PVA Status Updates: Hancock Rifle & NUCLEUS Barreled Action

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Why do you insist on pulling random numbers out of wherever you are pulling them from?

I merely come here for the entertainment lol. We all know that having a rifle built is dependent on parts and usually when something new is introduced there are almost always delays. It sucks but it's part of it. I'm sure that ARC and PVA are doing everything they can to get the product to the customers as soon as possible. They want the product out to you guys just as bad because that's how they make their money. Not to mention, they want to keep everyone happy.
 
While the news of the email is good, I have chosen to temper my excitement. It's still single source/unverified info at this point. There are a boat load of us that ordered within 24 hours of the opening that haven't been emailed. There may have been an issue with that individual's order.... who knows?

I'm the guy that got the email. Until I see it in my hands, and others getting the email, believe me, I am being honest and limited about my expectations... especially if I am the only dude who got an email.

And, it is kinda fun to stir the pot a little bit. But, don't take that as a sign I made it up, LOL.

I'll be back with updates. I know why I kept coming back to this thread!
 
How's your 223 barrel shoot? I'm at 19+ weeks and waiting for my PVA 223 prefit barrel after being told they'd be done with it last week, and then this week, now told next week...:cry:

My 223 is a Criterion and it shoots in the .4's.

The PVA I got is 6.5x47L but I haven't been able to shoot it yet. It's installed on my action just waiting for my McMillan to get back from CDI. I would have it all together by now but I waited like a dummy to send it to him and he had a back log as well.

Hang in there man, it should be worth it.
 
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Thanks for the reply...for some reason I thought your prefit was a 223.

I certainly understand 'stuff happens' and nothing is ever ready when we want it (yesterday)...but I said upthread, I can be an impatient bastard and its tough having missed the entire spring shooting season.

PPPPPP on my part...
 
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How's your 223 barrel shoot? I'm at 19+ weeks and waiting for my PVA 223 prefit barrel after being told they'd be done with it last week, and then this week, now told next week...:cry:

Im at 18+ weeks for my 223.
I wish I hadnt said "I dont mind the additional lead time" though I was under the assumption that it would be a few weeks as opposed to months because it seemed others on the forum were getting their stuff in a week or two tops when I ordered.
Then I got excited when a bunch of 223 tubes were getting cut a couple weeks ago about the same time that the guy cancelled his order and got bitched out on here. Turns out were building new tripods now and not barrels. Oh well... the wait continues.
 
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Yea, I really don't want to be "that guy", an impatient bitch customer whining about wait times that constantly needs progress updates and takes employees away from making chips.

Like most impatient bastards, I want my stuff yesterday but 100% understand quality can't be rushed and I'm totally willing to wait for a top-notch product. I also know PVA has their hands full with a couple dozen different balls in the air.

It is just a wee bit frustrating to be told one thing and not have it come to fruition, then have that cycle repeat a couple more times. Had I known it'd take THIS long for a prefit barrel, I'd likely have gone a different route.

Its almost worse than waiting for a stamp...oh well...
 
From my perspective, this whole delay was a careful plan to support the firearms industry. (Totally joking about in case anyone is wont to take it otherwise)

But seriously, I'm starting a slow build on a .224 Valkyrie due to the delay. And I mean, it is a slow build. Even so, I believe I may finish this first.

I'm truly not in a hurry as I am lucky enough to have a rifle or so to keep me shooting in the meantime.
 
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Yea, I really don't want to be "that guy", an impatient bitch customer whining about wait times that constantly needs progress updates and takes employees away from making chips.

Like most impatient bastards, I want my stuff yesterday but 100% understand quality can't be rushed and I'm totally willing to wait for a top-notch product. I also know PVA has their hands full with a couple dozen different balls in the air.

It is just a wee bit frustrating to be told one thing and not have it come to fruition, then have that cycle repeat a couple more times. Had I known it'd take THIS long for a prefit barrel, I'd likely have gone a different route.

Its almost worse than waiting for a stamp...oh well...
Sounds to me like you’ve become, “that guy”!
 
The ARC mag has an internal length of 2.96-ish as I recall.
The Nucleus prototype that's in my hands, currently built into a production-intent JHR, it feeds 2.95" COAL 308's without a problem.



Before there is a flurry of speculation here is what "production intent" means


Production Intent is a prototype that is made on

Production Tooling/Workholding/Machinery
Production raw materials (barrel blanks, triggers, stocks, etc)
Production Artwork
Production Packaging
etc

It is, for all intents, a production component but it isn't being sold. It's a T&E for internal review.

We have a Production Intent JHR.

Production barrel blank - check
Production barrel cutting process - check
Production Contour/Chambering/Threading/etc - check
Production stock - check
Production trigger - check
Production Brake - check
Production engraving - check

Production Action - No, we have a pre-production prototype.

