Factory production of new R18 Mk2's ceased approximately 6 months ago. Any Mk2's remaining on dealer shelves are therefore New, Old Stock. .....
Just saw this thread and thought I'd pop in for a few clarifications: Firstly, we started working with overseas partners for this rifle over a year ago and had initial prototypes of the R18MK3 available for the RCMP last JUNE. The company in Turkey that we have partnered with was, before us, made primarily grenade launchers and now, through a collaboration, makes rifles for both us and them. There have been and still are a lot of trips to Turkey planned! These guys are awesome!
In anticipation of this project, we stopped producing and selling the MK2's a loooong time ago so that no dealer would have them and no consumer would buy a MK2 and then see the MK3 show up at a reduced price... with more features. Plus we wanted to make sure we stopped while we still had a bunch of the unique parts for long term warranty / support.
We also a do a lot more than just test fire the rifle in Canada. To have any Canadian lineage, we need to make some parts here and also do a lot of the assembly. But we do believe in "truth in advertising", so we changed the markings to reflect "assembly" verses "made in" Canada. They may be some of the same parts used overseas, but we just have them made here with our joint IP.
We are very proud of the final product and think it will hit a home run with the Canadian (and international) market. We have never hidden the fact that the bulk of this firearm is made in overseas plants. Ford makes cars, but they actually make ZERO parts themselves. Beretta themselves have been sourcing a ton of parts from Turkey for a few years now. Your beloved Apple IPhone is Chinese. I personally would like to think that it is because of our international business activities, that we have been able to made such great contacts that these projects are possible. Believe me... there have been some teething issues. But unlike a number of our past Canadian suppliers, the Turks have been extremely responsive to all of our suggestions and directives in the design and manufacturing process. As have been our partners in the UK, Slovenia and Taiwan.
For those asking: The MK2 and the MK3 are not really cross compatible.
To keep things in perspective; our goal was always to get the R18MK3 to a price point that was below $2000 CDN. To drop $800 off of the retail, we had to find about $450 in manufacturing efficiencies. This was ONLY possible by taking a big chunk of this overseas.
We are dropping a pre-production rifle off for Bartok5 to play with this weekend. Good, bad, ugly... we want the feedback.
I'll try to get back here and respond to questions; but to be frank; I'm not on CGN much anymore.
JR
LOL
