Survey - Metal Slide Specialty

[Leon]

Hey guys,
My friend and I are thinking of starting up a manufacturer of metal slide for airsoft uses in Canada. Before we start, I'd like to ask u guys a few question.

1. The product will be CNC cut, and quality is guaranteed. The price is estimated to be about 20% lower than the standard price of similar products. Are you willing to buy?

2. What do you think will make you choose one product over the others, price, quality or wordings on the slide (trademarks)? (If you have other choices, please tell me.)

3. Do you guys know if there're any laws or regulations that prohibit the production of metal slides for airsoft uses in Canada?

Thanks for reading this post and any commends and responses are fully appreciated.

Cheers,

Leon

[The Saint]

Hm, I'd be interested in items that aren't available elsewhere, like a tougher WE Dragon slide that can safely take CO2.

[Heet]

i would buy on quality first and price a close second

[bundun]

i'd say price would be first. because if we're not worried about that then we can just order them from HK through any of the canadian retailers...just my $0.02

[Mr Jon]

Price
Quality
Selection of Products Available

A major factor in the purchasing of slides is correct trademarks, I will spend 250$ on a slide, VS 100$ on a cheap TW made one if it has the correct markings.

Legalities and the law aside if you can actually produce these in Canada, I would definitely be intrested.

[Maelstrom]

Quality, Ease of installation (if i break out a file and/or sandpaper it fails that area), trademarks, finish, then price

My GBB's are my pimped out weapons and i really don't like their parts to be substandard

[Gryphon]

No legalities on this whatsoever. You are not producing firearms parts, and even if you were a slide is not a controlled item.

[Leon]

Thank you for all your responses.

What we're planning to do is to purchase a CNC machine which allows us to do all the wordings, trademarks or anything you want on it. So we can provide standard products and customized ones.

What we want to know now is how big is this market, cause purchasing CNC machines and other costs are not cheap. So we want to know if we are able to cover all our costs. We'll give it a try even if it is a break-even situation.

BTW, we can also make RAS/RIS parts too.

[Drake]

I'd buy. Factors are a bit of everything. I don't care paying for a good quality product, as long as the pricing is reasonable. I'd rather pay a bit more for something good than put money out for something that ends up being a POS.

Compatibility/QC is also a factor. If I drop hard earned cash on something, I want to be able to use it as intended without having to break out the Dremel to fix stuff first.

And lastly, variety and/or custom work would be important too; if you browse what's out there now, there's a lot of variety for slides, but they're all intended for a somewhat restricted number of guns (WA SVs, TM Hi-Capa, etc) and only a very limited selection for other guns.

In my particular case, I've been trying to find a metal slide for my WA Striker 45 (single stack 1911 with a bushing); because of the shape (its an SV style slide) and also being single stacked and using a bushing (unlike SVs), and especially because I'd really like to find one with Springfield markings... no luck.

(here's a couple of pics if you really care: 1 2 )


(shit you can make one of those for me, i'll pay you)

[DEA]

I would maybe double check on the Trademark thing before you put one on your products. To be honest, I could not tell you for sure the laws in Canada, however I know all these overseas manufacturer's have agreements made with Colt, ect.. that allows them to use their trademark, and these companies pay Colt ect.. a fee for the use of their trade!.

Just Something to look into

[ILLusion]

Good luck with copyright issues on:

1) Trademarks
2) Exact replicas of copyrighted technologies, (ie KAC's free floating RAS systems, RAS II, ARMS, SIR, etc)

The reason why these products DO exist on the airsoft market is simply because Taiwan (the manufacturing country of origin for most of these parts) has a loophole that allows them to bypass all copyright laws.

If you're going to do it, do it small scale enough that you won't get noticed, otherwise, have it manufactured in Taiwan and import it to Canada for sale. The alternative is to get legal licensing, but that WILL cost a lot of money.

To put some things in perspective: the reason why almost all manufacturing is done in Asia (China and Taiwan especially), is because it's extremely cheap there. It will be extremely difficult in Canada to get a machine, someone to put in the time to set up all the blueprinting and G-coding, raw materials, tool bits and tooling AND turn a profit and still provide a product that is cheaper than what Taiwan can churn out.

To get a higher margin, consider CNCing dies and moulds that you would be using to die-cast slides from. You lose the "CNC is cool" factor of your slide, but even the cheapest Asian CNC slides run just under $200 Canadian.

Even those CNC'ed mechboxes that were made in the states costed $250USD each, and that was with a run of 100.

Can you afford to do a 50+ quantity run of each gun that comes into question in order to make the R&D worthwhile?

Can you afford the monetary and time constraints of having to deal with the legal ramifications when it comes to replicating copyrighted products?

[Mantelope]

Material. We need more steel slides. Not to say that steel is the best for everything, but it would definitely be nice to have a selection. Beyond that, quality and trades are most important.

I believe that people buying aftermarket metal slides will be the kind of people who value accuracy in terms of recreating real firearms... people who want a metal slide for durability buy a WE or KJW.

Don't know if it's feasible, but maybe slides for rarer GBBs too? There's only one WA M9 metal slide on WGC, and it's sold out. Unfortunately, I don't have any experience with CNC (next year!!) but again, if it's feasible, look into frames, and possibly other parts of the gun. I don't know how much time you're willing to sink into this, but you could probably run a pretty sweet service wherein people mail you parts, and you do a CNC copy of it and mail them back.

[ILLusion]

For one-offs, it would be more economically feasible to just mill the parts out by hand.

Coding for CNC is time consuming and not worth it for the buyer if they're just expecting one small part from it.

CNC has an allure because many same items can be produced almost identical to each other. You know your product will be same as the other guy's and if it works for him, it should work for you too. Great for mass producing goods in short time, but for one-offs, it does not offer anything that a skilled machinist can do by hand in less time.

[Leon]

Thanks Brain for your advices.

Hire a skilled machinist cost more than a machine, and the machine can also be used in other jobs, in this way the cost will allocate to other product, it also force the price down. That is the advantage of the machine.
I know I am producing the same product with others, but we can offer better price in same quality, also we carry out more widely product selection ,coz we can custom make any thing you want, no matter your want a slide for WA 8045 or KSC USP, we can make it. So, I think the slide business still have market in Canada.

The biggest problem right now is the copyright, if we can't solve this one, then we may not mass produce the slides.

[Jar|-|ead]

DUDE i so want a metla slide for my USP tac. i want 2 engravings on it...mix it up with HK and Kimber....DAMN!!!!...lol..