We have exactly 1 prototype.
There are exactly 3 prototypes in existence
We have 1
SAC has 1
ARC has 1

That's it.

People have seen them, handled them at SHOT, and some folks have gotten to shoot them when they happen to bump into myself, Ted, or Mark Gordon when one of us happened to be doing test work.


The JHR that I'm taking to the ELR match in 10 days is the production intent gun.
It's a production barrel, trigger, stock, scope, rings, brake, etc. EVERYTHING except the action is a production part and if someone needed it I could take it all apart and hand them everything except the action. It would screw together into a JHR.

But... because of the Marking Variance not being approved yet we do not have clearance by the ATF to allow ARC to laser the JHR logos and markings on the receiver bodies. They're done, sitting at ARC's shop awaiting laser, then nitride, then they come to PVA. Until we get through the milestone of the the marking variance being approved then the PVA work route is to keep knocking out barrels and writing the details with a sharpie.

Once we have a production action in place we will do final fit for clocking and start burning the laser work on the barrels.

The entire world will know when the marking variance comes through, trust me, it will be in the news. Until then, there's no such thing as an estimated date on when the paperwork will come back.
Bohem, How did the JHR (Nucleus) run at the NF ELR match. I had some friends of mine shoot in it and they had heard that it had some extraction issues or something to that effect. what was your experience?
 
Bohem, How did the JHR (Nucleus) run at the NF ELR match. I had some friends of mine shoot in it and they had heard that it had some extraction issues or something to that effect. what was your experience?

Josh didn't have any extraction issues at all. He had a failure to fire due to a faulty firing pin spring that was in his prototype. The production actions have the new spring in them already. Josh replaced the faulty prototype spring and had 0 further issues. It wasn't ejecting loaded rounds bc he was using ammo loaded to 3.331 COAL which is around .4" longer than an AW mag. There will be no issues with extraction in the least.
 
Bohem, How did the JHR (Nucleus) run at the NF ELR match. I had some friends of mine shoot in it and they had heard that it had some extraction issues or something to that effect. what was your experience?


The prototype action (we are still running SN# EXP-00002) had fail to fire issues from a mainspring that is bad. It was a known problem on the prototypes that were hurried together for SHOT, but since I didn't have a production action due to the delay on our Marking Variance I took the prototype to the match and the 1-off spring in it gave up the ghost.

That spawns a series of other issues.

I was using Flatlines loaded way too long for the port (3.3+" long) so they won't eject a loaded round at that length. In a push-feed, spring ejector action you can pull the bolt to pull a long round. In a mechanical ejector action you can't do that because the bolt stroke actuates the ejector. So you have to snap the case head out of the extractor and push it down through the magwell.

The extractor on the Nucleus is no joke, it's a 2 stage CRF that grabs TIGHT. So, in match conditions the fastest way for me to snap the unfired cartridge out of the action and load a new one was to use my pocketknife as a screwdriver and snap it down. It can be done with fingers but it's faster with a tool of some sort.

The Hancock configuration was solid though. There were no extractor issues whatsoever and the ejection was perfect with a fired case. The only issue came from unfired stuff as described above.

In terms of accuracy the rifle is "hole in hole" at short ranges and I was making regular hits on a 12" square at 1717yd on Friday. That's appx 0.6moa target at nearly a mile with a 308 in winds that were sustained above 18mph.

During the ELR WR Attempt and the match I had repeated hits past 1500 as well as dead center hits at 1800 and 2096yd.
 
What's the story behind the 19 weeks lead time
We ran out of 22 cal blanks that had the right twist rate and contour for what those customers ordered.

As I've said in other threads, perhaps this one as well, we started contouring in house about 6 weeks ago because our suppliers were having a hard time keeping up with all the contours and delivery schedule. Once we went to contouring in house it allowed us to catch up a lot on those orders.


For the Nucleus Group Buy barrels we've been waiting a clocking artifact for marking the barrels. I have them cut, lined up and waiting for laser work. As soon as the artifact gets here from ARC we can laser and ship those barrels out to the customers.
 
This thread always delivers!!! 19 weeks on a barrel is absolutely unacceptable by anyones standards.
What's the story behind the 19 weeks lead time

I was a bit perturbed by the lead time but to be completely fair, I signed on for it. So I have no leg to stand on getting salty. It was never mentioned that it was going to be a short wait. Just hoped it would.

Last Friday I sent an email asking when I could expect to see it and got a prompt reply that

"It's just waiting on lasering and I don't know how to run the new laser yet. It will go out early next week when Josh gets back from an ELR match.

