doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Lefever Repro

Get serious, guys. Tony made the RBL for peanuts compared to the figures we are throwing around here. He could do the same with the Lefever. In fact, if he chose to do so, he could sell the Fox for the same price. It is all about marketing and finding a convenient price point, not about the actual cost of production. A Suburban could be bought for $1795 in 1967. Today it is $50,000. Is that marketing or is it inflation? Answer is; about 10% inflation and 90% marketing. Tony could market a Lefever for $2995 and make money but he doesn't choose to. Steve Lamboy doesn't have the infrastructure to market at that price, so he won't do it either. The Lefever project was not a bad idea, it just didn't have the right participants to make it work. I have nothing negative to say about those whose idea it was to give it a shot.

Here is the original thread from 2007.
http://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbt...30710#Post30710

From the little I know, Bill is correct. The right folks never were on board.

If Ken decides to comment, that would be great. ( I still have that blank waiting to be used. )

Pete

One of the early ideas on the Lefever "repro" was to make it in 28 gauge, which was not available from Lefever Arms Company. That would stop any monkey business with future representation of the gun as an original, and make a wonderful basis for a custom styled after any of the original grades or as a blank canvas for a modern interpretation.

I expressed willingness to buy one, and I'm still ready!

Since September 2008 credit has been hard to come by and it might just be a funding issue, maybe having trouble establishing a good credit line from the banks.
As simple as that; we have the team, we have the talent and we have everything in place, but we just don�t have any money or any where to get it.

Just from my little knothole, I visited the RBL production facility and saw most of the parts in production. As a manufacturing engineer with a couple decades of machined parts focus, I'd say the RBL had a number of design characteristics specifically to facilitate machining and reduce costs. I don't beleive those changes would be palatable to those interested in a "LeFever reproduction" as they would involve changes to appearance and mechanisms. Consequently, the cost to produce and "exact replica" would be much higher. The parts count, setup changes, tool changes, and any hand work necessitated by design all add to cost. The baseline RBL is a bare steel framed gun that is a through hardening steel machined in a pre-hardened condition to eliminate a number of issues and costs. And remember, you could pile the options on a RBL to make it cost almost $5k without any real engraving and still have a stock with checkering done with a wood burning machine.

I do think a Lefever repro could be made, sans engraving & fancy checkering, for about half again more than a upper end RBL was made for

Chuck, I think you're confusing the retail price of the RBL with the actual cost to build it. Another point to make is that the Lefever locking system lends itself to very minor fitting chores compared to a gun with a Purdey bolt.

Bill, I've been involved with the economics of a number of machined products. I meant it as stated. Given the high level of quality expected by this group and the design of the Lefever, I think the basic gun would be pricey. I think a good baseline comparison of what Tony can do, similar to the Lefever, and make money doing, is the sidelock o/u he's doing.

We are still not addressing the unknown factor of actual cost to manufacture.

Assuming you can sell enuf units to say you did more than give it the old college try and get your name in the papers, the BIG factor on day 1 and day 1023 is labour cost. None of us thought Glen Fewless was going to carve them out of solid blocks of steel with a drillpress, a hacksaw and a float! Given the abolute necessity to use every advantage you've got to save manhours, CNC is going to come into play and the designer and programmer are going to choose the topographical features that produce a rationalized, non-duplicating tool path to offset the pay and bennies (assuming the fellers who produce these fringe products have any of the latter) of the human assembler and detailer. Lord knows how you make or source barrels and barrel assemblies but presumably that ain't a one-off by a little old elf with the tune in his head either. Apparently even the cosmetic flash of wood and metal has too be done with lasers and chemical etching to produce a 2500 to 5000$ gun. At some point, a human hand IS going to have to add some slight refinement of shape, finish, balance, fit, regulation or you end up with either JASKB, or worse, a low end Fausti with some vestigial references to the design and styling of the Lefever. Assuming there won't be Toyota-scale yearly sales and the employees want their kids to wear shoes, why would anyone think the pricing of big ticket/special interest items is solely about what the market will bear?

jack

. . . and capitalization of zippy equipment on day 1, of course.

jack