SKS CHASSIS: Crooked North Customs Phantom Complete, Black or FDE, ODG is Sold out.

Bullseyenorth

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Crooked North Customs SKS Phantom Chassis Complete, Black, FDE or ODG

Phantom Chassis’s come with a front and rear proprietary mini picatinny rail (colour matched to chassis) to accept modern optics, while still allowing the use of stripper clips!
 
This post is being made by the fabricator/engineer/machinist side of me who has worked in firearms production in Canada.

Production wise it's a wasteful design with aluminum and it would have been much better off going a different route.

High-strength carbon fiber (CFRP) and glass reinforced polymer (GFRP) injection molding would bring the cost down substantially and allow much faster production which would afford the option to include a buffer tube, stock assembly and even a A2 or other pistol grip.

A complete package would do much better than this stand alone item with zero information accompanying it.

It will be interesting to see how the actions bed with the chassis given how the tolerances on SKS rifles varies so much.

There is a video provided by CrookedNorthCustoms of the rifle firing a single shot which doesn't prove much until we can see it fire a whole magazine without any issues.
https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/18115201213775666/

Two variants made via injection molding would have been a more logical approach to this idea.

One made to use factory and detachable SKS magazines and another made specifically to function with 7.62x39mm AR15 pattern magazines, it would be very easy to modify the existing design to have a dedicated magazine well.

Just by comparison for production cost ArchAngel sells their injection molded SKS stock for under $300 CDN, if these were injection molded the cost would easily be cut in half or more as well as bring in far more sales.

CrookedNorthCustoms is charging MDT money for a product they clearly took from someone else and made a few changes to so not impressed by that at all let alone their attitude behind it.

From their reddit post
the_crooked_north
OP•2d ago
The Crooked North


I assure you that manufacturing did not set the retail price.
I spoke with our competitors today and they should have more stock on the market shortly. That's a good thing for everyone.
the_crooked_north
OP•2d ago
The Crooked North


Didn't realize Hush was compatible with AR parts.
Figured there might be a person or two with some AR parts they can no longer use sitting in their safe.
In an nutshell the production cost is not much but because you can use parts from your prohibited rifles on it that justifies gouging Canadians on the price while the competition sells for hundreds of dollars less.

What really makes me wonder is the quality of the machining and how well are tooling marks cleaned up, other manufacturers in Canada have demonstrated some absolutely appalling practices so hopefully these are much better.

To Bullseye I would change the product info to remove the word "Complete" as these are not complete and require additional parts in order to have a complete functional rifle, it will help to avoid unhappy emails from customers complaining that they couldn't just drop their receiver into the chassis and head out to the range.
 
This post is being made by the fabricator/engineer/machinist side of me who has worked in firearms production in Canada.

Production wise it's a wasteful design with aluminum and it would have been much better off going a different route.

High-strength carbon fiber (CFRP) and glass reinforced polymer (GFRP) injection molding would bring the cost down substantially and allow much faster production which would afford the option to include a buffer tube, stock assembly and even a A2 or other pistol grip.

A complete package would do much better than this stand alone item with zero information accompanying it.

It will be interesting to see how the actions bed with the chassis given how the tolerances on SKS rifles varies so much.

There is a video provided by CrookedNorthCustoms of the rifle firing a single shot which doesn't prove much until we can see it fire a whole magazine without any issues.
https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/18115201213775666/

Two variants made via injection molding would have been a more logical approach to this idea.

One made to use factory and detachable SKS magazines and another made specifically to function with 7.62x39mm AR15 pattern magazines, it would be very easy to modify the existing design to have a dedicated magazine well.

Just by comparison for production cost ArchAngel sells their injection molded SKS stock for under $300 CDN, if these were injection molded the cost would easily be cut in half or more as well as bring in far more sales.

CrookedNorthCustoms is charging MDT money for a product they clearly took from someone else and made a few changes to so not impressed by that at all let alone their attitude behind it.

From their reddit post


In an nutshell the production cost is not much but because you can use parts from your prohibited rifles on it that justifies gouging Canadians on the price while the competition sells for hundreds of dollars less.

What really makes me wonder is the quality of the machining and how well are tooling marks cleaned up, other manufacturers in Canada have demonstrated some absolutely appalling practices so hopefully these are much better.

To Bullseye I would change the product info to remove the word "Complete" as these are not complete and require additional parts in order to have a complete functional rifle, it will help to avoid unhappy emails from customers complaining that they couldn't just drop their receiver into the chassis and head out to the range.
Very well said. I was thinking the same thing. The material waste is ridiculous. The rear lug prevents field stripping the sks. The gas tube cover obstructs the rear sight block. So you have to fully remove the stock to clean the rifle. The magazine well is entirely decorative- again, wasteful. To reiterate what you said- they're expecting us to backfill their offerings "because we might have AR parts in our safe". I don't mind it being aluminum, but the material waste is obtuse. I was a machinist for MDT many moons ago. We wouldn't have let it run like this.

Overall, I'm unimpressed.
 
The up-front cost for injection molding can be insanely high, and that won't pay off for a long long time with such a niche product/market.

I don't know why this is even a discussion. $700 bucks sucks but if you want to support Canadian than put your money where your mouth is and quit yapping. With how much CNC costs in Canada I'm surprised this isn't like 2000 dollars lmao, they obviously found a smaller dedicated shop (probably just 1 or 2 guys with a previously-enjoyed CNC machine) to create small batch orders.
 
The up-front cost for injection molding can be insanely high, and that won't pay off for a long long time with such a niche product/market.

I don't know why this is even a discussion. $700 bucks sucks but if you want to support Canadian than put your money where your mouth is and quit yapping. With how much CNC costs in Canada I'm surprised this isn't like 2000 dollars lmao, they obviously found a smaller dedicated shop (probably just 1 or 2 guys with a previously-enjoyed CNC machine) to create small batch orders.

Other companies in Canada currently make a near identical product and it sells for $450 or less.

It's a slightly modified clone of someone else's work being sold for hundreds of dollars more.

This does nothing better than the other chassis on the market and they are openly admitting to gouging on the price specifically because you can use parts from your prohibited firearms on it, hence why I quoted the manufacturers words from reddit.

I love supporting Canadian businesses but not when you state your greedy intent right from the start like they have.

The manufacturer has stated they are starting with this model only and then working on producing other variants for other magazine compatibility.

The manufacturer has also stated they intend on selling in the USA as well so their production volume will need to increase in order to satisfy that market demand if it even exist since you can just buy a Kalashnikov pattern rifle freely down south.

Single cavity molds are cheap, multi cavity will produce more at once but increases mold cost but lowers per unit cost in high volume runs.

This tooling cost for molds for this chassis should not exceed $15,000 as it is very simple design. Much faster lead times on aluminum molds and thermal conductivity benefits which reduces cycle times compared to much more expensive steel molds.

For the volume of chassis likely being made for the Canadian market will be in the 100-1000 unit range aluminum mold plates will suffice just fine with a life span estimate of 10,000 to 100,000 cycles.

For the likely cost of the CNC machine and other equipment the manufacturer has purchased they easily could have gone the injection molded path and possibly have multiple variants already on the go instead of the current wasteful course of action.

What do I know tho... I only sat in lots of business meetings discussing the exact same stuff that eventually turned into products that were sold all across Canada.
 
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