Why are guns as expensive as they are and what would make them cheaper?

@Iain Aschendale Problem solved...

 

https://3dprint.com/139537/3d-printed-guns/

3D printed guns are a reality. The issue is licensing today of the basic shooting part, the reciever, but any other part around that device can be printed and used today. So, cheaply made in your story could easily be from this source, especially when someone can buy the file, and print it out at home and then go hunt that afternoon.

 

Select fire 12 gauge is more suited to apartment use:

 

That is cute. I got one for close quarters in a pistol.

 

That's just... man, what a beautiful sentence.

 

I touch on this in the story. Getting too close to a pest is dangerous as some spit acid or can jump on you and start munching away. The protag is one of the few who not only can survive a melee encounter with one, but prefers it. This is what makes the protag special.

 

This, basically. If they're a necessity, there's a good chance there'd be a heavy government subsidy on at least the most basic models.

If you specifically need it to be one company that has the cheap guns while everyone else has the expensive ones, it'll be because the government has gifted one single company the subsidy money (probably one that one of the government advisers owns, because that's how it works).

 

You could cut down the price by using recycled metal/scrap metal.

 

I doubt it. Steel is already one of the most heavily recycled materials we use, since it never "goes bad", so most guns are probably already made with previously used steel. The thing is, if you want a gun to last and not blow up in your hand, the steel has to be of a certain grade, which means that any recycled metal will have to be either of that grade to begin with, or need alloying to get it up to the appropriate level.

Case in point, in the late 80s/early 90s, the US military had a problem with the Beretta M92SB-F (M9) pistols they'd adopted. The original Italian Berettas were fine, but whoever had gotten the contract to manufacture the guns in the US for the military had skimped on the steel quality in the slides. As a result, after about 3000 rounds or so, the slide had a habit of breaking in half as it cycled backwards, with the rear half of the slide exiting the gun and striking the user in the face, potentially fatally.

 

government deregulation, or better yet, say some part of the back story involving a major war, then the market is flooded with surplus firearms at dirt cheap prices. a 50 dollar glock is a bit ridiculous but FN Hi powers new are over a grand while Belgian police surplus Fns are between 300 and 500 (check out gunbroker.com for research on new versus surplus) hell i bid on a .32 auto raven arms a few weeks ago, i think it sold for 42 bucks.

 

Maybe it doesn't have to be guns as we know them today. Make up a new kind of firearm-equivalent that is easily mass produced.

 

I don't know, guns are pretty easy to mass produce, i mean there are people building Ak 47s out of old cars and scrap in caves in pakistan.

 

Just the idea of John Doe and Jane Roe fighting off little monsters with a personal weapon implies a couple of things.

1) The monsters aren't too numerous. More than one or two targets at a time and your average office worker is going to panic and waste all their ammo putting holes in the air, walls, and ceiling.

2) They aren't too tough. If it's going to take more than a single shot, or if shot placement is going to be crucial to killing, incapacitating, or just scaring away one of the beasties, it's a job for professionals.

But they're common enough that everyone wants to carry around a firearm for those occasions when they're faced with one. With that in mind, I think @big soft moose's sawed-off double barrel is probably the way to go. Not sawed off, but a break action double barrelled pistol grip shotgun, maybe in a .410 or possibly 20 ga. (recoil? It's been years) would fit the bill. It would be cheap, since a shotgun needs fewer precision components than a rifle or pistol, and break action is about as simple as it gets. Training would only take about 15 minutes, since aiming would be like the blunderbusses in Looper: Impossible to miss anything closer than 15 feet, impossible to hit anything farther away. Two shots in case you miss or there are two of them, third shots not necessary because if you need three, you're probably screwed anyway. Not terribly stylish or lightweight, but if it's a choice between that and getting eaten by a venemous housecat, well....

Wait a minute, this isn't a Pokemon Go LARP, is it?

 

Yes, but the Liberator was meant to be basically pressed up against the back of a sentry's skull when the trigger was pulled, enabling the user to relieve the corpse of its Mauser 98. OP wants a daily carry weapon to be used against little monsters that can spit acid and/or leap. I wouldn't like my odds in that situation with a Liberator.

 

Mrs. Miggins had it coming, and she knew exactly why.

 

if untrained, look into the taurus Judge, its a 5 shot .410 shotgun pistol, i bought one for 450 a few years ago

 

If guns are to be ubiquitous in this society because of the monsters, I would imagine that the cost would drop some as it becomes a far more common commodity, kinda like how once cell phones came along and manufacturing advanced, we ended up with disposables. The guns this company sells might be similar, cheaply mass produced and very basic, but functional and better than nothing.

 

The russians made the AK-47 for next to nothing. Indeed. that was one of it's criteria, ease of manufacture (this allows for a larger number of them to be produced. Following russia's trend to treat weapons as "throw-aways"). Anyway. it typically had stamped metal with a milled barrel. It was further improved into the AKM with a simple and lighter stamping amongst other improvements.

My point is, the AK-47, AKM, and all it's various variants are all incredibly cheap to make once you have a factory tooled out for it. I remember somewhere that it only cost russia something like 13 rubles to manufacture an AK-47 (production cost per unit, not include cost of the materials.). Which is about 30c in USD. And since the russian owned most the mines (being a soviet state), it did not have to worry about buying the material.

In conclusion. What I am saying is that assuming your world has a satisfactory prevelance of minerals suitable for guns then the production cost can be simplified incredibly to the point where a single unit costs next to nothing to produce.

 

Guns are expensive because they are rather expensive to make. If something cost $60 to produce (just for example) then in order to make a profit youd have to sell them for more than the price they cost to make.