ATRS is worth the money?
- Thread starter Czarface
- Start date
What does the price of a 540 have to do with a 550? They are not comparable guns even if both are originals made by Sig.
If there is no patent there is nothing legally stopping any company from selling a clone and this whole conversation is moot
Most AR's are forgings produced by a few fulfilment centers, using just a few different castings.
Guys...all I'm saying is. Imagine if person who invented the Air Bag or Seat Belt refused to let anyone else make one. Licencing your design out is nothing new.
I don't want to get into the whole "I know this s**t, cause I do this for a living". But IMO the CNC receivers is one of the easiest parts to make in the entire gun. Stock, Grips, Barrel, Bolt Carrier, Magazine, Trigger Groups...even the extrusions alone for hand guard is more challenging. I've sent (non-gun related) CNC parts just as complex to shops and got top quality parts within a month. I'm sure ATRS is good, but they're not alone.
I'll love to see a Canada where MS rifles are as common as SKS's. We wanna hold Ottawa back from silly law rite? Flooding our market with NS MS rifles is one way to do just that. With 12 months lead time, I'm doubtful ATRS are the ones that can accomplish this.
I don't want to get into the whole "I know this s**t, cause I do this for a living". But IMO the CNC receivers is one of the easiest parts to make in the entire gun. Stock, Grips, Barrel, Bolt Carrier, Magazine, Trigger Groups...even the extrusions alone for hand guard is more challenging. I've sent (non-gun related) CNC parts just as complex to shops and got top quality parts within a month. I'm sure ATRS is good, but they're not alone.
I'll love to see a Canada where MS rifles are as common as SKS's. We wanna hold Ottawa back from silly law rite? Flooding our market with NS MS rifles is one way to do just that. With 12 months lead time, I'm doubtful ATRS are the ones that can accomplish this.
It's about maximising profit, there is only x number of sales of said product going to happen in canada because the market is only so big.
Rather than expand production capacity so that the company can bring the next product to market quicker and possibly supply a much larger market or contract in future, they have decided to pocket the money and ride out production over a much longer period of time.
Well which is it, forged or cast? It can't be both. I think what you were try to say was that there are only a few suppliers of raw forgings, which isn't that relevant to my point.
The forging is just the raw material. The machining is what matters and that requires more than just any old cnc machine and some cutters. It takes effort to get a consistent and repeatable process. This persistent idea that all you need is a CNC mill is why we habe so much junk out there. Also, a ready supply of used machines from shops going broke when they realize you can't just push the green button and make a sellable product.
my mistake, poor choice of words. Should have used moulding instead of casting.
I understand your point and was trying to back it up. ATRS is making billet receivers, so there is way more involved than taking a forging and calling it your own. Copying them wouldn't be as easy as some would like.
I think you mean the forging dies?
Actually, I find billet recievers way easier to produce. It takes a bit longer, but since you are generating all the geometry it's way easier to locate things accurately. No worries about being aligned properly on a forging. With probing and good fixtures, it's not as big an issue but those are investments for large scale production.
That said, there's absolutely nothing outrageous about the ATRS design. The only thing stopping someone from copying it is that they'd be a copy. The Canadian market is too small and reputation is everything.
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^^^This^^^
I have been knee deep dealing with hot forging, cold forging, casting, rolling, drawing, stamping, die casting, sand casting, lost wax casting, injection molding...and machining (aka billet). Machining...is by far the easiest to get parts spit out asap.
It really depends on what you mean by "worth the money" you can get a wk180 that at the end of the day will do the same thing and cost less. If you want a quality NR upper/lower to build on that takes standard AR components then this is the best on the market.
- Location
- Red Deer, Alberta
To all the people saying 'why don't they just buy more mills?' you really don't have any clue as to how a machine shop works or all the processes involved in manufacture. And the 'bottle neck' in ATRS lower production isn't their mills, it's the CNC wire EDM (Electrical Discharge Machining) machine they used to cut the magazine wells. Which they have now re-fixtured to cut multiple magazine wells now instead of just one at a time.
They also pay their staff very well, in a province with inflated labour rates due to the oilpatch. They have good long term staff, who do quality work.
If you want to see the product produced with cheap mills and $15/hr 'button pushers', look at a BCL 102.
Armedsask get's it. I'm guessing he has spent more time looking through piles of metal chips trying to find a part than most people.
They also pay their staff very well, in a province with inflated labour rates due to the oilpatch. They have good long term staff, who do quality work.
If you want to see the product produced with cheap mills and $15/hr 'button pushers', look at a BCL 102.
Armedsask get's it. I'm guessing he has spent more time looking through piles of metal chips trying to find a part than most people.
Not sure about others. But my suggestion was not to get them to buy more machines, but to contract the work out to others. I have decent idea how machine shops works, I've been dealing with manufacturing my entire life. ATRS is not the only company in the country that know how to manufacture good products, and I know several wire EDM shops that do great work. If...I said IF now, I had a gem of a RCMP approved NA design that ATRS offers. I would be licensing the design out and get as many of these rifles in the hands of Canadians and make it unfeasible for the Liberals to implement silly saws against the MS. If there's only 1000 MS in all of Canada...well it's not all that hard for them to make the call would it?
***I'm just suggesting, not teaching ATRS how to run their show.
alberta tactical rifle
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- calgary alberta
If only it was just that simple.
Any machine shop we would sublet to would have to get a firearms manufacturing license, make sure their facility was sufficiently secure to meet the specifics that the CFO places on us, vet their personnel and provide bond for each employee, and that does not even touch on all of the rest of the issues that subcontracting can open up.
This alone would increase the cost per unit substantially as we would then be paying retail shop rates for all work done. Not to mention the costs for contracts to be drawn and potential for lower quality to occur.
You can have cheap and fast with low or no quality. OR
You can have high quality and reasonable cost, that takes time.
But not both. We prefer the latter.
jagermyster
CGN Regular
- Location
- British Columbia
Was humming and hawing about what NR 556 gun to get. Then as fate would have it a business that i deal with alot called me the other day and said someone cancelled on an atrs set so i bought it and started a build primarily with all BCM parts. Pretty stoked on it. Cant wait to compare it to my geisselle urgi
Another CGN'er on the thread mentioned shops that already approached and was turned down by ATRS. I'm all for "The best or nothing" mentality, but I think it's unreasonable to think that ATRS are the only ones that can make it. Perhaps another shop is willing to invest in forging blanks or broaching tools to replace the wire EDM process. Just a thought, not trying to teach ATRS how to run their show.
