruger and Company (RGR) and Smith and Wesson Holding Company (SWHC) are the only two publicly traded firearms manufacturers. Worldwide, you can add Forjas Taurus (Taurus firearms) which trades on the Sao Paolo exchange, Manroy PLC (Sabre Defence and military arms) in the UK, Metal Storm Ltd. of Australia, and a handful of Russian companies like Tula Armory.

Ammunition companies in the United States that are publicly traded include Olin (Winchester ammunition) and Alliant Technologies (Federal, CCI, and Speer). Other companies that are involved in the broad firearms and outdoor market would include Cabelas (CAB), the Outdoor Channel (OUTD), and Taser International (TASR).

Let’s look a little closer at the two US firearms manufacturers and the two ammo companies.

Sturm, Ruger and Company (RGR) is headquartered in Southport, Connecticut and has factories in Prescott, Arizona and Newport, New Hampshire. Its stock trades on the New York Stock Exchange. In terms of market capitalization, Ruger is larger than Smith and Wesson – $736 million versus $309 million – but has about $100 million less in annual gross revenues. Ruger has been doing well and is on track to become the first firearms manufacturer to sell one million firearms in a one year period. The stock has also been doing well as can be seen in the chart below. Over the last two years, Ruger’s stock price has risen 250% and it closed at $38.68 per share on Friday. Looking at the chart, you can see that it significantly outperformed the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index.

Smith and Wesson Holding Company (SWHC) is headquartered in Springfield, Massachusetts. They moved their Thompson Center manufacturing to Springfield from New Hampshire. Smith and Wesson also has non-firearms operations in Houlton, Maine and Franklin, Tennessee. The company is also a leading manufacturer of handcuffs and provides physical security products through their Security Solutions division. As noted above in the discussion Ruger, Smith and Wesson has a smaller market cap than Ruger but has about $100 million more in annual revenues. However, when it comes to profitability, Ruger both has a higher profit margin and more profits than Smith and Wesson. The stock price of SWHC reflects this. It closed on Friday at $4.74 per share and is only up about 20% for the last two years. Looking at the chart, you can see its stock price has been very volatile.

Neither of the U.S. ammunition manufacturers, Olin and Alliant Technologies, are solely ammo makers. Olin also makes chlor alkali products which are basic materials used in other industries. Alliant Technologies is a large defense contractor involved in aerospace and missile technologies, armament systems, and small arms ammunition manufacturing for the military.

Olin (OLN) has making powder and ammunition for over 100 years from its beginnings with the Equitable Powder Company and Western Cartridge in East Alton, Illinois. Olin bought Winchester out of receivership in 1931 and has owned it ever since. They spun off the Winchester Arms division to U.S. Repeating Arms in 1981. Currently headquartered in the St. Louis suburb of Clayton, Missouri, they make Winchester ammunition in East Alton, Illinois; Oxford, Mississippi; and Geelong, Australia. Olin has been moving more and more ammunition production from East Alton to Oxford due to union-management issues and a more modern facility. In terms of market capitalization, Olin is valued at $1.7 billion, has gross revenues of $1.9 billion, and net income of $225 million. Its stock closed at $22.20 per share on Friday and it trades on the New York Stock Exchange. Olin’s stock price has been volatile over the last two years but it has outperformed the S&P 500 growing 30% in value over the period.

As I noted earlier, Alliant Technologies (ATK) is a major defense contractor. The civilian ammunition component of their business comprises only about 20% of their overall business. Their Security and Sporting Group is comprised of Federal Premium ammo, CCI ammo and components, Speer bullets and ammo, RCBS reloading equipment, Alliant Powder, Champion ammo, Weaver optics, Eagle Industries, and Blackhawk! Industries.Alliant Technologies is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia and has 60 facilities in 22 states, Puerto Rico, and internationally. ATK has a market cap of $2.04 billion, has gross revenues of $4.62 billion, and net income of $292 million. Its stock closed at $61.78 per share and it trades on the New York Stock Exchange. As can be seen from the chart below, it has underperformed the market for the last two years and its stock price has lost 30% of its value.

Of the four companies, Ruger is the purest play in firearms. While the company does own Pine Tree Castings, it only provides about 1% of their revenues. The other three companies are more diversified. This diversification which in normal times would help them seems to have depressed their growth as compared to that of Ruger. With other sectors of the economy not having the robust growth of the firearms industry, this has hurt Smith and Wesson, Olin, and Alliant Technologies.

Because of my day job, I am not permitted to make any recommendations. I suggest that you do your own research, check with your own investment advisor, and go from there if you are interested in investing in the companies of the firearms and ammunition industry.

Disclosure: In the spirit of full disclosure, I own shares in RGR, ATK, OLN, and SWHC. Nothing here should be taken as an investment recommendation nor a solicitation of your business.

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And In Massachusetts News…

December 29, 2010 by 2 Comments

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts approved $6 million in tax incentives to help Smith and Wesson expand their manufacturing plant in Springfield. According to the Boston Globe, this was the second-largest tax incentive award by the commonwealth in 2010.

The $6 million in tax breaks, which will be spread out over seven years, work out to nearly $27,000 per job and form the second-largest incentive package the state has awarded this year. The state recently reconfigured its tax incentive program to steer more money to manufacturers and other companies with significant out-of-state sales, and to give preference to businesses expanding in poorer cities such as Springfield.

Smith and Wesson is expanding their Springfield plant as they shift production from their Thompson/Center plant in New Hampshire. They plan to add 225 new jobs at the Springfield plant. Greg Bialecki, Massachusetts Secretary of Housing and Economic Development called it a very big expansion for western Massachusetts.

The company announced the award on December 21st in a press release on their investor website. They noted the company had been approached by other cities and states to expand outside of Massachusetts.

The award resulted after several months of discussion between the Commonwealth and Smith & Wesson, while the company considered location options for its rifle manufacturing. James Debney, President of Smith & Wesson Firearms, said, “Although several states and cities have approached us to entice expansion into their locations, Massachusetts and the Patrick-Murray Administration, Secretary Bialecki and his office, and Springfield Mayor Sarno and his staff, collaborated on the project to make our choice clear. These administrations are highly collaborative and worked closely with us on incentive programs to structure an agreement that demonstrates the commitment of both the Commonwealth and the City to not only Smith & Wesson, but to our employees, the local community, and to manufacturing in Massachusetts.”

Given that Governor Deval Patrick is very anti-gun, it goes to show that jobs trump liberal policies in a recession. I’m surprised we haven’t heard from the Brady Campaign moaning about this being a waste of taxpayer monies.