Ruger announced today that it plans to open its third manufacturing plant in Mayodan, North Carolina. This will be the Company’s first major expansion in over 25 years and it is expected to be finalized in August.
Ruger is one of the country’s largest gun manufacturers and they plan on getting quite a bit larger. The company is officially announcing their intentions to add a sizable new plant in North Carolina.
According to a press release, Ruger is likely to publicize more details about the expansion next month when they have all their contractual loose ends tied up. Ruger will be moving into a Mayodan industrial complex that previously housed a yarn plant. It has 194,950Â square feet of manufacturing space and 26,650Â square feet for administration.
The 24-year-old Rockingham county facility, Unifi Plant 15, was listed for sale for $1.2 million.
The company already operates in several states across the nation, including Enfield, Connecticut, Newport, New Hampshire, and Prescott, Arizona.
The facility is expected to bring several hundred jobs, and because it’s an expansion, not a relocation like so many other companies have recently done, these jobs will be completely open to the local community.
“They told us it could be about a hundred jobs right off the bat and maybe more later,” said Darrell Freeman to Rockingham Now. “That’s an exciting possibility for us after losing so many manufacturing jobs the last few years.”
Ruger is already conducting interviews with potential employees from the area.
Siblings Anna Johnson and Tony Robertson applied for jobs together.
“We’ve both been out of work for a while and have each other’s support system,” said Johnson. “I couldn’t think of a better brother-sister outing right now than to both be coming up here to interview with a company thinking about bringing a lot of new jobs to the area. This would be a great boost to our area.”
Rockingham has an unemployment rate of 10 percent. Considering Ruger’s two other main manufacturing facilities employ more than 2,000 people, this is welcome news for North Carolina residents.
Ruger has been manufacturing guns at full capacity at their existing facilities for months, with the only possible way for the company to increase sales being to increase capacity.
Although products from every other gun manufacturer have been in high demand as well — following calls for increased gun control on the national level earlier this year — Ruger was already operating at the limits of what they could manufacture prior to the big gun-buying binge Americans have been on for the past few months.
While many manufacturers have been reluctant to expand, knowing that current gun sales are a market bubble, Ruger had no problems selling everything they made prior to the panic and this expansion is based on solid, predictable demand for their firearms.
Ruger’s extremely diverse catalog is a mix of simple and straight-forward working guns as well as totally unique products that fit small consumer niches perfectly. Their “something for everyone” approach has made them one of the most successful gun companies in the world.
For more about the company visit the Ruger website and check them out on Facebook. They’re also looking to fill some positions on their employment page.