MB:
People want another Vudoo to buy. Fair dinkum. I am no different. But now we have, or will have, a Vudoo 22LR Tactical, Bench Rest and Long Range. And Tactical 17HMR, 17HM2, 22WM. Six rifles if one wants one of each.
I ask myself it's OK to want another rifle if it has sufficiently different capabilities such as Tactical, Bench Rest and Long Range. So CF certainly qualifies because of muzzle velocity assuming bullet weights will be 40 grains or less. And the ability to reload so could have much more consistent ammunition. In terms of accuracy how small a group could a small caliber, handloaded CF round achieve at 400, 500 600 yd? 1 MOA, 0.5 MOA? How much does one want? Given those considerations, the Ruger 204 seems a worthy contender but how consistent is the available factory ammunition? Or 223 Rem for which I presume there is high consistency, high priced factory match ammunition.
Then, could you design a significantly better action? That is, have other designs overlooked some important factors? No fun designing a clone as you stated.
This year will be the Long Range for me, next the Bench Rest and be assured the CF if Vudoo makes one.
Rick
You guys never cease to amaze me and I really do appreciate it. With all the activity within what has been a pretty incredible design cycle at Vudoo, the ownership pauses about once a week and discusses the next things. Lately, I commonly pull up a design outline I originally created on May 26, 2013, it was broken down into two categories, rimfire and centerfire. Originally, my rimfire was going to be the newly introduced Remington 40X, but their internal corporate disasters, bankruptcies, etc., sent me down another path. So, after a bit of adjustment, the first part of what is the V-22 line was accomplished in 2017 after wrapping Vudoo around the designs in late 2016. The more recent design cycle took the rimfire part of that 2013 outline even further so we won’t be done with rimfire anytime soon, I mean, we have to give others plenty to copy, right?
So, no different than getting busy in SolidWorks to create the rimfire, there has been a parallel effort for the centerfire, but the centerfire action world has been a dust cloud of activity for quite a while. Everyone is doing a clone of some sort and while there are some awesome actions out there, they're all doing the same thing. For this reason, the centerfire for me has been a moving target because when we do one, it’ll be DEFTI, something for everyone else to chase like they’re chasing our rimfire. Just a quick side note....For a number of years a lot of people told me I was crazy. They said no one wanted a $XXXX rimfire. The common “corporate” question was, “what’s the market”? My common response was, “who gives a sh*t”? ”I’ll create the market.” Funny thing is, the most recent of the manufacturers to enter the market had an opportunity with my designs before Vudoo existed, and we see how things have now changed....right?
So, back to centerfire; what I have in SolidWorks is really starting to take shape. I’m tempted to give a few details, but I have to hold back for a little while longer. What I will say is, it’s likely not going to have any clone DNA (this may evolve a little), that’s been done to death; so much so that if I were to buy an action right now to build a CF on I’d just stick with my Accuracy International.
Now, last thing, because timing is everything, as it was with the V-22, I have no timeline on the CF at the moment. This is where it’s important for us to pay attention, listen to what the community is saying and recognize the opportunities that lead the way to doing really cool stuff that solves the right problems. BTW, I was paying attention to a small group in Colorado now known as the 40X Mafia and look how far paying attention can get you.
I’ve said all this to let you guys know, we’re always listening to you, not watching what other companies have done and then claim that whatever we’ve copied is our own idea. The rest of the industry can choose to work that way if they want, but that’s not how we do it.
Thanks again Rick and all who continue to challenge us, it’s pretty awesome....
MB