XD Niner Posted January 1, 2008 Share Posted January 1, 2008 (edited) I had emailed the CEO of Midway a few days ago to let them know I appreciate their customer service. I also took the opportunity to inquire about the likelihood of them carrying the Vibra Prime again. Here is the disappoining response I received: "Thanks for the kind words. As for the Vibra Prime, I am afraid it has been dropped due to slow sales. I thought sure it was going to be a hit, but the shooting public just yawned. When we sell out of the accessories, that will be it. Wish I had better news. Thanks for the business, Larry Potterfield President/CEO MidwayUSA NRA Benefactor Member" It wasn't the news I know we all wanted to hear but it was an honest response and I applaud Larry for that. I had wanted a backup for my current unit. I guess that won't be happening now. Bummer! Edited January 1, 2008 by XD Niner Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Micah Posted January 1, 2008 Share Posted January 1, 2008 Merlin is going to be beside himself... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HSMITH Posted January 1, 2008 Share Posted January 1, 2008 Glad I have two, I wouldn't want to be without one and I don't want to spend 6 or 7 times as much for the same function when the vibraprime entirely meets my needs..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry White Posted January 1, 2008 Share Posted January 1, 2008 Merlin is going to be beside himself... Merlin now just sits in a corner and gloates, he has more vibra primes than anybody.-------------Larry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nemo Posted January 1, 2008 Share Posted January 1, 2008 Merlin now just sits in a corner and gloates, he has more vibra primes than anybody.-------------Larry I knew it was just a matter of time! How many, Merlin? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merlin Orr Posted January 1, 2008 Share Posted January 1, 2008 You guys got it all wrong....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PistolPete Posted January 2, 2008 Share Posted January 2, 2008 That really sucks... I LOVE mine but it seems to be wearing out a bit. I guess when it dies I'll need to replace it with the Dillon primer feeder. At a 10th of the cost of the Dillon the Vibra prime was the way to go. Hopefully I'll get a few more years out of mine. What's funny is on the plastic flip tray because I use so many small primers the piece that slides into the vibra prime is worn down so bad that the "S" is no longer visible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PistolPete Posted January 2, 2008 Share Posted January 2, 2008 That really sucks... I LOVE mine but it seems to be wearing out a bit. I guess when it dies I'll need to replace it with the Dillon primer feeder. At a 10th of the cost of the Dillon the Vibra prime was the way to go. Hopefully I'll get a few more years out of mine. What's funny is on the plastic flip tray because I use so many small primers the piece that slides into the vibra prime is worn down so bad that the "S" is no longer visible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjlefty51 Posted January 2, 2008 Share Posted January 2, 2008 Bummer. they were a great inexpensive alternative. I guess I need to get some of the parts before they go away so I can keep mine going as long as possibly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shred Posted January 2, 2008 Share Posted January 2, 2008 The Dillon costs a bunch more, but it's like going from a semi to full-auto (hey, that costs a bunch more too ). Just dump in a box of primers any old which way up, hit the button and go away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Radical Precision Designs Posted January 2, 2008 Share Posted January 2, 2008 Yeah. It is a bummer. Several months ago (since I am a listed dealer for Midway) I ordered ten of them for my Store shelf stock. At that time they had thirty five of them in stock, and was told that they would be discontinued in the near future, but that you could get them from its manufacturer Frankford Arsenal. Within a week I called Midway back to purchase the remaining Vibra-Primes. They were gone. Then I contacted Frankford Arsenal through their web-site and on the phone, because I could not find any trace or mention of the Vibra-Prime other than a few accessories and supplies, but not the tool itself. I could not get any sensible answer other than it was a "Corporate" decision to drop that item. Frankford Arsenal has dropped quite a few of the old favorites. It seems that these items, like so many others are the result of some non-descript "chinese manufacturers" that eventually become unreliable, and decide to no longer make the product unless "humongous" amounts are ordered every time. Or maybe it was an increase in manufacturing costs. Who knows ?? What burns me is that actual consumers are