Yes, they are extremely classy and build great products, NOT vaporware.
Maccabee Defense SLR information and updates
- Thread starter jiffx2781
- Start date
Yes, they are extremely classy and build great products, NOT vaporware.
^^^^this^^^^
MDI and any other company has zero obligation to tell you sh*t. You haven't paid for a product(if you paid in full you're a fool and need to take that up with the vendor not MDI) and MDI made no promises on delivery.
For starters there are over a dozen assembled and functioning MDI rifles in existence, I've shot 3 and handled a couple others. Their decision to not answer the questions from the public is not relevant to their ability to produce products. If you're unsatisfied with their communication efforts then get your refund and be on your way.
IN the red
They haven't strung anyone along, they never gave a definite date. Being told it will be ready in 4 months, or being told every two weeks that it will be just another two weeks. Does it change the final delivery date?? No. Stop getting your knickers in a knot, expect delays and celebrate when you have it in hand.
You would likely lose that bet. Having shot and handled some ATRS AR15 receivers/rifles I was far from impressed. More than one had continuous problems functioning. Same story for the MV/MH rifles. Maybe things have changed I don't know, but I'm not about to gamble on it. MDI SLR's exist and can be shot at CSC. They work...
MDi SLR's are not vaporware, around a dozen complete rifles exist. ATRS has submitted a receiver set for FRt approval. I have yet to see a video of a complete rifle using their wares.
I would hazard to say that most of us didn't get on a "pre sale" but simply placed a deposit to hold a spot in line..
Same issue
Guys get annoyed with the wait, others cut them down for whining tell them to drop out.
Then when product arrives a day late and a dollar short people say how great it is and are somehow thankful and forget about how annoyed they were and sign up for the next round of punishment.
I will get one once I can actually put hands on the product at my local retailer to see what it is first.
Doesn't matter if it is a deposit or paid in full, the longer they take to deliver, the longer someone else is making interest on my money
rifleman762
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Southern Alberta
Y'all know what needs to happen? Manufacturers need to start following Wolverine's example and offer for sale Canadian made rifles before the FRT has been issued, even for AR15-style rifles. I bet that will speed up the RCMP lab's turnaround time! If they come out and claim an already released rifle is restricted...we have a big clusterf*** on our hands and then maybe, just maybe, we have a chance at revamping the classification procedure. On second thought, wait until the Conservatives are back in power 
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.Well in the last three to four years I can't recall a single pre-order for a firearm that delivered when originally estimated. Yes estimated and I know that it not a hard date but an educated guess. The problem is that guys get all excited and throw money at the manufacturer then wait and wait and wait then it shows up and most are let down and all of a sudden the EE has lots of them.
I don't have it all figured out but if I was in the business of manufacturing anything I would do my best to give an accurate estimated delivery date and if chit happened and I couldn't make that date I would be open and honest about it with a realistic time I needed to complete the job. I my line of work when people don't deliver on schedule or on budget they are soon unemployed.
If MDI or any other company has no obligation to tell it's customers sh*t then they should have kept their mouths shut until they were almost ready to release their product to the market. Get guys all excited and take deposits then just string them along for months. Not very good business practice and not a good way to earn the trust of the market. When you (hypothetically) send your receiver back for warranty because it is out of spec and they tell you that you'll have a replacement in two weeks then three months later you're still waiting and they don't reply to your calls or emails are you still going to stand behind them?
A lot of the problems with the ATRS products have very little to do with the product and a lot to do with the owners. If you had heard some of the stories I've heard from Rick about some of the rifles people have brought in crying about it not functioning and what he found with them you'd just shake your head in disbelief. When guys with no experience with AR style rifles buy one and try to swap in parts that are not compatible, or that they don't know how to install, or don't follow the manufacturers directions on care, lubrication, and ammo selection is it the product or the owner that is the problem? Buy a Corvette and fill it with diesel and see how it runs, that's not far off of some of the stuff that's come back for repair.
