Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Boomsticks: An idea...

.300 Whisper .300 Fireball .300 Whisper .300 Fireball

Now that I've got Google's attention, I wonder how low a package deal containing a .300 Fireball upper and a matching can could be priced and still remain profitable? I wonder how many people would be interested?

Discuss amongst yourselves; I'll see if I can't point certain people towards this post if it seems to arouse any interest...

13 comments:

Sigivald said...

Call it a .300 Whisperball, and really confuse people.

Anonymous said...

You forgot the little ®; SSK will be dispatching their lawyers promptly...

Tam said...

Yeah, gawd forbid some poor blogger is hyping their stuff without the proper punctuation.

:rolleyes:

Anonymous said...

Build it with an integral suppressor and it will probably come in for even less money. I know I bought an American Manufacturer built suppressed .22 built on a Savage .22 complete with scope for ~$300.(+transfer, of course)

Tam said...

Thing is, I'm hoping that going the upper+can route will allow the use of off-the-shelf componentry, which should help hold costs down...

GreatBlueWhale said...

Well, I for one would be very interested in seeing a price range.

GreatBlueWhale said...

BTW, Tam, I an a new reader and the View is now part of my daily read.

Tam said...

I always hope folks have as much fun reading as I do writing. :)

Anonymous said...

Well, first thing is, you can't call it a Whisper, not unless you want to give SSK a healthy chunk of money on each unit sold.

Second, you're going to have to use an existing suppressor design - the average cost to develop a new can these days is over 400K.

Now lets see, $375(from Ar15barrels.com, probably less if you order enough of them), 180ish for a Bushmaster flattop upper receiver, $115 for a Stag Arms complete bolt, Figure $100 for the forearm, and another $200 for various hardware, and $735 for a Gemtech HVT. And oh, the $200 tax stamp.

That comes to just over $1900. Personally, I think a better idea is to offer a barrel/can combo, that way the buyer can assemble the rest of the gun the way they want, with the parts they want.

Tam said...

Those are all retail prices. Trust me, flat top uppers and such are less than $115, especially when you're ordering them ten or more at a lick. I was thinking about using Olyarms, since they intermittently catalog complete .300 Fireball uppers.

The can should be fairly easy as a 5.56 can with a larger hole would be more than adequate to handle the insignificant (comparatively speaking) amount of gas generated by .300 Fireball.

"Well, first thing is, you can't call it a Whisper, not unless you want to give SSK a healthy chunk of money on each unit sold."

Thanks. We were just discussing that.

Anonymous said...

Y'know.....I had forgotten about this .300 Firesper/Whisball/Whatever thing. Since Oly does, from time to time, offer plug 'n' play 300 uppers, this might be the short path to my new house carbine, rather than engineer Something Completely New. And, I doubt ammo would be any harder to get.

If you go into production on these, might I suggest that, as long as reams of fedwork is involved for the can, it's only a couple of pages more for an SBR.

Thanks, Tam.

Anonymous said...

My point was, that no matter what it's gonna run into big money.

Just making the "hole bigger" in a .223 caliber can may not be possible, depending on baffle construction. The first thing you should do if you want to go this route, is to contact the suppressor manufacturer and see A)is it possible, B)how much it will cost) and C)What will be they're minimum order. Don't assume it's even doable, as many cans use stamped baffles that are welded in place. Modifying the dies simply isn't possible. If they're machined, they baffles might have too thin a wall to open up the bore an additional .085. It may very well be that the cheapest option may be to use a .308 can.

Tam said...

"The first thing you should do if you want to go this route, is to contact the suppressor manufacturer"

Already sat down and talked to one, and I have a good intro to another.