Brian:
I know youre not knocking them, I remember months ago when you were interested in a Rogue Mag. You're just saying that you think they are over-priced. Which I totally understand, because before I got into production, I thought the same way. But when you gotta make a profit and pay bills, its a completely different story.
Trust me, if I could find a shop with a guy who wants to work before he starts his shift on his companies machines and do it for free....Id be happy to supply the parts
Buuuuut......If I werent adhereing to AGD specs, or if it were simple to use non-AGD parts to machine from, Id agree with you and say they could be a bit cheaper. But when you start from an AGD Slug body or AGD Slug rails, the price dealers are charged for the slug parts is directly reflected in the retail price. And since I cant find AGD rails anywhere else but from AGD, I am kinda stuck
Most rails start as extrusions, something that machine shops dont just have laying around. I am sure your brother could tell ya that you cant run 1 or 2, or even 50 pieces of a specific extrusion. The minimums are much larger, and would require you to purchase thousands of dollars of material. You can machine it from scratch, but you start increasing the cost considerably for production purposes.
A good example of this is the Karta Mag Body vs. the Foehn Ion Body from Deadlywind. The Karta is $300+(cut from a AGD Slug) vs. a $100+ Foehn body. The difference in price is directly reflected by the fact that Colin doesnt need to purchase an AGD Slug to produce the Foehn.
If your brother is capable of taking an AGD Slug with a retail of $45 and machining it, polishing and anodizing it and selling it for less than $80 retail and still make a profit that can pay the bills...Id love to sell him some AGD Slug rails
Tom/AGD machines most of their stuff on 5-axis Mazak machines(face-to-face chuck) which dont require secondary set-ups to keep up the tight tolerances. Not something a local machine shop would likely have. Most shops with this kind of machine dont do the 50 size batches for a cut rate(1000 piece batches are typically the bare minimum). And due to the cost of machines like this, they have them running 24/7(if they can).
Anyway, my point is....if he has the time and skills, and desire to spend his free-time programming, seting-up, machining, polishing and anodizing these parts for cheaper than I can do them Id love to send him everything I have....cuz I am getting old
PS---$300 light saber...isnt that expensive?
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Originally Posted by Lord Headley
The reason it's so cheap for him, is that he can do it off the clock, and he does both the programming and actual machine work himself. Typically the employers he works for does not care what material he uses, or gives it to him at cost. He has indeed looked over your products, and i am not knocking them at all, they are good, but you have to understand that him being in that line of work, he understands the cost of it all, and yea he does laugh since it wouldn't cost him nearly as much, more like a fraction of the cost.
Granted 90% of the paintball world has no access to anything of this nature, and since there really aren't any companies making mag parts, there's nothing to compare the pricing to. I am not, i repeat, i am not bashing your products in anyway. If anything i love the fact that Maggers have the options that you've given us. I'm simply stating the humor in it given the situation that I myself am in.
Keep up the good work
- Brian
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RPG Army
(cant afford distractions going back to school. failed the first time, cant have it happen again!)
