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New 'production' rifle from PVA - J. Hancock
- Thread starter jbailey
- Start date
Josh, I was wanting to order a 6mm creed barrel from you for the Nucleus action I pre-ordered from American rifle company. On this thread you list the 6mm house barrel as having a 7 twist, but when I look in the description on your site for just a barrel for my action it lists it as a 8 twist.. Can you clarify as to which one I would receive, I wanna go ahead and order and was curious about that. Thanks...
Josh, @bohem
I know you’re getting a lot of questions regarding delivery of the John Hancock. I have been looking for a budget minded long range rifle in 6.5 Creedmoor. I am ready to purchase a rifle, and was about ready to pull the trigger on a Tikka or a Howa until I saw the chatter about the John Hancock. I really don’t want a Savage or a Remington. The John Hancock is literally twice what I wanted to spend. But I have a lot of faith in a lot of these guy’s opinions on this board, and the good things that they are saying about your company and this rifle, and I am really considering scraping the money together to buy one.
Here’s the deal though, (I know, everybody has a deal). I have an opportunity to take a long range class at The Whittington Center in August. I will be needing a rifle this Spring so I can learn it and develop loads for it. There was a couple comments about the delivery time may be August, September, or even December. I’m sure they are just speculation.
I don’t have any idea what kind of orders you have recieved on this rifle, but from reading this board, it’s a lot, and I know it’s due to be released in April. If an order is placed today (or tomorrow, since today is Sunday), do you have any kind of rough estimate on a delivery? I’m trying to decide if I should take a chance with your rifle, which I really want to do, or go with a sure thing and have enough time to work with it this summer.
Sounds like Shot was a tremendous success.
Thanks Josh,
Michael
I know you’re getting a lot of questions regarding delivery of the John Hancock. I have been looking for a budget minded long range rifle in 6.5 Creedmoor. I am ready to purchase a rifle, and was about ready to pull the trigger on a Tikka or a Howa until I saw the chatter about the John Hancock. I really don’t want a Savage or a Remington. The John Hancock is literally twice what I wanted to spend. But I have a lot of faith in a lot of these guy’s opinions on this board, and the good things that they are saying about your company and this rifle, and I am really considering scraping the money together to buy one.
Here’s the deal though, (I know, everybody has a deal). I have an opportunity to take a long range class at The Whittington Center in August. I will be needing a rifle this Spring so I can learn it and develop loads for it. There was a couple comments about the delivery time may be August, September, or even December. I’m sure they are just speculation.
I don’t have any idea what kind of orders you have recieved on this rifle, but from reading this board, it’s a lot, and I know it’s due to be released in April. If an order is placed today (or tomorrow, since today is Sunday), do you have any kind of rough estimate on a delivery? I’m trying to decide if I should take a chance with your rifle, which I really want to do, or go with a sure thing and have enough time to work with it this summer.
Sounds like Shot was a tremendous success.
Thanks Josh,
Michael
I'm new to this whole hi speed crazy "precision" world, but not new to shooting and loading rounds. However, this info you're asking should probably be asked over the phone since PVA/Josh won't want to give out too much business intelligence for his competitors. Competition is getting very tight in the gun industry right now, and this subindustry will one day get taken over by the high production folks like savage and ruger if they can get about 90% of the quality as PVA for around 60% of the retail price to consumer. I think we have to support companies like PVA (or whichever is your cup of tea, i don't care). It appears to me that the one benefit PVA has is its attention to detail in regard to bbls. That is what you're getting, but I've never shot a PVA rifle and was thinking about getting one of these...therefore I'm in same boat as you and almost asked the same question.
I sincerely hope that PVA has secured a very serious and solid "requirements contract" with ARC and that ARC can keep up. I hope (and assume) the same has been done with Rock Creek. Turning back to your question, let's assume those two things are done (likewise with the Bravo stock and trigger), then let's assume that barrel work takes slightly longer than expected on 10-25% of their production models.
...well, do we want PVA to speed up work and lower quality, or keep quality super high and let delivery dates keep getting pushed out into the future...we can't have both. Which benefits PVA? Which benefits consumers in the short term? Which benefits consumers in the long term?
Now let's say PVA has 15-30% of its customers fail to pay for final delivery once the production rifle is finished, and PVA can't continue to make payments on their requirements contracts to its suppliers??
...btw, in case it isn't obvious, I'm copletely making up these numbers, pulling them outta my butt as mere hypotheticals in order to demonstrate a point, not to speak to actual reality of the future.
