New air arms break barrel rifle

[look no hands]

Pete there’s no doubt about AAs commitment. You only have to see Claire at the events talking to shooters weekend in and out to see that.
But you aren’t going to see changes that a tiny % are mentioning out of the stacks of rifles they sell every day which would affect current lines and stock which is selling just fine anyway.

When we ran the April fools Claire said her line rang off the hook for two days solid. We had something like 10,000 reactions online to it across various media. But that’s it. 10,000 likes on forums etc doesn’t translate into 10,000 sales, more like 100 at best. And 2 days leaves 363 other days in the year.

Hft and ft are big sports as far as shooting goes but compared to what the average joe shoots and buys day in and day out they aren’t.

Honda didn’t get where it was making 900cc superbikes. It got there selling millions of c50 step throughs. And in the same way race bikes are only a relative of what are used on the street you wouldn’t doubt Hondas commitment because the fire blade doesn’t exactly fit your idea of how Marc Marquezs bike should be replicated. The chequering on a stock which most ft shooters don’t use is really of no concern.

If the things weren’t selling they’d change it. Or they’d remove it. The fact that it hasn’t changed and is being sold still suggests AA are quite happy that the level of tweaking the internet wants isn’t justified. And if it was I think you’d see a 3rd party offering a choice first.

Rob I totally agree what you and Tony are saying and I see where you are coming from, I don't doubt their commitment to the shooting sport at all and I've seen them many a time in the past giving rifles and gear away as prizes FOC to events, basically I'm backing up what you're saying, what I'm trying to explain is that the concerns and wants from the very tiny proportion of shooters (the ones who want a lefty PS and a steel PS underlever and a break barrel) are going on deaf ears because of the costs involved for very little gain and potential risk to the company (which I totally understand and wouldn't want them to make) BUT if they were fully 110% committed then they would offer the products but they don't need to, as like you say the rifles are flying off the shelves (a good thing to see in this current climate), now I'm totally happy with everything the PS has to offer (it could do with being a bit lighter but if that's going to upset it's excellent firing cycle then I'll leave it as it is) I've never had a problem with the alloy underlever and I'm not a freak of nature so don't require a lefty stock but the fishtail checkering could be changed at the press of a button and at no cost due to it being laser cut, I think the new skipline checkering on the PS stocks is beautiful.

At the end of the day if somebody like Tony Leach (our old compadre Bigtoe) was running the company then we'd see the changes and also have the 25mm short stroke internals (or smaller knowing him) back in the UK models as he would be pushing the envelope as far as he could and would want to see the customer get what they wanted.

Pete

[RobF]

At the end of the day if somebody like Tony Leach (our old compadre Bigtoe) was running the company then we'd see the changes and also have the 25mm short stroke internals (or smaller knowing him) back in the UK models as he would be pushing the envelope as far as he could and would want to see the customer get what they wanted.

Pete

To be honest I don't think we would. Most people aren't aware of the costs of what materials a rifle uses in production vs all the other various costs in production and the balance that a product has to make across it's markets. It's all very well coming up with something bespoke that seems better but the reality is that unless it cost a few pence to implement, had only positives overall across all the markets, and there wasn't legacy stock or costs to use up still you wouldn't see the change. The amount of people who even know what size their piston is would be far outweighed but the amount of rifles sold in a month, every month, to people who don't.

[Muskett]

A company that employs 10 people at £25k a year, then double that for business costs then that £1/2 million to clear. A rifle that can make £100 on each then thats 5,000 rifles to sell against all the competition out there. About a hundred a week, every week year on year.
On a £200 rifle then Vat is 20%, shop mark up 20% (if that), production costs, doesn't allow for much left.
Its business so if they can find an advantage and market I'm sure gun makers are trying.
Theoben went to the wall for whatever reason, probably because they couldn't sell the quantity of their premium product against the competition. Not exactly a huge operation either, just one medium business unit.

[look no hands]

To be honest I don't think we would. Most people aren't aware of the costs of what materials a rifle uses in production vs all the other various costs in production and the balance that a product has to make across it's markets. It's all very well coming up with something bespoke that seems better but the reality is that unless it cost a few pence to implement, had only positives overall across all the markets, and there wasn't legacy stock or costs to use up still you wouldn't see the change. The amount of people who even know what size their piston is would be far outweighed but the amount of rifles sold in a month, every month, to people who don't.

According to Tony it would only cost about 50p's worth of metal to lengthen the central piston rod to shorten the stroke (if they go that route), I'm pretty lucky as my Prosport is a very early one that already has the short stroke piston.

Pete

[RobF]

According to Tony it would only cost about 50p's worth of metal to lengthen the central piston rod to shorten the stroke (if they go that route), I'm pretty lucky as my Prosport is a very early one that already has the short stroke piston.

Pete

Wouldn't even cost that. But material costs are a small fraction of the costs it takes to put a gun in customer's hands.