[rntlee]

Sergey's comments do jive with my own interaction with QQ. When I first responded to them, I was told that they would have no samples to send me until they had another production run. I assume I was sent "culls" from the latest run they did, because although the Lapco copy is well manufactured (it looks identical to a branded Lapco Big Shot) the CP 2-piece barrel has had some rather poor pre-anno prep (some burrs that should have been cleaned up etc).
Also, looking at the QQ catalogue, they list lengths for their Big Shot that aren't available from Lapco.

Funny thing is, I don't even know how they got my email. I'm not a distributor, importer or reseller of paintball equipment.
If I'm getting their catalog, they must be mass mailing it all over.
Lapco will have to keep a keen eye out for fakes as I'm sure they'll start showing up. These guys are producing these for $13 a pop.

This post has been edited by rntlee: 26 March 2012 - 07:46 PM

[hogzilla88]

Related, anyone seen these CF freak barrels? From China, $26 (or less in bulk). Interesting.

[spankopotomous=paintball]

hogzilla88, on 26 March 2012 - 10:04 PM, said:

Related, anyone seen these CF freak barrels? From China, $26 (or less in bulk). Interesting.

i might just have to try one of those. and if it worked, ide buy 10 more

[drg]

Greenhill I believe is a fairly large-scale manufacturer, I think they make some of the brand-name products we see around the market. As for this other company ... I'm a bit surprised they just mail samples to a private individual. $13-26 for an imported barrel is about right when you think about what that translates to as a US market product, after shipping, duties, marketing, margin, etc. Probably looking at $30-50, which is about what you could sell a cheap Chinese barrel for. Or you could pay a little more and get higher quality, US products.

Barrels are a pretty damn competitive market.

[cockerpunk]

when we were looking at doing punkworks specials, the price point was like 15 bucks a pop. totally believable price point.

[UV Halo]

Sub-Forum related content: The knockoff's may not perform worse than the real thing (provided the interior finishes are good, the threads aren't loose, the barrel is labled correctly: i.e. a .679 labled as .679, etc)

My opinion:
I seriously hope that folks are not considering buying the knockoffs. I'm not opposed to folks buying low cost barrels but, buying knockoffs hurts the original manufacturer's brand when other folks see your barrel, and they get the idea that it's a 'bigshot without the logo' and if your barrel has problems not seen on the actual product (i.e. lower durability anno, out of spec threads, porting that hasn't been deburred, etc), it brings down the brand name.

Also, I'm not saying everyone should go out and buy a LAPCO barrel but, I know LAPCO is not some huge paintball conglomerate trying to rip folks off. They try to bring products to market that have a high level of quality, while keeping all manufacturing in house. They're also getting into the 'custom' barrel business (Desert Edge Barrels, The Tightstick).