Post
by TenX » Sat Jan 05, 2008 10:30 am
Some quick adds:
The Doc has fantastic limitations of using only existing machinery at the IHP, which are almost 4 decades old.
Next, there is no scope for importing any part at all.
Copying new guns are also not part of the R & D, as procuring them is not in budget.
The Doc is a full time Homeopath in Mumbai and has to co-ordinate with the IHP team at Ahmedabad.
Almost all decisions are wonderfully red-taped, with very slow progress on taking required measures.
All new changes and designs are to be made by the Doc alone, presented for approval, a patient wait, and then a persuaded go-ahead.
These are some facts that I understood over the two day-visits I made.
Now, with all this, the good Doc still delivers his two-pills-for-the-night. Matter of fact, when he first launched the first Pneumatic a few years back, the response was initially slow, but as of now, there is a three month waiting period for this. I could not pick up one on my visit, although I did test them. Bulky and not too nice to feel, as a shooter, but at an amazing low price of about 7K, I decided to pick one up. But the waiting period was too much - three months.
Lets face it. We have a billion population, and there is certainly a huge demand for home-grown potatoes. But we have very few farmers to grow them. Decade old Companies dont take quick measures with their 'Santhust' attitude. Few passion-gunners actually work on R & D to create somethign new, apart from improving what they own. More importantly, we dont have farmers growing stuff for the rest of the populace.
Somewhere, after decent starts like this, the demand of the consumer market will rise over produce (like what is hapenning with the Pneumatic Air Rifle), and companies will re-think on making new models (like the new Compressed Air), and soon, a whole lot of others will follow suit. I think, that in the next few years, we will have wonderful copy-cats, who will follow the Doc's models or try duplicating imported ones, for very affordable prices.
The same hapenned with Shooting jackets. 7 years ago, it was only Mhow making them at cheap prices of below 2K. Only National team shooters had imported and dearer ones (around 50K). By this time, a good demand had grown indoor and then, 2 years later, came a couple of companies who copied the imported ones (like Capapie and another name I forgot). This surely had a couple of years' lag on the imported ones, in terms of material and fit. Now (6 years later), Anschutz jackets cost a whooting 70K, but Indian ones cost about one third the price, and trust me, the material and fitting is almost as good - Its made very accurately with Imported material, the same that Anschutz and others use. I have tried them all, and seriously think that the Indian ones are worth their price. (One can change three Indian jackets for the price of one imported one)
Now, remove 'jackets' and replace 'Air Rifle' from the above para, and that will be what we see in the coming few years.