Give it time. It's irrelevant what the FiveSeven was selling for 15+ years ago,
No, it's not irrelevant, the cartridge has been out forever and the mainstream (including LE, where it was originally marketed) has largely rejected it.
I realize those are uncomfortable facts.
it matter today and having a alternate option, competition if you will, it will drive prices of the guns down.
As more people buy the Ruger, S&W and others may take notice and make their own.
Why would anyone else release a 5.7? So they can get the table scraps of a depleted market? Ruger is going to drain that little pond of buyers long before
anyone else can get there.
Once that snowball starts the ammo market follows.
Why didn't the ammo prices drop when FN was selling a lot more of these guns? Oh wait, because the price is part of the
retard factor. "The ammo is expensive so it must be good" etc.
Nobody is going to leave profit on the table when the buyer pool is this gullible. Think strongly about the market demo for this
cartridge. It's not exactly a brains kind of operation, at least not WRT people determining they want one of these things.
That said, it is an uphill battle because it's very difficult to get a pistol caliber established when it's up against the troika of .22, 9mm, and .45. Even ones that are well established and have relatively affordable ammo like .32 ACP and .40 are struggling against the pistol caliber troika.
Believe what you want, but it's another mostly niche cartridge.. It's already been proven that this is the case. I'm not even questioning Rugers judgement here, its smart actually, ruger recognized that there is a largely capitve audience of post 2013 "omg kewl factor = 10, gotta buy dis!" nippleheads that will latch right into this thing, and then reality will set in and sales will taper off . 5.7 is established, as a caliber that isn't going anywhere vertically. If I was a betting man Ruger probably has other plans for this platform beyond 5.7, like a 22 WMR pistol or some other weird cartridge where they can re-use most of the engineering and do it all over again.
Also, .40? not sure if serious.... For as much as I generally hate.40.... 5.7 will never even sniff .40 S&W's farts, the installed base of .40 S&W handguns is exponentially greater than 5.7
ever will be. .40 is arguably still useful. Even plataued calibers like .357 Sig and 10mm Auto will still be at a higher interest/use level than 5.7. It will always be relegated to niche status. At least at the end they will be able to go "Well, at least it isn't .45 GAP". They won't care though because by then they will have already achieved full desired ROI/healthy profit off one gun released at the right time.