40 replies to this topic

[FireKnife]

The Timberwolf is based off TM design...I suspected it came from the same factory as the HK3P and WE so it's not too bad; meaning that I believe out of the box they ARE functional Furthermore, being a TM clone if you wanted the Timberwolf really badly there's a plethora of upgrades

But i would be spending £130 on the Timberwolf, £130 on the TM to get the parts from and i would be left with a TM body that has WE bits in it, in other words a waste of time

However as to Madbull they do seem to have this focus on 'yeah we have a name to our products you all know and love', great but who cares, i would rather my pistol and bits are endorsed by no-one by cost £20 less.

'FireKnife'

[Noveske]

Amen.

I think it's important to remember, that Madbull - like any other airsoft manufacturer - makes TOYS . Nothing more. Some mistakes are unavoidable because QC will be never the same as in firearms industry.

Madbull vs VFC. Toy vs. Toy. I choose VFC anyday. I'm not trying to advocate VFC, but for the $ spent on Madbull, they could really do better. And having all the trademark rights for many reputable RS brands, I wish they would try harder.

I remember the time Madbull first started getting licensing from Noveske, G&P was making Noveske traded AEG receivers with much better finishes and trades vs the Madbull equivalent. That could be said with the Proud Noveske KX3s vs the Madbull ones as well as the PRO&T Noveske-SWS rails vs the Madbull ones. I even recall price-wise they were very similar to the Madbull counterpart. What am I missing here?

[hwagan]

My G&P WOC has a G&P made replica of a 9" URX on it. It's got full, accurate, laser engraved KAC trades, it fits flawlessly, the rail is all in spec and evenly machined, the finish is awesome, there's a huge attention to detail, it takes a gas tube and costs about $100.

I'm with Noveske on this one. If Madbull want to make an accurate, in spec rail, with none of the 'For airsoft only' stuff visible when installed, with the ability to fit a gas tube, then good on them. If they want to keep knocking out toy rail systems with horrible markings and buying up the licenses so noone else can do it properly, to hell with madbull.

The Noveske receiver is a perfect example; The G&P one was *fruitcage* gorgeous, and cost $90 or so when you could find one. Solely down to Madbull, those receivers, and many other products, are now unobtanium. And the madbull equivalents they've replaced them with are just nowhere near as nice.

Essentially, Madbull are like a hollywood studio that manages to sign up Katy Perry and Megan Fox on an exclusive contract in an awesome action film where they get on each other a lot, advertise said film all over the place and get everyone all excited, and then release a film about Madonna's arm-cables instead.

Edited by hwagan, 12 June 2012 - 07:17 AM.

[MRF]

What if all inaccuracies are a part of license agreement ?
I think it's possible.

[Isamu]

There is so much truth in Hwagan's and noveske's words this post should be closed and pinned for future references.

MRF: It may be possible that contracs are making madbull build subpar quality products, but from my marketing studies and experience, making low quality products not only hurts your image but the RS brand your represent as well, and up to my limited knowledge, no brand wants his image damaged in the least slightly, more even now in the internetz era when in a couple of minutes a single small error can send your reputacion down the Toilet without flushing after, leaving a nice smell which will follow them their whole life.

So, if this is true, it means madbull doesnt care about quality or customers, they just care to monopolize their licenses like humarex or cybergun do while making cheap products and price them like they were golden fairy dust. If they cared in the slightly about their reputation and customers, they would build their products like G&P or VFC

[intinerious]

But i would be spending £130 on the Timberwolf, £130 on the TM to get the parts from and i would be left with a TM body that has WE bits in it, in other words a waste of time

Like I said, if you REALLLLLLY wanted a Timberwolf combined with the legendary performance of a TM and it's aftermarket parts....you've got a choice XD Hey, in some parts of the world WE is better than TM in the eyes of naive airsofters so you have a chance of selling that TM externals / WE internals Glock abomination you created just so you can have that Timberwolf


Back on topic, completely agree with Noveske, hwagan and Isamu. From what I can see given that Madbull is trying to operate like Cybergun they don't really have airsofters in mind when they get the licensing to build airsoft products. G&P's stuff is made in China guys, and if G&P's quality is that good (I can't attest to the rails given my G&P AEG is an old school M16A3 ) compared against Madbull's (which are allegedly made in Taiwan, hence in theory it should have better QC being NOT ILLEGAL and all ) then it's very easy for me to place my suspicion that Madbull are churning out those rails from the lowest cost possible whilst placing a premium on the licensing. The premium of the licensing, as long as it's reasonable, shouldn't be an issue with any of us but with the stuff the licencing is placed on it really makes you shudder at how bad their products are for the cost.

