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| 4 traps for $1.97 (Source) |
His thinking was that a mouse trap takes an input (a mouse nibbling) and releases potential energy (in this case from a spring).
You might argue that your switch needed to turn 44kV induction motors on-and-off or that it had to operate at 900F or needed to fit in a tight space or had to last for a million cycles. His argument was that designers should baseline the cheapest commodity of similar function and complexity and then add cost ONLY where needed.
Rifles
Newly manufactured high-powered rifles vary in cost between $400-and-$800 retail. Obviously, you can spend far more than that and you can pick some up on-sale for significantly less.
There are enough factors that muddy up the price of rifles to make it difficult to deduce what they "should" cost. For instance, you cannot buy an AR-15 from Amazon.com. You must visit a brick-and-mortar establishment. And not just any BnM establishment but one that houses an FFL holder in good standing.
Furthermore, there are the costs of past and future litigation kneaded into the cost of the firearm. It isn't enough to look in the rear view mirror with regard to the cost of law suites and settlements. The manufacturer must either purchase insurance or squirrel away enough cash to weather future storms.
Finding a proxy
It was tough to find an analogy to the professor's mousetrap. High-power rifles have a significant amount of machining with close tolerances. They make extensive use of medium-carbon alloy steels like 4140 chrome-moly steel. Some of the parts are heat treated. There are not many high-volume commodities that resemble those requirements.
The closest I could come were axle-shafts for front-wheel drive cars.
- Close tolerances (Check)
- Alloy steels (Check)
- Heat treated (Check)
- Approx 7-to-15 pounds (Close enough)
Want to guess the price for this item for a Toyota Camry?
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| For BOTH left and right axles Source |
That is right folks, $80 per piece, delivered to your door.
While that will obviously never happen because of all id the overhead larded into the current price structure, it might provide some insight on why politicians are in a dither about 80% lowers and "ghost" guns.
If a rifle manufactured with modern processes "should" cost $80 per unit then there is no reason why every adult in the world could not have one. Heck, Covid vaccines cost $30 a dose and don't work after six months while that '91 (that is 1891) Mosin still functions just fine.
Most of the costs of an AR-15 are up front, once you have the machinery the cost to crank out barrels, receivers, etc. isn't that high for the raw materials. My cost as an FFL for a new AR is as low as $400 for decent entry level rifles and even less if you buy a complete lower and a complete upper. While there is a difference in quality, the difference isn't as stark as the huge gap in retail pricing might indicate.
ReplyDeleteAnd the upfront cost is amortized into the expected number of products.
DeleteWith axles, that number is measured in tens of thousands of items. the AR is amortized in a few thousand. It isn't the materials as much as the machining cost, insurance cost and quantity.
Yer kinda comparing apples to eggplants, really.
The first new gun I bought was a Mossberg 22 semi auto in 1960 and I still have it. I paid about $25 to $30 for it from Montgomery Wards. My dad had to do the paper work because you had to be 21 in Michigan to buy it then. It didn't bother the sales clerk to know my dad was a straw man. It cost me a few lawn mowings and 20 muskrat hides. ---ken
ReplyDeleteDepends on the rifle.
ReplyDeleteCorrect Price and Actual Cost for most items have been divorced from each other for a LONG time thanks to litigation, laws and a lot of other factors not involved with the actual production of goods.
ReplyDeleteI think a better comparison would be blank firing weapons, who have almost all the parts, features, and functions of a gun but are not legally one, and which are usually made by different companies who don't have the same government and lawyer induced headaches.
ReplyDeleteYou can buy most of them for between $80 and $300, with fully automatic options adding very little to the cost.
You can easily comparison shop and have your preference shipped to your door.
A blank-firing prop would be in the same ballpark as the lowest grade of AR, there isn't the need for the precision and pressure containment features of a high-end rifled barrel when there is no projectile.
DeleteA good AR-15 barrel and bolt (the pressure-holding and accuracy-impacting parts) can cost as much or more as the retail price of entire "entry level" AR-15 rifle.
The costs of regulation and litigation are huge. But that's part of the plan, right?
ReplyDeleteWhen you factor in the maching work.needed to manufacture a lower, trigger group, and all the other springs, pins, nuts, bolts, etc. Needed for a gun, I think the gun to axle comparison becomes apples to oranges.
ReplyDeleteIt is easy to forget about the U-joints in the axle assemblies.
DeleteThere are two of them inside the rubber booties.
Each U-joint has four needle-bearing assemblies and each assembly has an inner race, an outer race and about 15 needle-bearings. Those races and bearings are finished to within about 1/10,000th of an inch. Nothing in a rifle comes close to those tolerances.
So while rifles require many other different KINDS of components they are commodities that are manufactured to lower standards than the needle-bearing assemblies.
Sometimes comparing apples-to-oranges is the best we can do.
As the others have said, regulation and litigation cost $$$. Arthur is correct that the 'cost' to an FFL is fairly low, but that is also for an entry level weapon. Quality costs, period. Some people are willing to pay for quality, some aren't. Now if you go to the dealer for those same axles, you won't get them for that delivered price.
ReplyDelete