Oh shit they never said that when I emailed them.
Yep, I talked to Sabien Chandler yesterday and just received this same information. However, if you already have a Hart barrel blank, it should be less than the $1,400 that Hart is charging for their part of the build. You still nees to send all of your parts to IBA because they'll do some work to the receiver before sending it out to Hart. They're only using Hart for these XM3 builds and a few other rifles that use Hart barrels, they're doing other rifles in-house with their gunsmiths. I think this is just easier for IBA to do it this way, and they've had a relationship with Hart for a long time. Hart was building the barreled actions for IBA when IBA first started up in the late 80's or whenever. After a few years, IBA moved to doing everything in-house, including building the original USMC XM3's. It's interesting to see that theyve moved back to using Hart for builds, but Hart is also a very reputable company with known history for high-quality work.
As for the price on builds that have all of the parts supplied by the customer (minus the Hart barrel blank), it's $1,850 for IBA to do their work and $1,400 for Hart to do their work. If there's a discount for the Hart work by supplying your own Hart barrel blank, then it might be around $1k for their work, but Sabien is reaching out to Hart this week to verify the price for us. That means it will be $2,850 to $3,250 for an XM3 built by IBA/Hart.
Don't let this price be a turnoff, there is nothing insane about this build cost! If you gather all the correct parts, such as an original Remington S prefix serial number receiver and reproduction titanium parts, the price of the parts kit is probably going to be around $3,500. You can obviously spend even less than this, if you want. In total, $3,500 plus $3,250 is $6,750 (and you can spend even less on the parts of you want, which will lower the cost). The original price for just an IBA XM3 rifle was $8,541 in 2006 dollars, which are worth over $13,000 in 2024 dollars with inflation taken into consideration!!! So, even spending under $7k today is MUCH cheaper than buying one of the original IBA XM3's back in 2006! I purchased an original IBA XM3 prototype from them back in 2012 and it cost me about $9,500 with the NightForce NXS scope. I sold that rifle to a friend for a little over $10,000 a few years ago. Before these new IBA XM3's were being built, you'd have to pay over $10,000 for an IBA XM3 civilian build, or currently over $20,000 for an original USMC IBA XM3 at CMP auction. Those were your only options for a real IBA XM3 build, but now you can get one done for a fraction of those prices! Taking all of this into consideration, the $6,750 price is completely reasonable! And right now they're charging more than that for a 100% IBA/Hart complete XM3 without any customer supplied parts, so it's far cheaper to source your own parts.
To anyone comparing this IBA/Hart XM3 to something like a GA Precision build, the prices are pretty damn close!. A spec XM3 build should be close to an M40A5 build, since they use similar parts. On GA Precision's website, an M40A5 build is listed at $6,334, which directly rivals the price of a customer supplied parts XM3 at $6,750 or less. Not only is the IBA/Hart price completely in-line with what very well-known and respected companies like GA Precision are charging, IBA is also using a very well-known and respected gunsmith for their part of the XM3 build (Tiny). Tiny Briggs is a great gunsmith, and he built the original USMC XM3's. So, with this $6,750 or less price tag, you also get the confidence that it's built by someone who's known to be a great gunsmith, and it's a rifle that will ALWAYS carry IBA XM3 provenance from the company who originally built them for the Marines.
This is like having Chris Higgins at Red Bull Armory build you a Mk13 Mod 7, which was his brain-child that he developed when he worked at Crane NSWC. This IBA provenance adds a ton of value to the XM3 build, which is far more than any other company building XM3 clones. Even though Hart is helping mount the barrel, IBA is still doing all of the other gunsmithing work, and it's straight up a documented IBA XM3 rifle built to original USMC XM3 specs! That will always make these new IBA XM3's worth quite a bit, especially if their shop ever closes their doors again! The provenance and value of an IBA XM3 build is there, and that helps justify the $1,850 they charge for their portion of the build.
Additionally, this thread has a comparison between customer supplied parts for an IBA XM3 built to the "XM3" that is currently being offered by Type A Rifle Company. Do a direct comparison between the 2 rifles from each company, and it justifies the IBA build even further! Type A has unknown gunsmiths building their rifles (at least to the general public's knowledge and in comparison to Tiny at IBA), they are using the cheapest parts they possibly can and the parts aren't clone correct (for example, they're using a new production Remington 700 receiver, not an old long discontinued Remington 700 stainless S prefix receiver), and they're deceiving potential customers by saying that they're the only ones who are getting "exclusive" or whatever XM3 stocks from McMillan (completely lying about this and playing into people's FOMO mentality). They're probably spending less than $3,000 on parts, and yet they're charging $7,000 for their "XM3" build (sometimes discounted to $6,500 if you call them).
Taking this information into account, Type A is easily charging $3,500 to $4,000 in gunsmithing fees (more than IBA/Hart) for an incorrect XM3 build, with an unknown gunsmith, with wrong parts, with no provenance going back to a USMC contract, etc. This is the built that has an massively unjustifiable price for a rifle build that's not even in the same ballpark as an IBA build! This is the type of company that should be scrutinized and asked to justify their exorbitant pricing that's far more than what other highly reputable companies like GA Precision is charging! Their price at $7k is extremely close to the $8k price for a Tac Ops build, and yet they aren't even in the same universe when compared to a Tac Ops build! So, how can they possibly justify Tac Ops pricing for their terrible "XM3" build? Type A should be cost competitive, especially when using the cheapest incorrect parts possible, and should realistically be priced at about $5,000 for what they offer (that's $2k+ for gunsmithing fees for essentially hanging a barrel, bedding the barreled action, and a few other minor gunsmithing services). Even if Type A drops their fees to $2k for gunsmithing services, it's still a lot, especially when you compare the same work to the price estimate from RWS (an actual respected builder) at about $1,300.
So, even at $2,850 to $3,250 for the gunsmithing fees that IBA/Hart is charging, it's 100% justified and completely in-line with what other companies like GA Precision would charge for a build. However, that's only if you supply your own parts. A 100% IBA build with parts supplied by IBA is going to cist a lot more, easily into the Tac Ops area of pricing. That is a ton of money, and I'm not sure that I could even justify that one. Providing them with your own parts allows you to save a lot of money, and you have 100% control over every single part that's being used for your XM3 build. Collectors should be extremely happy that IBA is making XM3's again, and there's an option to pay less than $7k for the entire build (which is a fraction of what all the other IBA XM3 builds have cost). So, instead of just looking at a single number for the gunsmithing cost, everyone needs to take a step back and take all of this information into consideration. Once you have all of this information, the price that IBA/Hart is charging is completely reasonable and in turn your getting an actual XM3 build with IBA provenance. I only recommend supplying your own parts for the XM3 build, since buying a complete XM3 outright from IBA will actually be expensive. The XM3 has been a very popular GWOT clone, and people have been asking IBA for a long time to come back and make them. The original price for just an IBA XM3 was $8,541 almost 20 years ago, which is currently over $13,000 in todays money! This is literally what everyone wanted, a real IBA XM3 for less than what the originals cost (if you supply your own parts). This is a massive win for all of us collectors/clone builders, so take advantage of what they're offering now before prices increase or they close the business again (Sabien is doing a great job running IBA, I think they'll be open for many, many more years).
ironbrigadearms.com
