TargetTalk

ruig wrote:

Tzed250 wrote: I think many saw the SP-08 as a successor to the IJ-35, a pistol with world class performance that was built with a Russian pricepoint. ISSF standard pistols have become extremely expensive in just the past five years. There is a gap in the high performance/moderate cost slot. The Austrian produced SP-08/SP22 will most likely cost too much to fill that gap.

Successor? Everything, that these pistols have in common - is a caliber :-))

Is price of 2000 bucks too much for the pistol that will be used during next XY years (see TOZ, Hämmerli etc)?

I think that this product isn't "for fun"-market and the goal is not "to fill the gap". The goal is - Olympic medal - that counts.
There are some entry level cheap alternatives - Hämmerli x-esse, old brave Margolin or used Walther GSP from 70s for example etc.

The shooting sport is for someone who has money. Unfortunately.

By successor I meant world class performance for less than world class price.

If the pistol will shoot with the best then $2000 is more than reasonable.

Production in Russia might have resulted in a $1100 price tag, but not in Austria.

Many do not want to buy used. That is what made the IJ-35 so popular. The IJ-35 was used in world class competition, and I paid $425 for mine brand new. Proof that a gap exists is in the fact that a used IZH-35m will often sell for upwards of $750.

If the shooting sport is for those that have money only, it will die soon.


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I contacted the factory in Russia and received the reply that the gun was 1200 euro which would be about 1500.00. The fellow who responded said they could not ship me one because of customs issues. I would presume this means that they are looking for North American dealers to take on the gun. Russian marketing seems to be lacking as evidenced by the !\IZH 46 air pistol and the IZH 35 as well as the Toz 35. The Toz is still highly shot(I own one) but try to get parts for it. The IZH standard pistol was and is a great gun for the money, so I would assume the SP08 might be awesome as well. Hopefully someone will step up into the wonderful world of the Russian capitalistic system and bring the gun into North America.

customs954 wrote:I contacted the factory in Russia and received the reply that the gun was 1200 euro which would be about 1500.00. The fellow who responded said they could not ship me one because of customs issues. I would presume this means that they are looking for North American dealers to take on the gun. Russian marketing seems to be lacking as evidenced by the !\IZH 46 air pistol and the IZH 35 as well as the Toz 35. The Toz is still highly shot(I own one) but try to get parts for it. The IZH standard pistol was and is a great gun for the money, so I would assume the SP08 might be awesome as well. Hopefully someone will step up into the wonderful world of the Russian capitalistic system and bring the gun into North America.

As implied by Ruig I think you are also making the mistake of comparing the Damyan to the other/former Russian offerings. As I understand it the Damyan should more be compared to European guns.

Once again - please forget izhs, toz etc.

The mass production of (sport)arms in Ex-USSR was a part of national politics according to predefined 5-years plans. State controlled plants and state-subsidies.

"Demyan LLC" is a private project, private business (as Steyr LLC, Morini CA etc). For every single screw must be paid out of their own pocket. No state aid.

Of course, if someone will offer to cover 50-70% of production/personal costs (the State, Abramovich, Bill Gates, Vijay Mallya or someone else...) - it would be possible to offer one pistol to the end-consumer at a price of 400 bucks.

Nowdays a piece of plastic shit with the Apple logo made in China can cost up to 1000 bucks.

If the 1200 euro mentioned above is a realistic number,
it is rather reasonable for a quality pistol made in Austria.

AW93 costs about 1600~1700 euros in Germany online shops. P44 costs around 1200 and LP10 costs around 1200-1300. My guess would be that since the general arangement of SP08 is similar to AW93 producing SP08 in Austria would result a price closer to 1800.

Demyan (or any young and unknown company) can hardly attach the same premium to a gun as FWB. You pay for the name too, if not mostly for the name :) ...

remember that factory prices are always lower than what we as actual customers pay. there are distribution costs, VAT, profit margins and so on that inflate the final price ... we will see when it finally appears for sale in gun stores but imho we will not see it under 1500 euros (at germany because at greece i think we will see it at ever higher prices)

Makris D. G. wrote:Demyan (or any young and unknown company) can hardly attach the same premium to a gun as FWB. You pay for the name too, if not mostly for the name :) ...

I disagree. You pay for the complete package.

"Early adopters" might pay based on the designer's record, in which case this will attract a premium. The MG2 was another such example and, IMHO, Khaidurov has a much better reputation for cartridge guns than Cesare Morini had when the MG2 was launched.

khaidurov designed great pistols but correct me if i am wrong with the exception of TOZ-35 (which is single shot) most of them were built in very small quanities for the members of former soviet union team and the team had its own gunsmith to keep things up and running (as all big teams). that's nowhere near mass production. They achieved legendary status but prototypes from mass production is entirely different.

For arguments sake then,
let's say you are given a tour of the Demyan plant in Russia, and you discover
that they have state of the art CNC machines and stringent quality control.
Lets consider 3 hypothetical pistols,

a) Demyan manufactured SP08 in Russia
b) SP08 built for Demyan in Austria
c) AW-94 by FWB which is the SP08 after they buy out the rights

would a customer be willing to pay the same price for all 3?
And would the factories sell them at the same price to begin with?

