Now that a bit of the dust is settling from the great gun and ammo buying spree of 2013 we’re finally able to see just how well the publicly traded firearms companies did this year. Now don’t get me wrong, in many parts of the country it’s still a mess trying to find any firearms and many of the popular ammo calibers for them, but it seems like it’s starting to subside, a bit.

It’s probably no surprise but Smith & Wesson absolutely hit it out of the ball park with their earnings over the past few months. The Wall Street Journal reported that for the quarter that ended on April 30th, 2013, S&W reported profits of $25.2 million, 38 cents a share. That’s up from $12.5 million and 19 cents a share during the same quarter last year. Their revenue also went up 38% up to $178.7 million with gross margins up to 38.3% from 36.1%. According to S&W President and Chief Executive James Debney their stellar numbers were due to “significant increases in our manufacturing capacity, combined with continued robust consumer demand for firearms, resulted in higher sales of our most popular M&P products.” I’m still kicking myself for not buying any SWHC a while back.