mehulkamdar";p="18769 wrote:Filarms,
Thanks for the post and for your blog which I am going through as I type this. As the originator of this post, and the person who has a party willing to finance this, I appreciate your detailed response. If you think it is OK, I would like to call you sometime when you are free to discuss this. In the meantime, there are some uniquely Indian details which I shall post below. Please respond to them when you have time so that all our members may benefit from your response. I would also appreciate our members posting here with their views on this proposal:
1. India does not have a power limit described in terms of fps velocity or fpe energy but there is a penetration factor that ahs to be adhered to. Hence we shall not be able to produce high powered air rifles there
2. There are already several low priced spring piston air rifles being manufactured in India, and one brand, National, is fairly well regarded for it's price over there. I am looking at something of higher quality, for the booming target shooting market, especially 10 m match work. The financial proposal was an offer to tie up with a European manufacturer of match air rifles and pistols
3. There are several Automobile components manufacturers in South India who have advanced CNC equipment with spare capacities available for some work. That said, the project that I was referring to had a financial component for the equipment to be supplied from Europe
4. India is a very brand conscious market - I might be one of a tiny minority who would prefer to buy a custom made shirt instead of a branded one, but in a business venture, it would be impossible for me to sell something, good though it may be, without a brand to flaunt. Hence the European collaboration route. I would be happiest to be corrected on this specific point and be found wrong, but am not sure that that would happen
5. Specifically talking about barrels, I am a friend of Ernie Stalman of Badger Barrels in Wisconsin though, at the moment, all major US barrelmakers have their order books full with orders from the military. That said, the proposal offered was for the barrels to be made in house as well
6. With companies like Corus in the UK and Inland Steels in the US owned by Indian businesses, I do think that we would have a source of quality steels, though, again, the proposal itself has room for sourcing these from Europe
I would appreciate any further advice that you could offer as well as any more **** we could get from our members - theya re airgunners while I am only a powder burner.
Cheers!
mehulkamdar,
You may call or email me, of course. Just give me a heads up and let me know when you're calling. Let me try and cover the questions you posed here to the best of my abilities. Here goes...
1. India does not have a power limit described in terms of fps velocity or fpe energy but there is a penetration factor that ahs to be adhered to. Hence we shall not be able to produce high powered air rifles there.
The Philippines has a penetration test as well. It is widely regarded as an extremely short sighted and badly thought out law. In short, ours states that an airgun that can penetrate a 1/4 inch sheet of plywood at 10 feet will be considered a firearm and be subject to firearm regulation. That law doesn't stipulate what kind of plywood, what kind of pellet, and what angle. no matter how you look at it, a penetration test will involve power (measured in foot lbs of energy - FPE, derived from an eqution involving the velocity and projectile weight). I'd like some input from others here on how powerful their air rifles are and how they are adhering to the limit/requirement. I've read of some who ordered their airguns from the UK and the US, and those are generally pretty powerful. In any case, power is something important that you will have to determine. 10M competition airguns ideally need at least about 550-650 fps. In hunting, weak air rifles will just cause undue suffering in animals that aren't effectively put down with the first shot. In the Philippines, almost ALL airguns being produced will fail this penetration test. It is commonly ignored and I have actually yet to hear about an airgun being subjected to it.
2. There are already several low priced spring piston air rifles being manufactured in India, and one brand, National, is fairly well regarded for it's price over there. I am looking at something of higher quality, for the booming target shooting market, especially 10 m match work. The financial proposal was an offer to tie up with a European manufacturer of match air rifles and pistols.
I would really do a bit of research on your target market. Their tastes and needs will define the direction you will want to go. Things to consider would be whether spring piston airguns is what will sell the best, or if you decide to go with PCP or C02, on whether there is adequate access to supplies of either power source. That brings me to another related point. Our entry into the PCP business brought about a secondary market for us, and that is for the accessories required to refill PCP airguns. We also make the pumps to fill them, but now import carbon fiber cylinders (which are quite expensive) because we saw the increased demand for them that nobody was filling. It became another source of income, not to mention it was a great way to support the PCP airgun shooters in general. Carbon fiber cylinders have to refilled by a special compressor, usually found in Scuba shops. They cost about $3500 - $4000 new, but scuba shops who have that compressor will fill a carbon fiber cylinder for about $5.
