Institutional Shareholder Services, an advisory firm, had recommended that investors support the proposal, describing it as a push for “concrete evidence that the board is properly assessing risks to the company’s long-term viability.”

But Brian G. Rafn, a principal at Morgan Dempsey Capital Management who has worked with Ruger’s institutional investors for decades, said that the large funds that are the company’s biggest shareholders might be looking to get out of the gun business. If that happens, there would be “a dramatic sea change” in how Ruger investors vote, he said.

“There is certainly a groundswell on the non-gun side, but people don’t understand that gun usage and ownership is expanding,” he said. “It will be very, very hard to stop that freight train, and the more noise that’s made, the more that will be a catalyst to demand.”

Another activist effort at the meeting was not successful; a bid to block the re-election of Sandra Froman, a Ruger board member since 2015, fell short.

Ms. Froman, a lawyer, served on the N.R.A. board since 1992 and was its president from 2005 to 2007. She helped organize a breakfast at the N.R.A.’s annual meeting in Dallas this month, where President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence spoke.

One of the organizations that backed the effort to block her, Amalgamated Bank, an institutional investor and retail bank that promotes social justice issues, had said Ms. Froman’s close ties to the N.R.A. “may inhibit objective assessment and management of the risks” that Ruger faced.

Ruger, which is based in Southport, Conn., but held its shareholder meeting near one of its factories in Arizona, has contracted with the N.R.A. for some of its promotional and advertising activities and has made over $9 million in payments to the group over the last two years, according to public filings. Ms. Froman did not respond to requests for comment.