I have no idea the answers to these questions. But I can say we always have to be careful what we ask for in this industry. Everyone thinks PRS is going to continue to grow (and I'm a newb trying to get into the game), but I can't see this growing to the same extent as concealed carry market. I think we are at the peak in rate of increase in growth in PRS. The RPR was the height, and anything is just an attempt at making a "better" RPR, when it comes to production class. Hopefully, I'm wrong.
PS. Sorry if I'm a wet blanket, I love PVA and ARC and love what is being done here. I just wish the Hancock used the 6.5PRC rather than the 6.5SAUM bc there is no match factory ammo in the SAUM, but whatever it won't affect handloaders. Actually, PVA might not be able to get 65PRC reamers for all I know.
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The other option is to just keep raising prices on custom builds until demand levels off at a maintainable level, limit the number of production rifles made, or close books to maintain delivery times. The market for PRS guns that stay under the production $ limit is hot right now, even the big companies are building guns to cater to it. I'd imagine something like this could far outsell the # of custom builds PVA is doing.
Which benefits consumers is more complicated, because it depends on which "consumer" you are. If you are the guy that ordered the $5000+ custom rifle you probably want your custom builders time/effort/communications going to those high dollar builds and maintaining customer communication, not a production effort. If you are the guy that wants a $2000 production rifle for PRS obviously that's what you want focused on. However, both can be done successfully, as long as customer communication is maintained, quality stays high, and delivery times are reasonably met, everyone stays happy. When those things start breaking down, word gets around pretty quick. It sounds like PVA just brought on a new machinist so they are being proactive about staying ahead of the growth curve, and that's great news for all consumers.
If a custom shop does start going through growing pains, doesn't matter if it's cars, dirt bikes, mountain bikes, knives, guns etc., in my experience they all follow similar patterns. Communication starts being an issue, delivery dates slip significantly, and finally quality can slip. Usually you'll hear about communication issues first, people saying they can't get any response, emails/call go unanswered, and then others start reporting similar issues, that's usually the first real warning sign. Then usually you'll start to hear about people cancelling orders for various reasons, lack of communication, delivery times etc. Quality is usually the last to slip, it's attempted to be maintained at all costs, because some customers will accept any amount of delivery delay, lack of communication, etc. as long as the end product is great. The exception to that being if a small company gets bought out by a larger one, usually quality slips immediately at that point. It happens to the best of builders with the best intentions, they are human as well and the same things go wrong in their lives that go wrong in ours.
I can remember when I was racing mountain bikes in the 90's, you'd have custom frame builders that had god like reputations charging $5000+ for a welded frame with 1-2 year waits. They'd get too big too fast and delivery times and communication fell off, then quality slipped as they brought in new people to keep up. You'd never see anything posted about them negatively in public, because their fanboys would attack, but it quickly got around by private message which shops were not living up to their reputations. At the end of the day I'm not sure if that's good or bad, because those shops never knew the business they lost or the reasons why, so they were never given an opportunity to correct it. However, it's possible they had so much business wouldn't have cared either.
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Guys,
We JUST got back from SHOT. It's busy, there are a metric ton of emails, FB messages, and IG messages to go through. I'm only partway into it. I haven't even looked at the Hide threads.
We also have the ATF coming tomorrow for a annual inspection so I'm not focused on emails, messages, etc. I'm making sure that every "i" is dotted and "t" is crossed today so that we pass our audit.
Before folks get whipped into a frenzy by assumptive pontification written by people who have absolutely no additional information than what they've read online, here's a heads up.
The Hancock was not laid out and announced in a vacuum without the impact to production being addressed. We knew that the project was going to consume more resources than PVA had in the current machinery and shop space. Buying more capital equipment isn't like running down to Lowes and picking up a lawn tractor. I started the process in September for a new turning center. I signed the PO in December and the machine is well on the way here.
I spent an hour this morning with the folks pouring concrete at the new shop. Move in date is still on track at Feb 15th.
Coming back from there I spoke to the machine tool dealer that is rigging in a new live-tool CNC turning center from LA right now and they're on track to deliver on time as well, looking to be Feb 17th.
There are over 100 barrel blanks coming from Rock Creek in the next month, the stocks are on a PO and KRG is on that task without issue, Timney is handling the triggers no problem and the new full time machinist and CNC guy that is coming on board is here doing audit paperwork with me right now.
SHOT Show's schedule is hard to describe to people that haven't been there but let's just say it's quite busy. It gets even busier when you launch something like the NUCLEUS and the John Hancock.
