Considering media industry is one of the biggest industries in the world, I’d think the market is more than sufficient to sustain multiple vendors.
Prop firearms are not really consumable items. They are just rented over and over again by production companies from rental companies. And when they break, the rental companies would first repair them before buying new ones. They could be decades old and have been repaired over and over.
I assume the shitty reliability of prop guns has more to do with their age and how much they are used rather than low manufacturing quality.
“The media industry” is everything from a big-budget science fiction film, which uses no conventional-looking weapons at all, to a local newscast, which also doesn’t.
The number of productions worldwide needing realistic-looking prop weapons is very unlikely going to make any manufacturer justify redesigning their arms or recalibrating their manufacturing equipment, if recalibration is all that is necessary and new equipment wouldn’t also be required.
In the 80’s movies were the biggest export of USA. IDK how big exactly it is today, but globally it’s very big.
I’m not sure why you think that means the market for realistic prop guns is worth the cost of redesign and recalibration and possibly the purchase of new equipment.
Only a few companies make those movies, so they only need a limited stock of those weapons, especially since they can be reused. Most movies don’t require them.
Also, I can find absolutely nothing to corroborate your claim that movies were America’s biggest export in the 1980s. They aren’t even in the top 10 now, so I doubt it.
