Again, those 400 CZ58's were at the end of the CZ production run at a time when a shaddow hung over the 858's FRT status. There was a panic rush on well-priced rifles of a pattern that had been in Canada and widely used & understood for over 10 years. It's apples and oranges.
You can sell a lot of a scarce item that has been around and is well regarded. You can't count on an unknown qty selling as well - it would be bad business to expect that.
Once the first 1000 rifles are out and around and people have a chance to see them, use them at ranges, etc. then folks will make their minds up as to what htey are worth and whether it's worth having one or not. To hear it on CGN, you'd think these were the NEA or early gremlin VZ58 of the chinese firearms lineup. I don't share that view, and my example exceeded my expectations.
I've seen a total of 3 rifles in photos that I would consider unacceptably misaligned and one rifle with grind maks on the bolt underside that would not have affected function. It it were my bolt, I'd have probably just smoother out the marks with paper, cycled some dummy rounds to prove function, and gone shooting - but maybe I'm less picky than some folks. TI has already promised parts kits with replacement bolts anyhow, so at some point we will get spare parts (fingers crossed). The same thing happened with the VZ58S guns marstar brought in in 2005/2006. Some guns had gremlin issues and it was a couple years before we saw any spare parts. Now those guns are almost legendary in theVZ lineup.
The real test will be when the next batch arrives and people actually see them on store shelves (i.e. not just in internet pre-order pages). We'll know soon enough if they will be popular or not.