I will get to emails, contact inquiries and messages on here but there is so much to do today for the audit that I won't be able to do it all today, right now. When it rains, it pours and the ATF needs to know that I'm not competing with the demokrats and selling guns under the table to gangbangers.
We JUST got back from SHOT. It's busy, there are a metric ton of emails, FB messages, and IG messages to go through. I'm only partway into it. I haven't even looked at the Hide threads.
We also have the ATF coming tomorrow for a annual inspection so I'm not focused on emails, messages, etc. I'm making sure that every "i" is dotted and "t" is crossed today so that we pass our audit.
Before folks get whipped into a frenzy by assumptive pontification written by people who have absolutely no additional information than what they've read online, here's a heads up.
The Hancock was not laid out and announced in a vacuum without the impact to production being addressed. We knew that the project was going to consume more resources than PVA had in the current machinery and shop space. Buying more capital equipment isn't like running down to Lowes and picking up a lawn tractor. I started the process in September for a new turning center. I signed the PO in December and the machine is well on the way here.
I spent an hour this morning with the folks pouring concrete at the new shop. Move in date is still on track at Feb 15th.
Coming back from there I spoke to the machine tool dealer that is rigging in a new live-tool CNC turning center from LA right now and they're on track to deliver on time as well, looking to be Feb 17th.
There are over 100 barrel blanks coming from Rock Creek in the next month, the stocks are on a PO and KRG is on that task without issue, Timney is handling the triggers no problem and the new full time machinist and CNC guy that is coming on board is here doing audit paperwork with me right now.
SHOT Show's schedule is hard to describe to people that haven't been there but let's just say it's quite busy. It gets even busier when you launch something like the NUCLEUS and the John Hancock.
I will get to emails, contact inquiries and messages on here but there is so much to do today for the audit that I won't be able to do it all today, right now. When it rains, it pours and the ATF needs to know that I'm not competing with the demokrats and selling guns under the table to gangbangers.
Thanks for the update Josh. We knew you guys are busy, but I had no idea that you had all that going on. I'll pray for good contractors, no change orders, and excellent weather for the construction of your new shop, and also for a laid back ATF Agent, if there is such a thing. I went ahead and placed an order to get in line. My order number is #1952. If the line starts at 0001, that's a pretty long line, but awesome for you guys. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
Now... I just need to start selling stuff to try to pay for it.
Good luck!
Now... I just need to start selling stuff to try to pay for it.
Good luck!
My order number is #1952. If the line starts at 0001, that's a pretty long line, but awesome for you guys. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
Now... I just need to start selling stuff to try to pay for it.
Good luck!
Sarge,
Pretty sure you will not have to wait for 1951 other Hancock orders in front of you. Josh probably wishes you did, but likely not that many.
I'm jealous of the new guys able to get so much custom performance at such an attractive price. With luck, if you like the stock and it fits you, this could be the only precision rifle you will need. Update the famous quote to "Beware the man with only one PVA rifle"
Best of luck with your wait.
Thanks jbaily. I’m hoping it’s the only one I ever have to buy, and yes, I’m really keeping my fingers crossed on the stock. This will be my gun allotment for at least a couple years.
Oh, by the way...don’t tell the wife.
The rifle looks great. PVA has always been an innovative company with novel ideas, and tried hard to find its niche. Best wishes to you!
Man, I'm brand new to this and looking for my first rifle... This thing make me excited! The "custom" aspect of a small builder I don't know is a little scary but it seems as though I m the only one here that doesnt know PVA.
Not knowing how long i would have to wait vs picking up the phone and ordering a Tikka is a bit concerning as well, but I've had custom pistols built for USPSA so I should know better.
Not knowing how long i would have to wait vs picking up the phone and ordering a Tikka is a bit concerning as well, but I've had custom pistols built for USPSA so I should know better.
We are not offering this rifle with the Origin.
It was on the table for a while but the pricing and availability of the Origin made it non-tenable. The NUCLEUS feature list and technical execution makes it the obvious choice, the availability and pricing are icing on the cake.
I hereby nominate that all 6 dashers shall be first
I like how you think!
Actually, we're going to be cutting 6.5 Creeds first since they are more than 70% of the orders. Rifles are being shipped FIFO based within the caliber selection. I'm not going to swap from 6.5 to 6 back to 308, then over to 6 again. In order to support the pricing model we have published this needs to be done in a flow-oriented fashion as opposed to an order placement fashion.
