It’s been a busy few years for Sturm, Ruger…so much so, the company is looking to start another factory out-of-state.
At Sturm, Ruger’s annual meeting in Arizona, President and CEO Michael Fifer announced the company’s plans to expand operations to a yet-to-be decided state. More than half of Ruger’s workforce—1,200 people—is based at the Newport, New Hampshire factory. And Fifer said for them, and the workers at the Arizona plant, nothing will change.
“We’re not talking about moving jobs out of Arizona or New Hampshire," Fifer said. "Those people are fully employed, they’re really busy, they’re working an awful lot of overtime, we’ve got people commuting incredible distances to come to our factories. And I foresee that still going.”
Fifer said demand for Ruger guns has been rapidly expanding since 2006. But it spiked dramatically last year, fueled in part by the re-election of President Barack Obama, the Sandy Hook massacre, and concerns about gun control. Ruger’s backlog of orders eventually ballooned to more than two million guns.
Fifer said the third factory would focus on new Sturm Ruger products.