Another thing that I don't like about Madbull (and fiddlesticks agreed with me here when I was discussing this with him when he was in HK) is their marketing blurbs. Normally I don't read that stuff as I don't really give a damn about it but the marketing blurb for the Noveske receivers really caught my eye. Didn't Madbull write that they made the first ever Noveske receiver in airsoft? I doubt they meant the first ever licensed copy of the receiver since they aren't known for having a bad command of English in their marketing but that's just downright disingenuous when the G&P one's been floating around for some time already.

Oh and whilst I'm writing about the receivers note that they don't even make their receivers to spec if I remember correctly. Sure there's lots of gearboxes with slightly different dimensions and tolerances around but you'll think Madbull would've done a better job on theirs when receivers like G&P's can practically fit most types of v2 gearboxes (with TM design) without any issues.

EDIT:

MRF: It may be possible that contracs are making madbull build subpar quality products, but from my marketing studies and experience, making low quality products not only hurts your image but the RS brand your represent as well, and up to my limited knowledge, no brand wants his image damaged in the least slightly, more even now in the internetz era when in a couple of minutes a single small error can send your reputacion down the Toilet without flushing after, leaving a nice smell which will follow them their whole life.

It just occurred to me that given the real steel community's despise of airsoft wouldn't most licensing to Madbull be of a pure 'extra profit' agenda for real steel companies? I doubt they'll ever care about airsoft (let alone endorse it other than licensing out their brand) enough to even think about the QC of the licensed products. In my opinion it's not gonna hurt their image in their perspective as the market is totally different in their eyes; the RS stuff is for real steel shooters and the airsoft stuff is cheap toys.

Edited by intinerious, 12 June 2012 - 08:32 AM.

[jkpics]

It's not about the cost of madbull vs RS, it's about the cost of madbull vs good MIC stuff, and you know what, I will gladly pay less for a MIC rail with 99% real trademarks and room for a gastube, over a madbull rail with *suitcase* trademarks and ekstra work to fit standard parts.

[QDRenegade]

Guess Ive just had better luck than everyone with Madbull parts then

[bOp]

It's not about the cost of madbull vs RS, it's about the cost of madbull vs good MIC stuff, and you know what, I will gladly pay less for a MIC rail with 99% real trademarks and room for a gastube, over a madbull rail with *suitcase* trademarks and ekstra work to fit standard parts.

This. For me. I've held off for a few months waiting for the 9inch ACM MK18 rails to pop up for sale on any HK shop. Over the weekend my wish came true and I got one for $53 posted or there abouts.

I have had issues with fitting Madbull rails, and having to buy their specific G&P Barrel Nuts for it not to even work - as I found out with the Madbull Noveske rails. I've had a Madbull Noveske barrel nut sitting in my bits box for a year or two now. The ACM Noveske rails I have purchased over the last year have all mounted to G&P receivers perfectly!

The only rail I have had from Madbull that I loved, never had any problems with was their first gen Omega rails (Without the 'Airsoft Only' laser etching) a few years ago.

Not to say, G&P and the like are faultless as I have had problems with G&P receiver threads, more specific G&P's Magpul MUR receivers not accepting G&P own rails..

Edited by bOp, 12 June 2012 - 06:51 PM.

[CKinnerley]

I would imagine (I can hardly be certain, but at a very slightly educated guess) Haley would probably have loved to team up with TM, but it will presumably be a geographical issue more than anything.

Echo1 are an entirely US based/centric company, and Madbull seem to have quite a presence there as well. TM/G&P... not so much unfortunately.

[uscmCorps]

I'm not a big proponent of Madbull's but I have bought their rails in the past. Their black finish is decent. Their FDE finish is not (but only from the standpoint that the finish is horribly aesthetically inaccurate, the execution is decent). Trademark inaccuracies and a blocked gas tube are due to licensing agreements since they do have access to the RS stuff, so they went out of their way to purposely make it inaccurate. While this may make little sense to us as airsoft consumers, as someone who works with RS manufacturers a lot, I know it's a very big deal to most RS manufacturers that the airsoft accessories can not in any way be confused with the RS parts and can not compete in the same market. Regarding Madbull's out of spec rails ... that is simply due to poor design by their in house CAD designer. Not really a QC issue per say since the batches of rails that have that issue were made to the specs that were defined by the designer. The screw up is design, not QC. The price of their rails is in large part due to the fact that they're manufactured in Taiwan where production costs are significantly higher, and compared to the ACM counterparts they used a higher grade material and paint. The higher grade materials and paint probably means very little to most airsofters as, upon inspection, the side by side comparison between the Taiwan produced product and ACM stuff isn't particularly evident. Regarding licensing costs, the industry standard for licensing royalties is typically between 3% to 5% of the factory price (factory price is typically 50-65% of the MSRP depending on the product). So the higher prices is less to do with licensing, more to do with where the product is made as that directly correlates to cost of labor, raw materials, and coating media. G&P, DYTAC and most other HK based manufacturers have their product made in China. G&P recently moved most of their manufacturing operations to HK due to the China crackdowns and their prices have taken a sudden increase on newer inventory. People have made good points here though. The unlicensed versions are decent and regardless of where they're made, who they're made by and what they're made from, most consumers really don't care. Which should be a sign to Madbull that in order to ensure strong and continued sales of these licensed accessories in the same market as the unlicensed ones, there's really no room for failure. No mistakes. Out of spec rails won't cut it. Inaccurate finish won't cut it. You've got to make sure your product is more attractive to the consumer than your competitor's, and not simply by monopolizing it through exclusivity, because some of your competitors don't care about that.

