Hk SL8
- Thread starter zak88
- Start date
Serves me right for not watching this with sound and multitasking...at first glance I thought this upgrade made the gun full auto...lol...
Yes, just the corners of the magazine. You don't have to touch the receiver.
The G36 P mags provide more than enough extra material to put two small notches in them without any negative effect on the function or durability
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Ah good to know, thank you. I would be extremely apprehensive about doing anything with the receiver, given my no-handyman skills. I did order a bunch of mags from iRunguns in anticipation of the SL8 returning in the near future so these will be the first victims of my retrofit attempt if and when the time comes.
Well, if this is not a harbinger of things to come...
Was on a work conference call when my phone notified me that one of my local gun stores had HK SL8 magazines back in stock. I click the link and saw it was available. Said, I will order it in 5-10 minutes when I am off the call.
Got off the call, went to order, and the restock had sold out completely within under 10 minutes. Just for the magazine.
I can only imagine if the actual SL8s came in stock now what would happen...it would be like a Prophet River yearly sale with people pouncing on deals within seconds...
Was on a work conference call when my phone notified me that one of my local gun stores had HK SL8 magazines back in stock. I click the link and saw it was available. Said, I will order it in 5-10 minutes when I am off the call.
Got off the call, went to order, and the restock had sold out completely within under 10 minutes. Just for the magazine.
I can only imagine if the actual SL8s came in stock now what would happen...it would be like a Prophet River yearly sale with people pouncing on deals within seconds...
Milofficer
CGN Regular
- Location
- Vancouver, BC
I don't know what your background in the Canadian firearms industry is, but I've worked at in manufacturing, retail, wholesale and importation / distribution for a total of a decade. I can tell you that your perception is incorrect. Having worked for one of the HK importer / distributors for Canada, the problem is most certainly with HK.
HK Germany basically doesn't care one bit about the retail firearms market, at least not Canada's. We tried to get HK to work with us to make some tweaks to the HK243 to get an NR classification, something that should have been pretty minor. They flat-out refused. Their explanation was that the rifle was already perfect and didn't need any modifications. So that went nowhere. We'd send regular emails asking for updates on our (long) list of backorders for rifles and pistols. Those would go unanswered. Instead, we'd get occasional emails from HK with a list of available pistols that they wanted to offload. It was pretty clear that these were overruns from other production orders, combined with old stock that they wanted to clear out. Every time this happened, the stuff on offer was not the stuff we had backordered months (or years) before. And it was hinted that if we passed on the stuff on offer, we'd probably miss out on the next round. So we'd end up with a vault full of SFP-9s that nobody was buying because the market was already saturated.
Trust me, we ordered USPs and Mk23s and USCs and SL-8s and other models that people actually wanted. HK just ignores it. They produce stuff for mil and LE contracts first, anything else is a distant second. They are practically impossible to communicate with. One major pistol order was nearly seized and destroyed by CBSA because HK sent the wrong magazines with the shipment. We tried desperately to get a hold of someone at HK to get approval for the shipment to be returned. Nearly two weeks went by with no answer from HK. We tried emails and phone calls with no luck. As you can imagine, this is not a good situation for a business to be in with thousands and thousands of dollars of merchandise at stake. Eventually we just refused to accept the shipment and it went back to Oberndorf on HK's dime. Another week went by before we heard from our HK contact. Apparently they were out of office on vacation. No apology, no explanation beyond that. It took weeks for them to sort out the shipment and get it back to us.
I tried to get spare parts for customers. Apparently HK had considered us to be a warranty center - you'd think that meant they'd send us tools and parts to service their guns, but you'd be wrong. Every time I tried to get spares for customers, HK demanded serial numbers and a detailed reason for why I needed to order something. Did you lose your windage screw on your USP Tactical? Good luck. I'd email weekly asking for updates on my outstanding part requests. These would simply go unanswered. I tried to get HK to send us a number of common consumable items for popular HK pistols, things like magazine springs and followers, recoil springs, firing pins, extractors etc. These requests also went nowhere.
HK has a reputation for a reason. I always assumed it was a half-joking kind of thing until I actually had to deal with them on a B2B level. If anything, they are far worse than their reputation suggests. Keep in mind that we were a good customer - we paid on time and in full, and we were had placed orders for a number of SKUs, but HK simply didn't produce what we asked.
God that sounds so familiar two other manufacturers I am working with.
I just hate organisations like this. Like hello HK did you know you've gone bankrupt several times? Let me introduce you to Remington.
Milofficer
CGN Regular
- Location
- Vancouver, BC
I work in a totally different industrial sector now, and I can't even tell you what a relief it is to have suppliers and vendors who actually communicate and ship what you order. I literally could not understand why HK acted like their sh*t didn't stink. We were ready and willing to pay good money for their stuff but it was like we didn't even exist. And like you pointed out, the fact that they were in financial difficulties made it even weirder. Why turn down orders from your dealers if you need coin? The one thing they sent us in actual quantity was HK swag. Calendars, screen cleaning cloths, pens, posters for guns we couldn't own... we had plenty of those.
If HK was thinking, they would do what basically every major car manufacturer is doing, make an SUV. Well not actually make a SUV but manufacture a product en mass that a large percentage of buyer want. IE the USP, USC, and SL8. Lamborghini has had the largest sales year ever thanks to the URUS I bet that HK could do the same if they properly serviced the civilian market.
A lot of business lessons in that post so that you for that
I think it's partly shaped by the fact that these major manufacturers have in many ways not had to ever really deal with the private sector outside of subcontracting to other companies on their terms. I guess they just wait till a govt releases a requirement, they meet it, make it and then try and flog it to other countries but never really giving a flying fox about the civvy sector.
Colt was like that too, things turned out great for them too...
HK has a lot of products, keeping inventory of everything ties up capital. Excessive inventory and part bin are enemies of profitability.
And the fact that production run in batches, therefore it won't make financial sense to do a production run unless certain order quantity is on the book. And this number is probably in the hundreds at the minimum for company with flexible production line.
Read through HK financial statements some years ago - they lost money in that year because they have too many orders, and have to use contractors.
This industry is also cyclical, CAPEX discipline is important. it is not surprising they would rather under serve than risking digging another Capex and R&D money hole like what they did back in the 90's with the G11.
The other side of the coin is Remington and Colt, you can keep churning out stuff and still run yourself to the ground.
And the fact that production run in batches, therefore it won't make financial sense to do a production run unless certain order quantity is on the book. And this number is probably in the hundreds at the minimum for company with flexible production line.
Read through HK financial statements some years ago - they lost money in that year because they have too many orders, and have to use contractors.
This industry is also cyclical, CAPEX discipline is important. it is not surprising they would rather under serve than risking digging another Capex and R&D money hole like what they did back in the 90's with the G11.
The other side of the coin is Remington and Colt, you can keep churning out stuff and still run yourself to the ground.
That being said I seriously doubt it would hurt them that much to have an extra 2000 G36 rifles to sell to Canada. batch production, fair enough but at the same time your sales department should know their markets intimately and be pushing for the extra 1000 here and there.
I don't know what the cost of a G36 is when made at the tens of thousands but I'm pretty sure that even at $2500 a piece they'd get lapped up here rapido given that Type 81s are selling at $2000
