I am assuming that like myself, many of the posters and readers of this board are on the waiting list for a Montana Rifleman M1999 Professional Hunter action. When I first signed up for one last spring, I was told that they were targeting fall of 2005. Now, the MRC website says December 2006. My hunch is that this new revised production date is still based on a 400 minimum, and that December 2006 is overly optimistic. This means that unless we, as consumers, do something, most likely this is never going to get off the ground because people are going to get sick and tired of waiting, and before too much longer as many people (or more) will be opting off the list as will be signing up.

So, here is my proposed solution. The 400 minimum is their "break-even" point; we can't expect them to start producing before then or they would just lose money. 400 units times $525/unit = $210,000. According to the Montana Rifleman website, they have 263 right hand PH actions ordered. That means if we would each up the ante and agree to pay $800, the minimum revenue to break even ($210,000) would be met (of course, we should expect them to take less than $800 because the production costs of 263 are less than the costs of making 400).

Would you guys rather have the action now (or at least in the not too distant future) for ~$750-800, or hold out at $525 and pray that they will somehow scrounge up 400 orders, even though it may take a long time and/or never happen? I for one, would rather pay more now. What I'm thinking is that if we can generate enough interest on this forum, maybe it would be worth contacting MRC and getting them to get in contact with all the people on the waiting list and try to get this thing moving now, albeit at a slightly higher price.

There is a bunch of us here who would have easily built up the orders if they would have scaled up the action on all measurements and scale. We asked them to, but nothing so far.
They made bolt bigger than M70 or mauser, and yet made barrel threads smaller than Mauser.
Made outside of action bigger than Mauser
or Ruger but yet made threads smaller than
Mauser. There are a few intermediate size cases
a bunch of us need actions for, but don't want
to go huge with a 50cal McBros Action.And we
would pay a little more for them also.Ed.

thanks for the offer... I am not interested for 800 bucks..

I talked them them before the shot show, and they really thought the numbers would go up a month or so afterwards


if it happens, great.. .if not, well, I am not out anything.. like they screwed the first "charter" batch

jeffe

I wonder if part of the lack of response to your concerns is that MRC still feels like they are far away from the 400 target, and feel no real pressure to get their act together with respect to your concerns. Do you think that putting some pressure on them now, i.e. "we will pay $750, produce now" would get them to give us more specific measuements that make a little bit more sense?

Ed, that has to make you wonder, cause they need the pre orders to get the money for tooling, which in layman's terms means, we do not have the tooling yet, pay for it please, and we will foot the bill for material. Right? So, you might think that they would be more receptive if somebody said hey, we will guarantee a mass order to get the tooling going, as long as you change a few things. Am I missing something there?

I am not trying to bash MRC in any way, I had contemplated placing an order for the PH last year, but I did not want to wait. I was just asking those questions as an observation, nothing more. Hell, to be honest with you, would MRC really change things if 400 people were to jump on the wagon tomorrow only as long as they changed a few things? Compared to how many they would sell as soon as they actually get production going?

gixxer- first let me say it is good action-but
making bolt larger, without threads
larger, etc, and setting it up to
do cartridges that their next model down,
a Ruger, a CZ, Savage would handle doesn't
make sense to me, and it sure don't
help us that need intermediate size for our
projects.Jeffe, me and others want something
for my short 700HE version, bigger NE cases,
etc. Geez I took a Savage shotgun and got
more power than a Trex, even though I
had to use moderate pressures.I hope they
get as innovative as I, IE get out of the
box a little.Ed

I had 4 PH's ordered a few months ago. When the specifications got filled in and I realized it did little to add to what is available elsewhere I cancelled the order. Several of us called and emailed them to try to sell more actions and to get them to fill the void for a true large PH size action. They have as yet declined.

Once it was apparent that the PH action they are bringing out does nothing a CZ will do, in fact less (as Ed has stated) and they are readily available now I saw no reason to stay in.

Also, consider the problems of the first batches produced with the "Charter issue" method and the finish that, from all reports, was spotty, it made more sense to use the traditional routes for PH size action (CZ, GMA, WF, etc).

I do wish them well but I simply don't see an application for this action and expect that there will not be any substantial bounce from the shows. I do hope I'm wrong.

Well, you can always get a CZ cleaned up, the price might be more or less what you would pay for the PH and smith work, but you could have it now, and you know what you are getting quality wise. If you really want the M70 safety, AHR can do it too on the CZ.

Ed, do you feel the same way about their long action too?