removed from the equation of determining these things. Believe me, the demand for these tools was there. Witness the fact as to how quickly the stock on hand dried out. :angry2: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skywalker Posted January 2, 2008 Share Posted January 2, 2008 Since Frankford Arsenal (officially?) dropped Vibra-Prime, wouldn't it be possible to talk any other reloading equipment manufacturer into designing and producing a similar tool? With all the requests I've read so far from forum members, it would surely look like a good commercial venture. In the past I have had to completely disassemble my Vibra-Prime to replace a faulty microswitch (the one behind the trigger thing), and it surely looks like a very easy tool to produce. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pigdawg Posted January 2, 2008 Share Posted January 2, 2008 When I first heard about the vibra prime on the BE boards I ordered 2 of them and told everyone else about them only to find out they had been discontinued. Only problem was a couple of my friends found out I "had" a spare now 1 of them has it. Someone if not FA needs to make this item again I the demand just seems to great. Then maybe I can get my spare back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sargenv Posted January 3, 2008 Share Posted January 3, 2008 And to think I gave mine away... I dunno, I never really cared for it... and someone here was the lucky recipient.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Moneypenny Posted January 3, 2008 Share Posted January 3, 2008 Been looking for one never did find it... how sad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Front Man Posted January 3, 2008 Share Posted January 3, 2008 Yeah. It is a bummer. Several months ago (since I am a listed dealer for Midway) I ordered ten of them for my Store shelf stock. At that time they had thirty five of them in stock, and was told that they would be discontinued in the near future, but that you could get them from its manufacturer Frankford Arsenal. Within a week I called Midway back to purchase the remaining Vibra-Primes. They were gone. Then I contacted Frankford Arsenal through their web-site and on the phone, because I could not find any trace or mention of the Vibra-Prime other than a few accessories and supplies, but not the tool itself. I could not get any sensible answer other than it was a "Corporate" decision to drop that item. Frankford Arsenal has dropped quite a few of the old favorites. It seems that these items, like so many others are the result of some non-descript "chinese manufacturers" that eventually become unreliable, and decide to no longer make the product unless "humongous" amounts are ordered every time. Or maybe it was an increase in manufacturing costs. Who knows ?? What burns me is that actual consumers are removed from the equation of determining these things. Believe me, the demand for these tools was there. Witness the fact as to how quickly the stock on hand dried out. They should have advertised in Front Sight and some other speciality magazines. They were gone before I knew anything about them. FM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KentG Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 Bummer. I like mine a lot. Just have to hope it holds up till someone make something similar. Im NOT gonna shell out for the Dillon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExtremeShot Posted February 6, 2008 Share Posted February 6, 2008 Here's some more news about the Vibra Primer: Email sent to me from Russ Potterfield: Darren, We permanently discontinued the VibraPrime in 2007. We scrapped all of the parts and all of the tooling required to build the product. There is, in effect, nothing left of the VibraPrime project. Sorry that we can't help. Thanks, Russ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Keen Posted February 6, 2008 Share Posted February 6, 2008 This is nothing new ..... keep your old V-P's running, rebuild them as needed, or donate the broken ones to Merlin! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExtremeShot Posted February 6, 2008 Share Posted February 6, 2008 This is nothing new ..... keep your old V-P's running, rebuild them as needed, or donate the broken ones to Merlin! Nothing new? Did you notice he said even the tooling was scrapped? