Few thoughts about the "longer than usual" shipping times:
People need to realize, that the blame for this phenomena should rest squarely with our political system.
After the OIC announcements, if someone said that we will be able to get an AK-ish style rifle with and underfolder at a reasonable price some 3 years later, I would say that those people were nuts....and yet here we are.
First off..cudos to TI for being able to pull this off.
Second...all of you whining about how long it takes...what exactly are you comparing it with?
South of the border??
Large stock of Savage bolt guns at Cabela's, which nobody is really lining up for??
If so, then you need to realize, that in the US, people are not starving for that AK look...they can get it virtually anywhere and there are multiple distributors of these rifles.
This means that there are no stampedes to get them.
Here on the other hand, TI is the only enterprise that brings these in (as far as I'm aware) and when a shipment of something like this comes in, the ensuing mayhem is to be expected.
Sure some of you say "hire the extra staff"..etc.
But you need to realize, that the main purpose of any business is to generate profit.
Sure...assuming that TI could get past the hurdle of the un-easy task of finding and training the extra people for the shipping (and they did just that), they would likely need to hire hundreds of extra staff (assuming their warehouse can even accomodate them)...and for what?
They are already 100% guaranteed to sell every single one of these rifles, even if they only had just one guy shipping them out...sure it might take a couple of years, but they would sell them nevertheless..
Essentially this means, that any extra staff member that is temporarily hired only for the sole purpose of shipping them out faster, translates into less profit for TI.
I'm not in any way shape or form affiliated with TI, but I can completelly understand their logic of trying to find some type of a middle ground, where people still wait longer than usual, but in the end they will get something, that could only be described, as a Somali warlord on a moped type of a vibe, which was not really possible up till now.
Bottom line is, if I was in charge of the TI operation, I would not be as nice at they are.
I would tell everyone they have 2 options:
1) Your order will be ready when it's ready, regardless of time lapsed.
2) Feel free to get one elsewhere.