My Modern hunter is 100% reliable with my handloads but doesn't like Hornady Superformance 129gr loaded with the same projectiles. I haven't compared measurements of my loads to the factory stuff but for whatever reason it doesn't cycle them well.
That can be said of many many semi auto's, you can't just expect it to cycle anything you feed it, they are designed for ammunition of a certain specification, you definitely sound experienced enough to know what I'm talking about and I'm sure you've owned a rifle or two that just didn't like a certain type of ammo.
Regardless, I'm not on the list for one of these and I'm not signing onto a list for any other products either, I'll wait until I can hold one in my hands at a retailer and decide then, my bet is that I'll be buying the ATRS product simply because I know their work, I know their service, and I am very happy with the rifle I have from them. I've never seen anything from MDI and I'm not bashing their product, only stating the obvious which is echoed over and over in this thread by others, that I don't like that they seem to be stringing their potential customers along. Just give a realistic estimated delivery date and I think most people will relax and wait for more info.
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Finally you are cluing in to what the majority of us already knew when we put a $100 deposit down on these receivers. Or do a pre order on anything, really.
A handful of people like yourself feel the need to whine about what most of us already knew was going to happen. Anyone that has the slightest clue understood that MDI's ETAs were just guesses. They are small and never done anything like this before, so how the hell would they be able to accurately anticipate a timeline? Answer- they can't, but people are always demanding "updates and communications" like MDI is their personal contractor building them a house.
You can wail about the injustice of it all, or you can just use some common sense right from the start, understand that this will take a long time and just sit back and enjoy life until the products are ready when they are ready.
Actually, most of us don't need you to help us decide how to spend our money or how excited we should get.
Cr5 and gatehouse know what's up.
I had a modern hunter and it was the most accurate semi auto firearm I've ever owned with the original match barrel it had. I switched it to a lower quality barrel "insert gasp here" to run surplus reliably. They are a higher quality than the BCL-102 for sure, but the BCL was a good rifle if you had your expectations in the right place. Mine ran very well, and I never had one problem with reliability.
Pre orders have never been filled within 6mo for any firearm I can think of. It's a waiting game.
I am sure the mcabee and the atrs rifles will both be good. I know atrs knows what they are doing with manufacturing, and mcabee is not rushing things through to make sure they put out a quality product (as they should).
I look forward to seeing some of you with your rifles at the range when you get em!
I had a modern hunter and it was the most accurate semi auto firearm I've ever owned with the original match barrel it had. I switched it to a lower quality barrel "insert gasp here" to run surplus reliably. They are a higher quality than the BCL-102 for sure, but the BCL was a good rifle if you had your expectations in the right place. Mine ran very well, and I never had one problem with reliability.
Pre orders have never been filled within 6mo for any firearm I can think of. It's a waiting game.
I am sure the mcabee and the atrs rifles will both be good. I know atrs knows what they are doing with manufacturing, and mcabee is not rushing things through to make sure they put out a quality product (as they should).
I look forward to seeing some of you with your rifles at the range when you get em!
I primarily comment in this thread not as a gun owner, but as a machinists and small business manufacturer. The realities of bringing a product to market are lost on so many and it gets incredibly frustrating reading these totally uninformed comments. Everyone thinks you just buy a CNC machine and it spits out parts. When you add in the over the top self entitled attitudes of gun owners, it's absolutely infuriating. You have a guy trying to bring an new, exciting product to market and this thread is 95% just people pooping all over it.
- Location
- calgary alberta
I am not missing the concept at all I think you are. I am well aware of quick change jaws, but when a company such as mine is running hundreds of the exact same part in a production run, where is the advantage? As you state you still need to machine the jaws to fit the pieces you are machining, so the quick change plan is moot. AND you still have to waste spindle and shop time to machine the quick change soft jaws as you know, so the time saving is strictly in the changing of the jaws, which one does not do in a production run. I could see the advantage of them if you were making a few of this part and that part but for any sort of serious production there is NO advantage at all.
