To be honest, I was thinking in the $2500 range because of the SABRE. On the other hand, I don't think Lage Mfg. is going to disappear like AAC did, therefore, the customer service will still be there. If $3000 is the price, so be it.
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To be honest, I was thinking in the $2500 range because of the SABRE. On the other hand, I don't think Lage Mfg. is going to disappear like AAC did, therefore, the customer service will still be there. If $3000 is the price, so be it.
Just pointing out it's a list with 690 names that put down, collectively, zero dollars of deposits with no obligation to buy.
I wonder how many of them will give away their place in line if the price is too much for them. Folks will start peeling off as the price point rises. Any good businessman, like Richard, is thinking of this.
Yeah, that's 690 people who were expecting something more like $1500-$2000, not $3000, because that's how much Lage originally indicated it would be due to heavy re-use of stock AR parts. It's not an easy decision at the $3k price level, especially for those of us who bought the M11/9 as a budget MG... a few years ago, that's how much people were paying for M11/9s _period_.
I guess the good news is, not a lot of pressure to buy right away since, hey, Lage should be around for a while.
I guess the good news is, not a lot of pressure to buy right away since, hey, Lage should be around for a while.
In all fairness, I'm not going to bust any chops. If Richard asks for more than I can afford, I'll find a way to continue on with my life. Just like I did when the sabre landed over 2 grand. I didn't buy one of them either.
JJ1234567
UZI Talk Life Member
3k is certainly more than I was hoping for. Im currently saving for an HK sear...I may need to abdicate my spot in line and grab one once they catch up on the back orders. The bright side here is that I will get one at some point, and I can have absolute confidence that the Lage business is not going anywhere.
IndustrialRescue
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Same here, as he'd originally put out.
To be fair, I don't think you can hold someone to an estimate while in development stage. This is why it is VERY rare for any company to make an estimate on price before it is ready. So the costs could have been higher than thought. However, I imagine all the comments of "I would pay TWICE that much!!! Take my MONEY!!" didn't help. And yes I understand it is still way below the cost of "insert whatever gun and price here" but the fact that I have a MAC is because it was a MAC price. Maybe many of you have HK sears, M16s etc as well as a MAC but I would venture to guess that most MAC owners are MAC owners because it was within their budget.
I've heard this mentioned a time or two now. I'm not bashing your opinion, but I look at it a little differently.
An AR15 is less than 1/4 the cost of this upper too. I have a bunch of those. You can build an entire AR15 for $450 or less.
And from what I have read, this upper uses a lot of AR parts, so parts cost isn't a huge factor.
Yes, I'm sure there will be some modifications to the bolt for the sear, and there will be material and tooling costs to build the upper halves, anodizing, etc but trying to keep it real here, M16 bolts and 10.5" barrels can be had for under $250 all day long. And in regards to an upper receiver, those are the highest price parts cost in it.
Again, I'm not taking anything away from machining and tool costs and other small AR parts and even maybe some other proprietary parts, but 3k is really up there.
I wanted the upper to shoot. I wasn't intending or expecting to pay NFA receiver prices for a non-nfa upper.
So to me, comparing the upper receiver to an M16 machinegun, is comparing apples and oranges and coming out with the answer of banana's.
It's not an M16, so I don't think of it as one.
Volkswagon and Porsche are owned by the same company. But that doesn't make volkswagons worth $50000 either.
I could go on, but I don't want to come across as bashing your opinions. I just look at it differently.
A&S Conversions
UZI Talk Life Member
Look, I get there are those that are disappointed at the price, but lets look at the "car" analogy. Do you think it costs the major car manufacturers $25,000 to build a midsized sedan and sell it for $30,000? I bet it costs them $6,000-$8,000 to build each one. But what about overhead, design, testing and tooling? Richard is a one man operation, with one full time employee, his daughter (that I know of). How many prototypes has it taken to get to this point? I'd be willing to bet that there will be 75,000 to 100,000 rounds of use for testing. Times say $0.25 per round (a mixture of steel and brass cased which is just a guess), that could be as much as $25,000 in ammo costs alone. What about engineering and liability insurance costs? 5.56X45 has almost three times the energy of pistol rounds. And that is all time he is in the shop working on prototypes, instead of making items he can sell right now to pay this months bills? It has been my experience that it costs a lot more than just the cost to build an item. I can see it costing him $80,000 - $100,000 or more to develop this product and bring it to market. What is that market going to be? 10% of registered owners? There are a lot of these guns in the back of many safes that haven't seen the light of day in years. Those are not the owners that will buy this product. ARs can be sold to possibly millions of buyers and it is a buyers market. How many AR manufacturers are there? To buy this product you need to be a M11/NINE RR owners, period. Hope many companies are bringing new designs to the MAC style RR? Lage is the only one I know of.