We had issues with getting in 22 cal blanks until a couple of weeks ago and had a huge batch to run because everyone wants 223 trainers this year. I went ahead and refunded $50 since you, and a few others with 223 orders, had to wait a little while longer than planned. Again sorry for the delay. Have a great weekend!

Thanks,
Jeremy"


So they are aware and trying to make it right as fast as they can Im sure. I havent gotten the credit back to my account but honestly if it ships this week I couldn't care less about the 50 bucks. If it performs like the others results on the forum indicate it should Ill be tickled pink.

If it were on the shelf waiting to ship I guess it would no longer be custom, you know?
 
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Mammoth, welcome to SH. There's a lot to be learned here, there's also a ton of hype and misinformation/blind leading the blind here too, as the precision shooting market explodes.

That was a sarcastic post, your right.

Anyone that has shot ELR realizes the accomplishments posted aren't easy feats, and take time/dedication to make happen.

Anyone that's been waiting 5 months for a .223 barrel is likely disappointed to read on efforts other than products/services they've been waiting on.

At least the commo is there for guys waiting.
 
I was a bit perturbed by the lead time but to be completely fair, I signed on for it. So I have no leg to stand on getting salty. It was never mentioned that it was going to be a short wait. Just hoped it would.

Last Friday I sent an email asking when I could expect to see it and got a prompt reply that

"It's just waiting on lasering and I don't know how to run the new laser yet. It will go out early next week when Josh gets back from an ELR match.

We had issues with getting in 22 cal blanks until a couple of weeks ago and had a huge batch to run because everyone wants 223 trainers this year. I went ahead and refunded $50 since you, and a few others with 223 orders, had to wait a little while longer than planned. Again sorry for the delay. Have a great weekend!

Thanks,
Jeremy"


So they are aware and trying to make it right as fast as they can Im sure. I havent gotten the credit back to my account but honestly if it ships this week I could care less about the 50 bucks. If it performs like the others results on the forum indicate it should Ill be tickled pink.

If it were on the shelf waiting to ship I guess it would no longer be custom, you know?

How much less could you care? ;)

sorry, just a pet peeve
 
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Not trying to clog up this thread or throw it off track (as if it is still on track lol), but I am just curious about PVA's new endeavor with tripods... Is PVA making these in-house? Perhaps out sourcing the carbon fiber legs and other components? Seems like a real branch out from making custom rifles, and now production rifles; I can only imagine how busy they must be.
 
I don’t think anyone is mad about the tripod. The timing doesn’t seem great when people are waiting 20+ weeks for barrels, I think that’s the main issue.
That was explained and understandable. It sucks yeah but we're 2 months plus behind on actions and its whatever at this point they'll come when they come.

If companies were waiting until they were caught up on all orders we would never see innovation (Manners)

There's only so much PVA can do on their machines while they wait for a timing artifact. For all we know this was in the works before SHOT and they waited and waited to announce
 
Agreed. Things like that take a considerable amount of time.

I think I would have waited until after the nucleus barrels and any other outstanding long lead work was completed before I took more preorders for another entirely new product. But, that’s just me and I’m sure I don’t know the entire situation no one does but them.
 
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Mammoth, welcome to SH. There's a lot to be learned here, there's also a ton of hype and misinformation/blind leading the blind here too, as the precision shooting market explodes.

That was a sarcastic post, your right.

Anyone that has shot ELR realizes the accomplishments posted aren't easy feats, and take time/dedication to make happen.

Anyone that's been waiting 5 months for a .223 barrel is likely disappointed to read on efforts other than products/services they've been waiting on.

At least the commo is there for guys waiting.
Yeah you’re right. While he’s waiting for actions/artifacts etc to show up he should chain himself to the heat register and water fast so you’re satisfied.

I know my rifle is late, he’s been honest as to why. I was happy to see his results and I’ve been waiting since day one for the rifle.

Crush up a Xanax, snort it, watch Scooby-Doo and get some sleep, fella.
 
Yeah you’re right. While he’s waiting for actions/artifacts etc to show up he should chain himself to the heat register and water fast so you’re satisfied.

I know my rifle is late, he’s been honest as to why. I was happy to see his results and I’ve been waiting since day one for the rifle.

Crush up a Xanax, snort it, watch Scooby-Doo and get some sleep, fella.
You clearly don't understand how preorders work. They're supposed to only work on then and nothing else to build your (fairly new) business
 
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Not trying to clog up this thread or throw it off track (as if it is still on track lol), but I am just curious about PVA's new endeavor with tripods... Is PVA making these in-house? Perhaps out sourcing the carbon fiber legs and other components? Seems like a real branch out from making custom rifles, and now production rifles; I can only imagine how busy they must be.

Don't mean to derail this thread, but where is more info on their tripods?
 
