Savage Arms, a firearms company best known for their bolt-action rimfire and centerfire rifles, is experiencing another round of layoffs:

Forty-eight employees were laid off at Savage Arms in Westfield on Wednesday.

ATK Sporting bought Savage Arms in May 2013 and also laid off an additional 37 employees on March 31.  These are people working in their manufacturing facility.  Savage Arms makes firearms for hunters and sport shooters.

A company spokesperson told 22News that the facility still has more than 375 workers and said: “this is necessary to continue to deliver on Savage’s commitment to provide our customers firearms that are proven to be very affordable.”

Savage’s layoffs in Massachusetts are occurring even as other gun companies—primarily makers of semi-automatic firearms—are expanding as they move south to more gun-friendly states.

It may also be that these workers are the casualty of a shift among gun buyers in recent years away from purely sporting arms towards semi-automatic rifles that can readily be adapted to a wide range of roles including not just hunting, but also competition and self-defense use.