See, in our market, we already knew there was a big c02 airgun user base. There are also a couple of underground PCP manufacturers, one of which was quite popular. But we felt the market could support another PCP manufacturer who niched itself above the rest, and so went in that direction. We are now the best known airgun brand in the country, after our 1st year in business. That was after we had to sell the general public (most of whom only knew about c02) on the virtues of PCP airguns. We did that by delivering a quality, accurate airgun, at a good price.
What I'm saying is, if you REALLY want to make spring piston airguns, then you truly may need to tie up with a european manufacturer, they do make the best of those. If you're asking for my opinion tho, I feel that would be uneccessary, as we see airguns going in the direction of PCP. I would instead invest my money in developing a new product to offer your market, like a PCP that can compete with the best the euros have to offer. Make it, and support it. I would think airgunners in general would embrace it, since they probably read all about them. I would rather import spring piston guns from europe or china (who make excellent ones btw). If you have the capital to import them in bulk, they'd no doubt still be profitable. In our case, we concentrated on ONE thing, PCP. For c02 airguns, we decided to buy the rather excellent QB-78 from china and imported those instead. That allows us to focus our resources on delivering one very good product, instead of spreading ourselves thin trying to make everything.
3. There are several Automobile components manufacturers in South India who have advanced CNC equipment with spare capacities available for some work. That said, the project that I was referring to had a financial component for the equipment to be supplied from Europe.
CNC machining is very useful in airgun manufacturing. That's all I can say. Our shop is steadily going in that direction and we're investing in our CNC machines little by little. One Vertical Milling CNC machine can make in 2 days what usually takes us 30 days to build on non-cnc machines.
4. India is a very brand conscious market - I might be one of a tiny minority who would prefer to buy a custom made shirt instead of a branded one, but in a business venture, it would be impossible for me to sell something, good though it may be, without a brand to flaunt. Hence the European collaboration route. I would be happiest to be corrected on this specific point and be found wrong, but am not sure that that would happen .
Hehe, this one I can relate to. Filipinos are extremely brand conscious as well. The thing is, because of the scarcity of "branded" (euro/american imports) airguns in the Philippines, filipino airgunners have learned to see VALUE instead. A quality product will speak for itself. Of course, maybe for you the way to that quality product is to have a joint venture with a euro manufacturer. I cannot predict your future line of airguns, and I am completely ignorant about your airgun market in India, so I don't know what to tell you. All I can say is, if the koreans can do it, the chinese can do it, and the filipinos can do it, I don't see why you can't make a quality airgun that can compete. While it may have been nice for us to be able to say that our airguns were jointly designed by Theoben or Weihrauch, there was no way we can afford the royalties. We had to do it on our own and with a lot of hard work and testing came up with a PCP airgun that can equal the euros in accuracy and performance. I also think I've mentioned that what might work for european tastes might not exactly be good for your market. Their airguns are huge complicated machines, with complex trigger assemblies that were partially designed by litigation lawyers hehe. Us asians don't really benefit from that, as a simpler made but just as good (performance wise) airgun might be better, for practical and economical reasons.
5. Specifically talking about barrels, I am a friend of Ernie Stalman of Badger Barrels in Wisconsin though, at the moment, all major US barrelmakers have their order books full with orders from the military. That said, the proposal offered was for the barrels to be made in house as well.
You will want to look into Lothar Walther barrels. That's where we source our premium barrels. Their USA branch is based in georgia. They make airgun specialized barrels and will make it to spec for you. As far as I know, they are not overbooked. Airguns barrels have different groove/land dimensions as well as different actual caliber dimensions from similar caliber powderburners. Some airgun barrels are also "choked" near the muzzle. Lothar Walther supplies barrels to most major airgun manufacturers, from FX to Logun, and I believe Theoben as well. I can give you their contact details if you need it.
I hope I've covered that well enough for you. I don't know what the euro proposal entails, but I do believe that no matter what it is, it can only be good for indian airgunners, so I will not lead you away from that. Offering a better airgun for a good price is ALWAYS a good thing, as it brings the sport forward as a whole.
I can only offer advice gained from experience from someone who's done almost exactly what you are planning. Please do your homework and due diligence, as that will help you avoid costly misteps. You are after all going into this to make a profit. Perhaps a trip to India and spending some time with airgunner associations and the like.
You may email me at
[email protected] and let me know when you're calling.
Good luck!
