twodownzero Posted December 21, 2009 Share Posted December 21, 2009 So another post (here) got me interested in researching whether anyone actually has any intellectual property interest in the famous and innovative S_I grip frame for double stack 1911-style (aka, "2011") pistols. This search on Google Patents lists (presumably) all of Strayer's patents. Three (one, two, and three ) patents appear. All of them appear to be long since expired. All were issued in 1992 for a term of 14 years. I am not a lawyer, and so don't go telling anyone I gave you legal advice. With that said, it seems really fishy that the company in that other post won't sell their product here. If Strayer/Tripp no longer own the rights to the product, why hasn't anyone copied it yet? These products are/were unquestionably innovative advancements in our sport, and Strayer and Tripp deserved the government-sponsored monopoly that they were given in order to market them and recover their R&D costs and to profit from their bright idea. With that said, am I the only one who doesn't have a problem with someone bringing a generic S_I to the market to compete with them now, 14 years later? I think it's unfair that 10 of those 14 years were plagued by a magazine ban that destroyed some of the value of their product, but IF their intellectual property interest in the product is now expired, shouldn't consumers be allowed to choose whether or not to use an STI/SV frame or use a generic substitute? I think so. What do you guys think? Would you buy a knockoff S_I? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J-Ho Posted December 21, 2009 Share Posted December 21, 2009 If the patents are expired I don't see why competition shouldn't come on in. I am a big believer in competition in business. Someone will make an inexpensive copy and people will buy it. Look at the 1911 market. Not all 1911 are cheap though. If the 1911 market is any indication then there will be plenty of room for the top end well built guns from a company with good customer service. I'm sure this will hurt S_I at first, but my bet is that they will adjust. Plus they are Texans so they could just kick the other guy's butt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve J Posted December 21, 2009 Share Posted December 21, 2009 What do you guys think? Would you buy a knockoff S_I? I get pissed when all I can find is the house brand at a grocery store or chain drug store. I want the name-brand product. They are always a higher quality. Life is too short to save pennies on junk... so, I guess that's a no from me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMC Posted December 21, 2009 Share Posted December 21, 2009 Fusion Firearms makes S_I type frames http://www.fusionfirearms.com/servlet/the-...%2C-Wide/Detail Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G-ManBart Posted December 21, 2009 Share Posted December 21, 2009 What do you guys think? Would you buy a knockoff S_I? I get pissed when all I can find is the house brand at a grocery store or chain drug store. I want the name-brand product. They are always a higher quality. Life is too short to save pennies on junk... so, I guess that's a no from me. So if you were gathering parts to build a new 1911, you'd go with a Colt frame and slide because they're "higher quality" than everything else? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G-ManBart Posted December 21, 2009 Share Posted December 21, 2009 Fusion Firearms makes S_I type frameshttp://www.fusionfirearms.com/servlet/the-...%2C-Wide/Detail No, Fushion sells STI parts with their name on them....they don't make anything themselves. It seems like every part on their guns are made by STI, but they could have other suppliers for a few things. R, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
want2race Posted December 21, 2009 Share Posted December 21, 2009 The patent numbers on the grip itself aren't even for that part. IIRC. It would all too easy to undercut their price on the aluminum one that's for sure. That's a story for another thread however. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twodownzero Posted December 21, 2009 Author Share Posted December 21, 2009 Well this thread has brought a world of difference! My shelves are full of house brand stuff. Perhaps it's that I'm a broke college kid, but there are very few items where the knockoffs aren't as good as the original. I don't typically buy Chinese tools or aftermarket pistol magazines for my production guns (although the Korean Glock mags I have are just as good as OEM) but I do like competition and I'm happy to buy a house brand when the quality is there and the price allows me to save. I suspect that most of the reason that S_Is remain so expensive in this market is that the parts are extremely expensive. If you really look at it, the fancy shops like Brazos and others are running really narrow margins on a product that takes a lot of labor to produce. If I were to buy all of the parts to produce a limited gun, for example, I'd probably be out ~$1500-2500. And when I was done, I'd need the barrel chambered and fitted, the slide machined for sights and to lighten it, and the remainder of the parts fitted to my frame, of course. I'd imagine even the most skilled person would require an entire day or more to build a functional, high quality pistol from that bucket of parts. At those prices, the fancy S_I from a gunsmith look like a bargain when you consider what a machinist and a gunsmith ought to charge for their services. So, unless we're going to expect the most skilled people in the market to cut their wages (yeah right), we have to figure out a way to