Runningmancs
Well-known member
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2021
- Posts
- 120
Hurts my head to read that and clearly sig wanted to move them. I really don’t underhand their reluctance to sell and work with you. Was there just not enough meat on the bone for them?
a small "factoid" about the MK23
- Thread starter larryccf
- Start date
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larryccf
Contributing member
At Sig i was talking to Mr. Parks who used to be Pres or CEO of SIGARMS. Keep in mind this was 1997/98 with a lot of firearms companies being sued. Parks actually said to me "no i will not bring those in, i am afraid someone will climb on a roof and shoot people and they would blame SIGARMS!"
My response was, why are you selling pistols ??? I shook my head and contacted someone i knew fairly well at the Hammerli factory to see if he could help me and maybe intro me to the contact at SIG Sauer that i should talk to.. He did, the VP of operations, Luther Wigard. After meeting him at IWA show, after he asked why didn't i buy from SIGARMS and i told what i'd been told by them, he told me to come back to his booth the next morning, that he was going to call someone back at the factory and he'd have an answer for me. He complained that he had at the time 55 rifles in inventory. The next morning he confirmed he could sell to me, and gave me a pretty decent price on 8 rifles - i gave him a deposit of $500 per rifle with a PO that i had him sign as "accepted".
I gave him the name of a dealer in switzerland that he'd be shipping to. I told the dealer he'd be receiving them. I was due to return to switzerland in 3 weeks and it was a good thing. A few weeks later the dealer told me Wigard had told him he had sold out of the SSG3000s and wouldn't have any rifles to ship for 6 to 9 months..
I tried something i had never used before - I had 5 $100 dollar bills, i cut them in half, putting the smaller half in an envelope. When i went back, i went to visit him at the factory, i told him i was not happy that i was going to have to deal with attorneys unless he changed his position, but reminded him he had signed the PO as "accepted" as well as accepted a pretty serious deposit. I then gave him the envelop with the five 1/2 $100 bills, said this was for him to take his wife to dinner, to help pay for his kids braces, i didn't care. I showed him the other half of the bills in another envelope and told him that the dealer would have this envelope to send to him when he received the rifles and that i hoped he made the right decision.
Three days later the dealer called telling me the rifles had arrived, and telling me "this is first time they send me rifles without payment in advance."
as an FYI, if you ever need to use that trick of tearing a bill in half, make sure to keep the larger half, ie has to be at least 51% of the bill - reason, if you have to, you can go by any fed reserve branch and they will give you a new bill for the half bill as long as it's bigger than 50%.
If that hurts your head, one day i'll tell you about Sylvia Kaiser-Block, owner of Beta C-Mag company. A complete horse's ass, - her husband was a swiss billionaire, and when he divorced her, he bought the C-Mag manufacturing rights from Jim Sullivan and gave the company to Sylvia because he knew under US Law, munitions technology could not be exported, so she'd have to keep the company here in the US, which meant she'd have to stay here in the US. This lady was a walking headache - i have no doubt she practiced at night trying to give aspirin a headache.
FWIW
My response was, why are you selling pistols ??? I shook my head and contacted someone i knew fairly well at the Hammerli factory to see if he could help me and maybe intro me to the contact at SIG Sauer that i should talk to.. He did, the VP of operations, Luther Wigard. After meeting him at IWA show, after he asked why didn't i buy from SIGARMS and i told what i'd been told by them, he told me to come back to his booth the next morning, that he was going to call someone back at the factory and he'd have an answer for me. He complained that he had at the time 55 rifles in inventory. The next morning he confirmed he could sell to me, and gave me a pretty decent price on 8 rifles - i gave him a deposit of $500 per rifle with a PO that i had him sign as "accepted".
I gave him the name of a dealer in switzerland that he'd be shipping to. I told the dealer he'd be receiving them. I was due to return to switzerland in 3 weeks and it was a good thing. A few weeks later the dealer told me Wigard had told him he had sold out of the SSG3000s and wouldn't have any rifles to ship for 6 to 9 months..
I tried something i had never used before - I had 5 $100 dollar bills, i cut them in half, putting the smaller half in an envelope. When i went back, i went to visit him at the factory, i told him i was not happy that i was going to have to deal with attorneys unless he changed his position, but reminded him he had signed the PO as "accepted" as well as accepted a pretty serious deposit. I then gave him the envelop with the five 1/2 $100 bills, said this was for him to take his wife to dinner, to help pay for his kids braces, i didn't care. I showed him the other half of the bills in another envelope and told him that the dealer would have this envelope to send to him when he received the rifles and that i hoped he made the right decision.
Three days later the dealer called telling me the rifles had arrived, and telling me "this is first time they send me rifles without payment in advance."
as an FYI, if you ever need to use that trick of tearing a bill in half, make sure to keep the larger half, ie has to be at least 51% of the bill - reason, if you have to, you can go by any fed reserve branch and they will give you a new bill for the half bill as long as it's bigger than 50%.
If that hurts your head, one day i'll tell you about Sylvia Kaiser-Block, owner of Beta C-Mag company. A complete horse's ass, - her husband was a swiss billionaire, and when he divorced her, he bought the C-Mag manufacturing rights from Jim Sullivan and gave the company to Sylvia because he knew under US Law, munitions technology could not be exported, so she'd have to keep the company here in the US, which meant she'd have to stay here in the US. This lady was a walking headache - i have no doubt she practiced at night trying to give aspirin a headache.
FWIW
OP
larryccf
Contributing member
it would be easy enough for somone to check the chain of title on Sterling, VA's website - a deed in lieu of foreclosure would be titled exactly like that, and any deed to the State of Va would actually suffice
I think that it's worth pointing out that HKUSA has improved in recent years by leaps and bounds. The one problem that still remains is that they simply can't build 416 rifles fast enough to fill the orders.
OP
larryccf
Contributing member
Bingo - you hit it on the head. Back when HK USA would not import the USP ELITES & EXPERTS, I brought in 600 a year for 2 years, and posters on that website that will not named, were reporting that they had contacted HK Sterling, VA and when they asked if they were planning on bringing them in, their response was "they had done a market study and there wasn't a market for 50 units a year". They were almost repulsed about selling to the commercial market, and even small orders to the LE or Military market.
They didn't want to have to support the product they delivered. But as far as HK USA having the right to block shipments containing HK products, they absolutely do. They may not be due to a number of reasons - Obendorf may have put pressure on Krause-Mauser to let them ship product - they have very few international markets left. When that "german price waterhouse" individual first contacted me, he told me how bad they were hurting there in germany. But another reason could also be the majority of the HK USA employees are not full time, and the ones that are, are not aware of their rights at US Customs, nor how to access them. When i had a shipment coming, i'd start a rumor that i was thru importing HKs, and then whistle like someone walking past a cementary at midnight. The last shipment i brought in was over $250k and would have been a major hit if it had been seized. If i told you what HK charges the Australian market, you s**t yourself. Every industry sells to the pacific rim markets 20%+ less than they charge any other market - the only reason i could figure, they were trying to remove any motivation for chinese copies, or at least temper that motivation.
OP
larryccf
Contributing member
if accurate, that's good to hear
