Why does it have to be an either-or situation?
For a place our size, doing production, yeah it kinda does. The Hancock has a somewhat short list of calibers to keep on the shelf. Right now we are making them to order but the goal is to have parts on the shelf, barrels ready to screw on and assemble. Having 2 calibers that are very near the same performance makes for a bunch of cost that sits on the shelf. Especially considering we sold less than 2% of the currently pre-ordered hancocks on 1 of those calibers.
If the 2 Dashers are any clue I am hesitant to say we're going to see a big jump in rifles sold from adding the PRC alone. The Dashers combined sold fewer than the 6mm BR did and all 3 of those sold less than the 6 Creed; everything combined was less than what the 6.5 Creed did alone. So there's a clear winner there.
I was really hoping to see that someone would bring factory Dasher to the party, which is why we were doing both flavors of Dasher brass. I'd had some conversations with an ammo company that was looking to use the Norma brass to make factory Dasher for about $28/box retail but when the brass supplied dried up with Bullets.com closing that was the end of that idea.
I fail to see any cost other than swapping out the reamers and lathe profiles (about a 2-5 minute job) and creating a new laser engraver profile to mark the caliber on the barrel. They already have the ability to ream 6.5 PRC barrels. I could be wrong, but that seems to me like a pretty minimal cost if it sells you additional rifles.
I'd love to have someone come over and swap reamers on a turning center in 2-3 minutes without having a major risk of at least 2 problems
First time the reamer enters the bore it misses and explodes ($350 reamer toast, barrel rework needed, plus down time on the caliber to get another)
Second the headspace is way off and blows the hole too deep... more barrel rework needed.
Switching a reamer, dialing it in on the holder to get a true chamber, and making sure the headspace isn't blown on teh first cycle is about a 30 minute job.
We do offer the 6.5 PRC already, it goes in the Nucleus barreled action or anything else that's not the Hancock. But to make the Hancock profitable in any way we have to be very careful about the amount of configuration changes and options are there. There isn't much meat on the bone to begin with, adding cook time without adding meat to the pot isn't a recipe for more food.
I guess here's the final question posed directly:
If we add the 6.5 PRC to the lineup right now, who's ready to put a deposit on one of the rifles in response to it?