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Keen Posted February 6, 2008 Share Posted February 6, 2008 I wasn't on the edge of my seat 'awaiting a return of the VP any-hoo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ima45dv8 Posted February 6, 2008 Share Posted February 6, 2008 Thankfully I recently discovered a spare unit I didn't know I had. It's in the safe now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raz-0 Posted February 6, 2008 Share Posted February 6, 2008 This is nothing new ..... keep your old V-P's running, rebuild them as needed, or donate the broken ones to Merlin! Nothing new? Did you notice he said even the tooling was scrapped? Probably less like scrapped, and more like the molds were reaching their service life, and they had to make the call to shell out money up front for new molds or kill the product. Honestly, the push down on each primer method was starting to give me RSI problems. I'd seriously have had to reconsider reloading and thus most of my shooting. After using it I would defnitely pay more for something to take it's place. However, to do large and small, dillon wants $320. Shooting is getting expensive enough as it is. Not that the dillon isn't cool, but it is WAY overbuilt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
border Posted March 1, 2008 Share Posted March 1, 2008 I emailed Midway today re the Vibra-Prime (ok, I'm late to this party...2/29/08)...and this is their response: Dear Sir, Thanks for your email. I'm told that the product sold well initially, but that once the market was saturated with the Vibra Prime sales fell off dramatically. Unless there's overwhelming evidence of an enormous demand for that product it would be very difficult to justify a production run large enough to make the product economically viable. We appreciate your feedback, though, and I've forwarded your comments to Marketing just in case! Please let us know if we can be of further help. Thanks for your business! Sincerely, Brian Customer Service MidwayUSA 1. I don't for a minute believe that the market was saturated w/the VP and sales fell off dramatically. 2. Enormous demand? Don't know what that means...From what I've seen/read it's out there but "enormous"...?...Larry...just what does that mean to you? 3. Production run...economically viable?...WTH?...They destroy the molds? Hey, this is cheap plastic...those molds cost that much? Wow, I'm impressed!.... I get the impression that a lot of us would like to have the Frankford Arsenal VP...I'd like another one...mind is really slowing down!...Hey, if the market is so saturated w/these things how come Dillon is still offering their expensive primer loader for $200+ day in/day out?...Don't get me wrong, I love big Blue but man, VP sure is an alternative ya know?... Besides, Midway owns Frankford Arsenal and if they can't produce it cheaply there's gotta be a problem...Makes me wonder if maybe Dillon just bought the VP out from Midway...ala MicroSoft and it's competition?.... That VP can NOT be all that expensive to make...cost them what....$10 or less to make? They destroyed the molds? Wow, does that make sense?...There's a problem here. They make it sound like it was some kind of one-off or something...Hey, this ain't a tv one-off bike build...it's plastic and an electric motor...!... I have to think, because the VP worked surprisingly well, that L. Potterfield and M. Dillon had a serious conversation that is costing the rest of us access to a good product. Maybe I'm just nuts but Midway seems to make a big deal out of the fact that the product just didn't sell well enough for them to justify its' existence...Hmmm...There's a smell-test issue in here somewhere...Something's wrong when, with all the stuff Midway sells, they can't continue to make something a lot of us liked , that cost them very little to make, is no longer available?...I'm a cynic I guess...Guess I'll have to put up the big bucks for a Dillon primer loader that sometimes works fine... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricW Posted March 1, 2008 Share Posted March 1, 2008 (edited) I seriously doubt that there is a conspiracy to sell RF-100's. The RF-100 sells itself. Destroying the tooling was a pretty drastic measure, which tells you that something fairly major was going on in the background since the logical decision would have been to discontinue the product, but sell the rights and the tooling to someone else. Rather than collusion, it would suggest either that FA was hit with a patent infringement nastygram ... or with product liability suit (or threat thereof). And for all the accusations that the Dillon is "expensive," hogwash. It's the biggest bargain in vibratory feeders today. Most units that do the same thing industrially cost 20 to 50 times as much. It's also SAFE. The operator is protected by steel, aluminum, and Lexan - as opposed to - well - no shielding at all on the vibraprime. ETA: Door #3 is that the tooling was trashed during operation and was out of warranty. This is pretty common when a soft tool closes on a part. Midway probably couldn't justify constructing new tooling based on the remaining sales volume and thus bagged the project. In fact, this is the most likely scenario. Don't ask me why I didn't think of it earlier... Edited March 2, 2008 by EricW Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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