Echo1/SocomGear/Madbull is all basically the same company under the same ownership. Regarding VFC vs Echo1/SocomGear/Madbull, VFC is the internals OEM and generally assembly production for a lot of the Echo1/SocomGear/Madbull AEGs. The Timberwolf series is indeed using the same OEM as the WE/HK3P manufacturer.

Regarding Costa's "collaboration" with Madbull, that's simply a marketing gimmick by Madbull. All Madbull is doing is distributing shirts. Big deal. A few dealers are doing the same. It's simply retail. To imply there's a bigger connection between the two is a big leap. I asked Chris during a recent class regarding his "collaboration" with Echo1. That collaboration has been extremely reigned in since it's original (premature) announcement. They're producing a limited number of guns under his brand, and rather than collect royalties, those royalties are given to a charity.

[Noveske]

Regarding Costa's "collaboration" with Madbull, that's simply a marketing gimmick by Madbull. All Madbull is doing is distributing shirts. Big deal. A few dealers are doing the same. It's simply retail. To imply there's a bigger connection between the two is a big leap. I asked Chris during a recent class regarding his "collaboration" with Echo1. That collaboration has been extremely reigned in since it's original (premature) announcement. They're producing a limited number of guns under his brand, and rather than collect royalties, those royalties are given to a charity.

"Chris Costa and Costa Ludos Becomes Part of Madbull Family". Strong words for simply retailing T-shirts I reckon.

Source:
http://www.publicenemy.com.hk/?p=1474

[hwagan]

The way Madbull have worded it makes it look like they've just hired him to run a CNC machine or something...

[uscmCorps]

"Chris Costa and Costa Ludos Becomes Part of Madbull Family". Strong words for simply retailing T-shirts I reckon.

Source:
http://www.publicenemy.com.hk/?p=1474

Another example of BS marketing. They are not the exclusive distributors. Maybe in the airsoft world, who knows. If you were to ever talk to him in person as I have a few times on the matter, it's clear he's most definitely not in bed with him regardless of how Echo1/SocomGear/Madbull want to spin it.

[CKinnerley]

The way Madbull have worded it makes it look like they've just hired him to run a CNC machine or something...

Well on the plus side, if they had, he'd do a much better job than the monkeys they have doing it at the moment.

[hwagan]

Well on the plus side, if they had, he'd do a much better job than the monkeys they have doing it at the moment.

I doubt he'd need the CNC machine anyway, I assume he'd just stare at some lumps of billet until they turned into rails.

[Shardik]

He should team up with chuck Norris. Can you imagine?

[FireKnife]

He should team up with chuck Norris. Can you imagine?

Chris Norris? Chuck Costa?

They both have +10 epic beard but that isn't going to be enough. If you asked Chuck all you would get is 'Ain't that the dude that started that coffee shop *suitcase*?'

Meh, what next Travis Haley and Mr.T?

'I pity the fool who don't know Dynamics!'

'FireKnife'

[Isamu]

He should team up with chuck Norris. Can you imagine?

Then they would build rails made of beards, but again, Chuck norris doesnt need to shoot to annihilate anything, he just punches it with his ego

EDIT: Let them Team up, even more, let the teams team up, they will never be as awesome and badass as Clint Eastwood, and he doesnt even let his beard grow

Edited by Isamu, 13 June 2012 - 02:55 PM.

[CKinnerley]

I think he's too busy with the justice league to do that personally, but they do use hairs from his beard in lieu of titanium/diamond composite tips for their tooling. Or at least they would if a razor existed which could shave said beard...

Anyway, on the topic of the big man himself teaming up with different companies, if anyone likes gucci kit (Arc'teryx clothing, Belleville boots, Smith optics eye-pro, Surefire lights etc) then you may want to check out the sale tac distributors have going on.

Edited by CKinnerley, 13 June 2012 - 02:58 PM.