- Location
- calgary alberta
Why?? Because I ask a question that could benefit a competitor?
In no way was I disparaging Mac Def, I am just at a loss as to why they obviously elected to purchase fixturing that is expensive and not necessarily the most efficient for the job they are doing. When you are running large productions runs as they seem to be trying to do, quick change fixtures are of no benefit. I know, we tried some.
Making dedicated fixtures does take time but pays of in spades in the long run. Unfortunately there are machine tool and even machine dealers that will sell you stuff that is not applicable to the job to be done. Last year we had a machine salesman quote us a "great deal" on a wire EDM machine. It looked great until I saw that it had only a 8.5" maximum Z travel when we expressed that we need 14".
Not always is new fangled the best, sometimes doing things the old and proven way is more productive.
- Location
- calgary alberta
Dealing with government road blocks and hassle is part of the industry. I have over 40 years of experience dealing with the various levels of government so frustration was lost many years ago. In no way was my question intended in any way to be dig at Mac Def, and I apologize if it came off that way. The question was simply from many years of very high quality production machinework, why they are not making their own soft jaws. They obviously have the know how and machines to do so. This has since been answered.
If you actually wanted to benefit a competitor you could have sent them an email or called them, not post here where they may never even see it.
Yeah you were. Saying this:
Is an attempt to portray them as unqualified.
Post whatever you want, but at least be honest about it.
I agree, in your shop with long runs of the same parts, quick change won't be much advantage. For many other shops, the time savings are huge and a great way to maximize spindle time. I love the convenience of not having to dial my jaw locations in. I can just dropped them in the vise and go. Don't even have to change my work coordinates because I use a common location set off the vise body.
Buying pre-made blanks is also far more cost effective for many shops, especially those with limited spindles and time being critical. The time spend actually cutting the profiles in the jaws is minimal since its usually just a quick progam that requires no additional set up.
The orange vise can use standard Kurt Pattern Jaws/Soft Jaws too, which are way easier to source/fabricate. They call it the Standard Bolt on Jaw Interface. The dual system has been used since they introduced the Carvesmart feature years ago as a improvement.
Unless they bought the vise that only takes carvesmart, as that is a option, but not by default.
To ATR: Personally, If they had these when I tooled up I would of went with the Orange despite the cost, way superior to the Kurt. Way better repeatability and ease of set up of previously machined Soft jaws. Check them out.
I am certainly sure, MACDEF are too busy to be messing around with making soft jaws right now however, and how they choose to spend their time rather working on many other tasks required to bring this product sooner, even by a day.
I personally buy Soft jaws in 10 packs of different sizes. Yes, I can make them. Yes I can make dove tailed ones too. But I got too much stuff to make already, rather be working on.
Unless they bought the vise that only takes carvesmart, as that is a option, but not by default.
To ATR: Personally, If they had these when I tooled up I would of went with the Orange despite the cost, way superior to the Kurt. Way better repeatability and ease of set up of previously machined Soft jaws. Check them out.
I am certainly sure, MACDEF are too busy to be messing around with making soft jaws right now however, and how they choose to spend their time rather working on many other tasks required to bring this product sooner, even by a day.
I personally buy Soft jaws in 10 packs of different sizes. Yes, I can make them. Yes I can make dove tailed ones too. But I got too much stuff to make already, rather be working on.
I do occasionally watch machining YouTube videos. I also work full time as a machinist, and have been since 2004. Got my Journeyman ticket and red seal back in 2010.
If they are using quick change jaws, and those jaws are VITAL to their ability to produce parts, one would think that they would have their #### together and not run out of said jaws. It would be like me running out of inserts, and having no available alternative. Completely unacceptable, and it just can't/doesn't happen. Admittedly I run lathes almost exclusively, so I'm less familiar with milling workholding methods, but the premise is the same.
