Ruger tends to avoid Government Contracting. You have to build a special staff with many lawyers and others to even BID on a contract. Note the alliance with General Dynamics which already has a massive staff just for the purpose.
Geoff
Who notes the job ain't done until the paperwork outweighs the Aircraft Carrier. The bid on the latest version of the USAF tanker aircraft was delivered in a Conex.
I'm not sure I agree with that assessment. I'd say the design of the American hints greatly that it was aimed squarely at this potential contract. I think they just see the capital outlay to go after this not worth it because there's such a small chance this is all going to go through and end up in the procurement of a new pistol.
And contrary to the popular belief, for a bid such as this, lawyer play a VERY small role in the actual bid. Often they begin to play a larger role after the bid. But when putting together a bid of this scope, the only thing a lawyer does is review the bid to make sure there is no hint of impropriety or fraud in the bid, and to make sure that each line item is addressed in a legal fashion. But the bid is all about the business requriements and that will all be handled by the poor slob at each company who is tasked to write the bid package. (I have written RFP's and RFP bids before, it's a long arduous process and there's no other way to describe it other than it just sucks).
I just think Ruger has objectively looked at this and made a business decision that the chance of anything coming of this is slim and it doesn't justify the capital outlay.
I personally see about a 10% chance or less this thing will go through. The big obstacle is not designating a cartridge; what in the world are they thinking? Anything other than 9mm will be hit with a wall of beauacracy asking for the scientific data to support what would appear to be an arbitrary change. Really, "more effective than the 9mm"? Exactly what is that?
