It would be nice to get some advance notice. What does this do to my 338 inventory?
Here is the literal answer: When demand outstrips production by a 4-6 month backlog, you shouldn't have inventory (for more than a few days). In this scenario, every incoming can should already have a customer assigned, ready and eager to Form 4 it as soon as you log it in.
I appreciate the innovation, but you have created a suppressor that for a dealer or a customer who just purchased a Gen 1 338 a bit of obsolescence or at least a drop in market value. You did this last year with Ultra 7 and 9.
Advance notice and price concessions would cushion the blow to customers and they could have make an educated choice. Buy now at a reduced price, or wait for better.
Any advance notice just pushes your problem earlier and causes more problems. Do we need to provide advance notice to the advance notice? Because as soon as we provide advance notice, everyone stops buying that model. The same issue would apply to concessions.. how many months early do we need to offer dealers cans at a discount (or retroactively if you will) before we release a new version? What about dealers who get cans through a distributor or other dealer, etc?
In the 2010-2020's especially, there were some suppressor companies that revised their cans almost every year. The result was that nobody who ever got a cleared Form 4 had a contemporary model-- sometimes it was two generations old at that point. We make it a point to make sure our upgrades are well thought out and "worth it", so the product can have a long run. The first gen Ultra had a run of 5 years, at the end of which it was still very competitive with other cans in its size/weight class.
We've thought long and hard, many times over, about this issue and the way we're doing it is what we've come up with as the cleanest way to do it.
We want to release an upgrade as soon as it is "ready." If it's not ready, we're not going to release it. We're not going to announce an upgrade "might be" coming until we're ready to roll, and then at that point it's time to announce it. We're not going to pre-announce stuff before its ready because if it needs more work, everyone will be pissed it's slipping.
TBAC just changed to a new model in December and gave no customer warning that a new 338 was in the works.
We're not going to pre-announce products that aren't ready to go, because a pre-announcement is really just an announcement, which then moves the problem back, and on top of that there's no product in sight because it was just a "warning."
You say that we "just changed to a new model in December" as if that's a bad thing, when actually it's a good thing. Starting production before the announcement of a new product is required to have product available, or at least in the pipeline, when the announcement happens.
Look at the friction, over the last 15 years, of Magpul product announcements vs. true availability dates. Then look at how Apple does them. No leaks, then WWDC, like a 10 day wait until orders can be submitted, and then BAM, UPS delivery at your front door 2 days later.
If anyone has some really thought through ideas how to manage this better in light of the NFA complications, we're all ears...