Not trying to clog up this thread or throw it off track (as if it is still on track lol), but I am just curious about PVA's new endeavor with tripods... Is PVA making these in-house? Perhaps out sourcing the carbon fiber legs and other components? Seems like a real branch out from making custom rifles, and now production rifles; I can only imagine how busy they must be.

I asked about where the tripods are made on Facebook but didn't get an response. Ordered one anyway because the price is good and I trust in PVA making good stuff, still would like to know though, if it something they are willing to share.
 
That was explained and understandable. It sucks yeah but we're 2 months plus behind on actions and its whatever at this point they'll come when they come.

If companies were waiting until they were caught up on all orders we would never see innovation (Manners)

There's only so much PVA can do on their machines while they wait for a timing artifact. For all we know this was in the works before SHOT and they waited and waited to announce

We don't make the actions in house.
Never said we did, never alluded to anything of the sort.
We don't make barrel blanks in house.
Never said we did, never alluded to anything of the sort.

Machines sitting on the floor have a burn rate.
If the blank that someone custom orders isn't available because the blank manufacturer is behind we don't shut down and sweep the floor while we wait for a blank to come in.
It seems like some people think that's what we should be doing because the 223 barrel blanks that were ordered in a faster-than-stocked twist rate took longer to get.

As someone said above, it it was on the shelf it's not custom. That's the JHR, you don't get choices other than what is laid out.
We've covered the delays on the actions several times.
We brought more work/capability/people in house than we originally bargained for to make up for supplier shortcomings. Just like ARC did with their new lathe and hiring personnel.

I have been pretty open about the problems that came up from the endeavors involved in bringing new products to market.


The Hancock is revolutionary in the level of performance purchased for 2 grand. I am confident in this because of the bellyaching that came from our competitors saying how this was an unfair approach to the class, people trying to pull backroom deals and pay off governing bodies to write rules against our product.

There's a lot of work that went on to get the Hancock announced and ARC was an instrumental partner in the project. So was Rock Creek barrels. Without the cooperation and support of those 2 companies there wouldn't be a production rifle that shows the performance that the Hancock did last weekend. I felt a little guilty about going to a match that kept me out of the shop for 3 days but it's literally the only travel match I've attended last year and this year. It provides a unique experience to really test performance and we also made a commitment back in January to attend and sponsor the event.

There is an adage about product/services cost:

Right
Fast
Cheap

You get to pick 2.

If the Nucleus was on time and on price point there would have been pieces of it that was fucked up. Ted's not willing to send out fucked up and he guaranteed a price. If something goes wrong it needs to be fixed.

Same with the Hancocks and the barrels we are selling.

If a 7.5 twist is ordered and we use an 8 twist because that's what I had available to make schedule then you got cost and delivery (Cheap/Fast) but you didn't get what you ordered. Is that acceptable? Maybe to some but not to us.



The Tripod is something that started last year as well, we're finally getting the production samples in from the contractor making the parts. I'm not going to discuss who/where things are being made. If you don't want it then don't buy it. There is a plethora of options that are heavier, less stable, and far more expensive out there. There will always be a market at the top end and people will fight for the bottom end in price. We're trying to maximize the value proposition to the customer across the board.

The button rifled barrels we're selling demonstrate that.
The Hancock is a demonstration of that.
We have a tripod that we're trying to get off the ground that is another example of that.

Face it folks, the guys who can afford to roll to a match with 15-18 grand of equipment for their weekend hobby are few compared to the rest of us that like to shoot. I'm trying to get the stuff out to the rest of the shooting community without sacrificing performance. We aren't competiting with Remington or Savage. We're defining a middle space where a lot more folks can afford to participate and do so with equipment that doesn't suck.





I don’t know the entire situation no one does but them.
You hit the nail on the head. Making decisions with half the information is what the media does.
 
Well, I'm super excited for my JH whenever its ready. Im not sure why all the negativity in this thread. I seriously doubt any one of us "need" our product so bad its worth crapping on a manufacturer as much as Ive seen here.

Relax aready.

Agree DRB.
Heck, I'm just glad my wife didn't kill me when I told her how much it cost. :D
 
Face it folks, the guys who can afford to roll to a match with 15-18 grand of equipment for their weekend hobby are few compared to the rest of us that like to shoot. I'm trying to get the stuff out to the rest of the shooting community without sacrificing performance. We aren't competiting with Remington or Savage. We're defining a middle space where a lot more folks can afford to participate and do so with equipment that doesn't suck.

Hell yes.


Guys, instigating things like this where a few people are badgering and constantly putting company reps on blast, subtle or otherwise, is how we lose and have lost them participating with us.
 
Got my barrel together finally. Had some feeding issues with the new bottom metal that I had to sort out so I haven’t shot it yet. I really like the new barrel nut from PVA.

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