On this day last year, I was on my Facebook timeline touting a new de-contented Colt entry-level AR carbine with an MSRP in the low $700 range. Today, CDNN is selling brand new Colt LE6920's, pretty much the benchmark AR-pattern carbine, for $799.99 and throwing in a 30-round Pmag and some other stuff to sweeten the deal.
Walther is offering hundred dollar rebates on the PPQ and HK is throwing in bundles of magazines with new pistol purchases, meaning that in real terms you're getting a Walther or Heckler & Koch for the price of a base model G-lock.
Smith & Wesson is slashing prices and offering rebates. Shields are priced at impulse-buy levels these days.
Why is all this happening? Well, while most firearms companies are privately held and therefore inscrutable on matters fiscal, the goings-on at a few are public knowledge because they are publicly traded.
The news from American Outdoor Brands Corporation (neé Smith & Wesson Holding Corporation) tells a tale that is probably all too common in the industry right now: Shelves groaning under unsold inventory that was churned out in expectation of the mother of all gun panics following a Hillary Clinton victory.
