By Jeffrey L. Frischkorn Published in New York Outdoor News, Vol 14, No 16 August 10, 2018 Reprinted with permission from Steve Piatt of Outdoor News 

Cleveland – In the political watershed year of 2016 that saw a generally pro-gun Donald Trump elected as president, the United States’ licensed firearms manufacturers expended a lot of energy making new products.

Based upon statistics provided by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), in 2016 licensed gun makers cranked out 11,497,441 new firearms. ATF figures for 2017 are not yet available.

The ATF figures represent the total number of firearms made per gun-type classification, not sales. It’s likely that many of these 2016-made firearms remain in the inventories of wholesalers and retailers, ATF officials said.

Also, ATF figures are for firearms made in the United States, not those imported. Firearms production is defined as being “firearms, including separate frames or receivers, actions of barreled actions, manufactured and disposed of in commerce during the (documented) calendar year,” the ATF’s report states.

In all, based upon the most current data, the United States has more than 11,000 ATF-licensed firearms manufacturers. Every U.S. firearms manufacturer pays a $2150 fee to the ATF for a license, which is good for three years.

ATF lists firearms made on a state-by-state basis, and by type: handguns, rifles, shotguns, and miscellaneous.

In New York, the major manufacturers continued to be Ilionbased Remington, which manufactured 339,507 shotguns and 296,669 rifles in 2016; Kimber, of Yonkers (220,804 pistols, 11,079 shotguns and 2,981 revolvers), and the Norwichbased CZ-USA (9,787 pistols).

Licensed manufacturers ranged from small gun shops that may have produced only a handful of firearms – or even just one – to the big names in the industry, such as Ruger, Remington, Smith & Wesson, O.F. Mossberg and Colt.

In 2015, the total firearms production in the United States topped out at 9,358,661 units. Based on ATF data dating back to 2010, 2016 easily eclipsed any other in volume of firearms produced in the United States, though the number of shotguns made in the U.S. has fallen over the past few years.

ATF statistics showed that for 2016 the number of new semiautomatic pistols made in the U.S. was 4,720,075 units, while the number of revolvers made here was 856,291. In 2010 those statistics were 2,258,450 and 558,927, respectively.

The ATF numbers also showed that for 2016, 9mm pistols ruled the manufacturing roost with some 2.28 million units made in the U.S. It was followed by .380 caliber pistols at 1.13 million units. The manufacturing of .25 caliber pistols actually outstripped that of .32 caliber pistols, though each figure was small: 13,141 units versus 10,175 units, respectively. In the “to .50” caliber statistical branch were 837,535 semiautomatic handguns.

The making of .22 caliber semi-automatic pistols stood at 447,315 units in 2016, its sibling revolver category figure being 320,775 units in 2016. Other noteworthy revolver-making figures for 2016 showed that 248,144 .38 caliber wheel guns were made in the U.S. during 2016, while 182,564 .357 Magnum revolvers were produced, along with 51,451 “up to .44 Magnum” revolvers, and 45,506 “up to .50” caliber revolvers.

About 4.24 million rifles were made in the U.S. during 2016, as well as 848,617 shotguns. (New York Outdoor News Editor Steve Piatt contributed to this story.)