The days of MAC style RR being a "starter" full auto are numbered. I'll make a $1,000 wager with anyone that wants to, that on 02/04/2023 that the market value of the M11/NINE will be $15,000 or more. It sucks that some guys have had their gun for a while and can't afford $3,000 for a rifle caliber upper, to shoot rifle caliber full auto. But the same could be said about HK sears and M16s 10 - 15 years ago. Who would have thought five years ago that someone would be willing to pay $3,000 for a rifle caliber conversion when you might be able to find a M11/NINE for that amount of money? But six or seven years ago you might have been able to buy a Colt roll marked M16 for $12,000 - $14,000. Life isn't fair. And again I'm sorry that some on the list will have to pass up their opportunity. Of course there are those that will put it on their CC, receive it and post it for sale for double that. That is what happened with the Shrike. YMMV.
Scott
The days of MAC style RR being a "starter" full auto are numbered. I'll make a $1,000 wager with anyone that wants to, that on 02/04/2023 that the market value of the M11/NINE will be $15,000 or more. It sucks that some guys have had their gun for a while and can't afford $3,000 for a rifle caliber upper, to shoot rifle caliber full auto. But the same could be said about HK sears and M16s 10 - 15 years ago. Who would have thought five years ago that someone would be willing to pay $3,000 for a rifle caliber conversion when you might be able to find a M11/NINE for that amount of money? But six or seven years ago you might have been able to buy a Colt roll marked M16 for $12,000 - $14,000. Life isn't fair. And again I'm sorry that some on the list will have to pass up their opportunity. Of course there are those that will put it on their CC, receive it and post it for sale for double that. That is what happened with the Shrike. YMMV.
Scott
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bac0nfat
Well-known member
Comparing it to an M16 is sort of like saying you should buy a Corvette because at least it's not as much as a Ferrari. When neither is in your budget, it doesn't make much of a difference.
Anyway, I'm still thankful that Mr. Lage put in the work to make this happen. He put his money and time on the line without a guarantee that it would pay off in the end. I almost feel bad because I WANT to support him and help offset some of the R&D cost, but it's just too much for my budget.
Maybe if sales aren't great because of the price, he'll consider selling stripped uppers at a lower price to help some of us poor guys get into the game. I'd pay $1500 for a stripped upper all day long. Maybe even 2K.
Anyway, I'm still thankful that Mr. Lage put in the work to make this happen. He put his money and time on the line without a guarantee that it would pay off in the end. I almost feel bad because I WANT to support him and help offset some of the R&D cost, but it's just too much for my budget.
Maybe if sales aren't great because of the price, he'll consider selling stripped uppers at a lower price to help some of us poor guys get into the game. I'd pay $1500 for a stripped upper all day long. Maybe even 2K.
$3000 is a lot of money! But none of us are taking the risk of developing this and trying to sell it.
What happens if the ATF would pull the plug on this tomorrow? Or if they would pull the plug on all his products? And then Richard is stuck with no job and worthless banned inventory (or confiscated). What if someone shot their finger off and sues Richard?
We can all argue about how much AR parts cost and this thing is too expensive. But right now, there is only one Richard Lage and a thousand AR manufacturers.
Sorry guys, this is an expensive hobby. Don’t buy the boat if you can’t afford the fuel.
What happens if the ATF would pull the plug on this tomorrow? Or if they would pull the plug on all his products? And then Richard is stuck with no job and worthless banned inventory (or confiscated). What if someone shot their finger off and sues Richard?
We can all argue about how much AR parts cost and this thing is too expensive. But right now, there is only one Richard Lage and a thousand AR manufacturers.
Sorry guys, this is an expensive hobby. Don’t buy the boat if you can’t afford the fuel.
I haven't read all of the discussion, so I apologize if this was covered.... To make it a little cheaper, is there any way to buy the stock upper and put my own barrel, bcg, rail, etc on it? I have lots of ar parts and I could utilize them to finish out the upper.
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