Report: Rifle manufacturers back on top in 2015

By Christen Smith

Rifle manufacturers produced nearly 3.7 million firearms in 2015, the most recent year data is available. (Photo: Wall Street Journal)
Rifle manufacturers reversed a five-year trend and outproduced pistol makers in 2015, according to a federal report released this week.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives updated the Firearms Commerce in the United States report Wednesday with manufacturing data from 2015 — the most recent year available.
Since 2009, manufacturing totals have favored pistols by a comfortable margin, maintaining a dominance in the industry not seen since 1994, when pistol production nearly doubled the number of rifles made that year.
Data shows gun makers in 2015 produced nearly 3.7 million rifles, 3.5 million pistols and more than 885,000 revolvers and 777,000 shotguns — an overall 3.5 percent increase from 2014. Firearms manufacturing has increased 68 percent since 2009 and nearly tripled since 2005.
The shift in the trend marks a return to the top for rifle makers, who outproduced all other firearm categories for 15 years between 1995 and 2010, according to the report. The second year of former President Barack Obama’s term, however, saw manufacturing of rifles plummet almost 19 percent after hitting a then-record high of 2.2 million in 2008.
Despite losing

Source: Guns.com