Right now, based on the orders in place, it looks like we should be able to have the first 100 rifles all chambered by around May 1st and the assembly and packing will come as we do batches. I am doing trial evaluations on how to ship but I suspect that we'll be doing cutting of barrels near constantly. The assembly and packing will be done on a semi daily basis so that we can avoid the time delays by distractions.
Hi Josh, I made my deposit this weekend on the Nucleus barreled action deal you're running and included a barloc. Is this the one we're getting with the Nucleus? It's awesome the way they integrated the barloc device with the recoil lug. P.S. I hope you're enjoying SHOT.
This is the Savage prefit barrel BarLoc. The one that comes iwth the Nucleus uses a shouldered barrel setup and not a barrel nut.
The early pre-production barrels were 8's and I just secured the 7tw setup with Rock Creek using our custom buttons for the rifling. PVA worked wtih RCB to leverage their already good OEM barrels into a house barrel that I'm really happy with. The test barrels are now so good that I cannot shoot the difference in them on my test rifles. While some see the OEM barrel option as a cheaper option that might not shoot as well we see it as a less expensive manufacturing method that must shoot just as well. This is why I handed a 6.5x47 barrel to @padom and asked him to shoot the latest generation of 6.5mm's and put it through his strenuous test protocol. I knew they were good but I wanted a technically savvy, objective 3rd party to do the testing and publish it.
The 7.5tw barrels you see ONLY come in cut rifled as RCB does not have the leader bars for 7.5tw setups. Therefore we went to the 7tw. I did some shooting with 8's extensively to test the 105, 110 and 115's and we had no issues past 1200yd with the 6 Creed and 6 Dasher with all of the above. It was only the 6BR with the 110 where we found accuracy issues that cropped up between 1100 and 1200yd. They're due to instability at near sonic. The 7 twist fixes that.
I'll be honest with everyone, if I didn't have to make 7tw I would much prefer the 8tw. I have shoot 10s of thousands of 6mm bullets through 8's and done extremely well in competitions with it. The 110SMK has some idiosyncratic behavior due to the super long nose, if we could ignore that bullet past 1100yd I would love to do it. The 8's last longer and they're less finnicky when the barrels start to wear out. Customer demand is the only reason we are even working with the 7's. I would love to simply can the 7tw side because of just how damn good the 8tw barrels have been proven to be.
The 115 DTAC and 105 Hybrid have absolutely no issues in the 8's that I've been shooting them in for years.
As it should... Ted took the prototype rifle home from SHOT show in a spare BRAVO so he could shoot it...
See above about the Origin in the JHC.
The 223 option is still a hold out until we can secure a bulletproof magazine option. As a trainer package I am less inclined to worry about butter smooth feeding but with a turn key rifle there needs to be more testing done so that I know it works better than Sex Panther. (works 100% of the time, 60% of the time... anyone?)
Ted has a 223 nucleus barreled action on 2 day delivery to me right now so that we can go out this weekend and test magazines and shoot about 1000rd of PRIME 55gr and another 1000rd of PRIME 77gr through it to get an acceptable sample set of data through each magazine.
If all is well then I will open the option for a Hancock in 223. If we still need work it will stay as a trainer package.
Josh, we all understand that you are very busy. Way too busy for a menial task such as this. I will help you out by taking care of this test for you. I will even shoot it at my match on Sunday to test it under stress. I can come by Friday to pick it up. Happy to help.
Very nice. The new barrel nut systems that allow the use of standard barrel profiles really opens up the options available to us when we're looking to replace a barrel.
How are replacement barrels handled with this rifle? Yes, it's a total newb question, I'm sorry...
Do you mean for the OEM replacement Hancock barrels?
The OEM Hancock barrels will come with an engraving mark on the outside denoting caliber and the engraving will say
"John Hancock OEM
"<caliber marking here>"
This way the folks that use it for Production Class will have a factory mark on it denoting that it's a barrel that fits within the rule set.
Sorry for my lack of clarity, I actually mean availability and end user replacement? Can a barrel be purchased direct through PVA and user installed vs requiring a gunsmith to fit? (Again, I'm sorry for the stupid question)
Ahh, got it.
The OEM replacement barrels do not require a gunsmith or headspace artifacts to install them.
You will need a NUCLEUS action wrench and a barrel vise, some grease and a torque wrench.
You order the barrel from us, it ships to your house, and you can install it in your garage without actual gunsmithing.
Thank you. Didn't realize I was talking PVA directly when you responded. Thank you for taking the time to answer questions on here!
Dan
Stay tuned guys, I just got the shipping notification for 500rd of 6mm Creedmoor, 500rd of 6.5 Creedmoor, 500rd of 308 Win, and I have 500pcs of 6mm BR all loaded up.