It is not just about the design, or even the quality, its about marketing too...
Just like the American bullseye shooters that prefer a Ruger MkII with a new trigger, new barrel, new frame and new sights to a european pistol at about the same total price :)

1.Production on Russia plant with modern CNC. perhaps a bit lower costs (labor) but the state does not give permits to manufacture guns (thus Demyan LLC was born at Austria). Even if it gave permit the cost i expect it to be around the same for same QC and finish on ALL surfaces.
Remember IJ-35 and IZh-46 are cheap because they are made of steel and they have minimal external surface finish.
2.SP08 built for (by) Demyan in Austria. Most companies outsource some of their components if not all of them to smaller specialized contractors then assemble the finished parts. So costs will be the same for lets say FWB.
3.FWB buys the rights and introduces the AW94. It depends on how much they will pay because for Aw-93 they paid a small amount. if SP-08 which has the same anchestors as AW-93 proves to be better they might be tempted but thats future.

assuming i was given the option to buy one of the above pistols and assuming they all had the same level of QC, finish and reliability i propably would have bought the gun of the first hypothesis just for the fun of it.

would i be willing to pay the same price ? again if fit, finish and QC are on par why not.

as for the factories .. they usually dont tend to overprice their products unless they have domint postition on the market or the production costs are high from the begining.

ghostrip wrote:They achieved legendary status but prototypes from mass production is entirely different.

That is exactly what they said about Cesare Morini when he broke away from Morini Competition to design and build air pistols (originally) for other companies. The early ones were pretty good, but they needed a lot of hand-fitting of components to put them together.

Makris D. G. wrote:Lets consider 3 hypothetical pistols,

a) Demyan manufactured SP08 in Russia
b) SP08 built for Demyan in Austria
c) AW-94 by FWB which is the SP08 after they buy out the rights

would a customer be willing to pay the same price for all 3?

a) (Other than for our stupid gun laws in the UK) I would have no problem in buying a gun that was manufactured to a high standard in Russia.
b) (Other than for our stupid gun laws in the UK) I would have no problem in buying a gun that was manufactured to a high standard in Austria.
c) I certainly wouldn't buy one of the first production guns. I remember the first run of AW93s in the mid 1990s; hardly what you would call universally reliable.

Makris D. G. wrote:It is not just about the design, or even the quality, its about marketing too...

As I said earlier, you pay for the complete package.

My point didn't really get through...

Two more points to add:
- a technical comparison with the AW93 makes sense as they use the same concept but for the price, the AW93 is one of the most expensive standard pistols, more expensive than the Pardini, Morini, Matchgun, Hammerli, GSP and in some shops/countries even more expensive than the SSP.
- Other companies (at least the big names) have a complete sales network with distributors, dealers... When you buy an AW93 you get the FWB sales network, warranty, service, spare parts... Demyan doesn't have such a sales network. This is part of the pistol price and a factor in the decision and acceptable price to buy the pistol. Just a comparison: many people buy a TOZ35 and accept the lack of manufacturer service/support, that spare parts are difficult to find at least at its current very low price. Would they still accept that and buy it at the price of a CM84E, or would they then buy a CM84E instead ?

jipe wrote:Demyan doesn't have such a sales network.

What we are discussing?

The pistol is not in (retail) sale. How can we evaluate "sales network" if such network doesn't exist yet? How can we evaluate service/support if no one single service case known?

There is a well known name in the EU/World behind Demyan LLC. He knows how to sell and what a service/sell network is. Believe me. I hope that in the end of this week we will get more info.

customs954 wrote:I contacted the factory in Russia and received the reply that the gun was 1200 euro which would be about 1500.00. The fellow who responded said they could not ship me one because of customs issues. I would presume this means that they are looking for North American dealers to take on the gun. Russian marketing seems to be lacking as evidenced by the !\IZH 46 air pistol and the IZH 35 as well as the Toz 35. The Toz is still highly shot(I own one) but try to get parts for it. The IZH standard pistol was and is a great gun for the money, so I would assume the SP08 might be awesome as well. Hopefully someone will step up into the wonderful world of the Russian capitalistic system and bring the gun into North America.

Lucky you - I emailed them about importing one into Australia and didn't get a reply.

The brushed metal look is nice

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak- ... 6380_n.jpg

and

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak- ... 9236_n.jpg

It looks so much like the FWB AW93 that I hope it is as easy to take apart, and not like the IZH35M in that respect.

It looks so much like the FWB AW93 that I hope it is as easy to take apart, and not like the IZH35M in that respect.

Really Paulo, my IZH is easy to take apart. In fact it came apart all by itself when I cocked it for rapid fire the other day. I must have bumped that button beneath the lower barrel shroud and it just popped off. I caught it, reassembled and still managed to be ready when the target turned.
:-)