Thanks for all the lively discussion! As the designer and manufacturer of this new STUD magazine it was my goal specifically, to produce somthing that I needed for benchrest and our pest control customers. While we have customers using these for hunting, they were not designed for this. These are also were not designed for lowest cost (just as our Stud Feeder/Loaders are much more expensive than our competitors) the ONLY goal was excellent function of the magazine. This is evidenced by us using roller bearings vs the standard FX magazines that ride plastic to plastic for example. As I always mention on these forums, we are not for everyone and that's OK.
These were also designed from the ground up to shoot slugs really, really well. I have been bombarded by people telling me how much they like shooting slugs and them having trouble with the FX magazines not working as good as they would like with slugs. This feeder system has a extremely tall pellet retention system so as the pellets move along their track, they are basically cupped and held perfectly straight. When you open up a FX magazine and compare it to ours, you will see their teeth are much shorter (not as pointy) as ours. These short teeth allow the slug to flop and bind causing non-feeds. In addition, our magazine is designed for the customer easily to adjust the feed pressure...big slugs need more pressure. In about 15 seconds the customer can increase the tension should they get ever a sluggish feed.
For those of you that have been hammering us about the (ugly) yellow color...we get it. Our site was updated today with a black option. For those of you who wondered why in the world we would make these in yellow...it is because we use standard colors as per caliber of the product. Our loaders in .22 are yellow and this is why yellow is a option, again mainly for the benchrest shooter that shoots many calibers, we don't want a customer getting to the range with his .22 and pulling our a STUD product for his .177. Anything we can do to make the customer more comfortable and happy is our basic direction (I have gotten to the range more than once with my .177 mag vs my .22 mag and went home not happy). To compromise we are making the (totally cool) feed chain in the caliber colors. I hope some of you that have share some images of the chain we designed for this. In my 44 years in the plastics industry this chain basically kicked my tail more than anything else I have designed. We actually 3D print this chain in "one piece"...it comes off the machine (after a 5 hour print) in one piece, fully functional with no assembly of any links etc. This was the challenge, no chain, you are limited to a wheel. Thats why in the Impact the mag is so large...making round wheels is easy, ones with chain, not so much.
We will continue to monitor our customers use of these and we will start coming out with more for the other calibers soon, and if the need is there for the Impact. We started with this magazine because I have a Dreamline and Maverick and wanted more shots. If I knew it would have taken me 6 months and several hundred prototypes...I would have gotten a Impact.
Any of you can PM me anytime with any ideas you have to make our products better. Basically everything we make is because a customer pushed us...same with this magazine. I am relatively new to the airgun industry and value your opinions very much. Also after being married for 44 years am use to being beat up on!
Here are a few of the images in black (thanks Charlie in NV for bugging me to do black, you were right, they look way better).
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