We're going to do some longevity testing on the Hancock in about 3 days at the range.
We're going to do some longevity testing on the Hancock in about 3 days at the range.
Looking forward to it!
That rifle you had was really nice, I was sorry to hear you had to sell it.
Thanks Josh. Idk if I missed it, but if I was to drop a deposit, what would be a guess to lead time on a 6.5?
We're probably in mid June on delivery of rifles ordered today. Maybe a little sooner but there are a large number of orders that are going out starting in late April.
I'm a little bit bummed out that I didn't in on this deal, I'm getting the same rifle just didn't get it as a John Hancock. I bought the Bravo when it came out, then preordered the Nucleus when it released, then I heard about the PVA barrel deal and jumped on it...then it was too late for the John Hancock rifle. I'm putting together the same thing, but won't be able to shoot production class.
I like your style!
Blood, Kidneys, other bodily fluids... all have a market if you know where to post them for sale
This will be a ongoing deal, correct? not a short time offer? Don't have the cash now, but would love to jump into something like this in the summer or fall.
Josh, hate to post this question here in the Hancock thread, but have you heard anything from Ted about when he might have action wrenches available for the Nucleus? As I have a barrel on order from you and an action on order from him and will be assembling by myself. Thanks again..
sorry, men't to ask if they were still going to be selling them later. or if this package was a one time run.
PVA stated their goal is to keep these going long term. An ambitious goal for sure
So, I'm admittedly torn between this and a Christensen MPR. I'd be getting a 6.5CM version of either.
Two things I like about the MPR are it's stated MOA guarantee and the CF barrel/chassis bits.
Does the JH have an accuracy guarantee? Will it work well it factory loads for 6.5 CM or would hand loading be required to get good accuracy out of it?
Does the JH have a 20MOA rail on it?
What is weight of the JH?
Having a wait to get the JH isn't a concern. I have my Tikka CTR to keep me busy for a bit.
Two things I like about the MPR are it's stated MOA guarantee and the CF barrel/chassis bits.
Does the JH have an accuracy guarantee? Will it work well it factory loads for 6.5 CM or would hand loading be required to get good accuracy out of it?
Does the JH have a 20MOA rail on it?
What is weight of the JH?
Having a wait to get the JH isn't a concern. I have my Tikka CTR to keep me busy for a bit.
I've owned some of Josh barrels, all of them shoot sub 1/2 MOA, I couldn't imagine a barrel from PVA that wouldn't be able to shoot sub MOA
I would be disappointed if I got a rifle from Josh and it only shot half MOA. I've never been disappointed.
I think it's and apples to oranges comparison. The MPR is a lightweight rifle made to be carried. While the Hancock doesn't look to be a heavy rifle, it won't be able to touch the MPR in weight.
That being said, I also like the MPR for its weight and looks. Still tempted to buy one, or build a Nucleus and put it into MPR chassis when they start selling them.
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As I mentioned in that other thread, It will be done by the time you can get the action. The design is done and it's out being made.
The John Hancock is a long term product offering designed to offer new shooters a truly competitive rifle. It's not meant to be a flash deal for a limited time nor is it a big industry product that has lipstick smeared on existing boat anchor products and some catchy marketing like "Competition Ready" slapped on the outside of the box.
The Hancock barrels shoot Hornady and PRIME ammo. The 6.5 Creed PRIME is particularly good in these. Knowing that these rifles are designed to be for folks getting into the sport there was a prerequisite that they must shoot factory match ammo. Sure, you can hand load and trickle charges and get super tight groups but if you're not a reloader then the factory ammo is still capable of match winning capability.
The rifles don't come with an MOA guarantee because there simply isn't space in the business model to take each rifle to the range, spend 30 rounds breaking it in and shooting a group wtih factory ammo and then going home. We aren't including a magazine with the rifle because the cost of the magazine would stop us from being able to lap the barrel twice.
If we were to provide a guarantee and a test target then we'd have to cut back to a lot of cheaper things and I'm not willing to cheapen up the rifle because of an accuracy guarantee. Chicken or egg.
Thanks, I appreciate the candid & open response. You, and your engagement here as well as your up-front approach does add more to the "pros' side of going with the JH.
On the cons side, though, for me as a newcomer, even with the great member feedback here, it is a hurdle to get past the absence of the guarantee. If its doesn't shoot well then I'd feel it was a $2k loss. Even if only a very small percentage like 1/1000 aren't tack drivers, I'd hate to be the person that ends up with one of those.
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