procure high quality parts at a lower price. If the patents are expired, it should be obvious as to what that means. I actually have personal knowledge of a fellow on here who makes his own S_I frames for personal use. All this time I thought he was infringing on an existing patent. Now I'm not so sure. The innovation that created the 2011 is nearly 20 years old now, and it's about time we see other firms enter the market. Part of the problem with doing that is that the 2011 style pistol is a rarely demanded item, and consumers want a specialized product. As we already know, there are a few factory 2011 style limited/open guns produced by STI, but other than that, they're all pretty much one of a kind besides that, fitted to each shooter--and that is hard to "knock off." The poor people (like me) in this game are shooting production and single stack, and perhaps some L10. The barriers to limited/open are the expense of the equipment necessary to be competitive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G-ManBart Posted December 21, 2009 Share Posted December 21, 2009 The poor people (like me) in this game are shooting production and single stack, and perhaps some L10. The barriers to limited/open are the expense of the equipment necessary to be competitive. You're right about the amount of time and effort it goes into making a quality custom gun. Most of the top smiths I've talked with says it takes them at least a day, and some say more, to build a gun, but then they need to function check, tweak, send out for finish (if that's part of the plan) and then check it again after it comes back. Add all of that and you're talking quite a bit of time. If you knew exactly how many hours a smith put into a gun and then figured out their profit, their hourly wage would be suprisingly low. I'll bet that the guy changing recoil pads and installing scopes at the local Gander Mountain is making more than guys building top level custom guns. I did the broke college student shooting USPSA thing years ago, so I know where you're coming from. Still, you can be equally competitive with something like a Glock 35 in Limited and a Glock 17 in Open and not break the bank. Obviously, the Open setup will cost more because you're going to need to have someone who knows what they're doing set it up, but it's still way less than going with an S_I, Caspian etc. There are also some reasonable alternatives with the EAA Witness line that will save you a big chunk of change. Any of those options will put you on a level playing field. R, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
want2race Posted December 21, 2009 Share Posted December 21, 2009 1911 forged frame, about $150 2011 frame with grip, about $400 I bet the main reason the 1911 frames are so cheap by comparison, anybody can make them. I would love to see a 2011 style frame available for $200. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twodownzero Posted December 21, 2009 Author Share Posted December 21, 2009 I actually have a limited gun that my friend has loaned me for the season that I can shoot whenever I want, so this isn't about me, but just more a more broad topic about bringing more into the sport. Plenty of people shoot Glocks, Tangfolios, and all kinds of other, hinged trigger guns in limited. That's not the topic here. If you read carefully, I'm also not suggesting that the gunsmiths are charging too much. In fact, I think considering the personal attention these pistols get compared to a factory gun, you're getting an absolute bargain when you guy a $2500 limited gun made from $1500+ worth of parts and with $200+ worth of hard chrome finish on it. In that respect, the current $2500 limited gun is actually a great value considering the amount of highly skilled labor it takes to produce. The conclusion that I think seems to come from that is that is that the key way to make the price of the finished product go down--and perhaps increase the profit margins of gunsmiths slightly--is for competition to bring cheaper parts. 1911 forged frame, about $1502011 frame with grip, about $400 I bet the main reason the 1911 frames are so cheap by comparison, anybody can make them. I would love to see a 2011 style frame available for $200. I agree with you to a point, but I do want to mention one other thing for your consideration. Part of the reason 1911 frames are cheaper is that they're much more popular. In economics, we call this "economies of scale." Manufacturers know that they can crank out large numbers of 1911s for the consumption of the masses, whereas the 2011 is a niche product for competitors that few outside of the competitive realm will ever use. So, while some of the price difference is undoubtedly due to the lack of competition, some if it stems from the 2011 design's slightly more complicated machine work/assembly, and some of it from economies of scale. I suspect that the 2011's materials cost is lower, however, because plastic has to be cheaper than steel. I'd be happy with a $250 grip/frame. That'd still represent nearly a 40% decrease in the price, and a 2011 frame would still be more than 150% of the cost of a 1911 frame, even at that price, whereas at current prices it's nearly 300%. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMC Posted December 21, 2009 Share Posted December 21, 2009 I thought the STI patent was for the plastic grip and not for the metal frame. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Cheely Posted December 21, 2009 Share Posted December 21, 2009 I thought the STI patent was for the plastic grip and not for the metal frame. I believe you're correct. But it's pointless to produce a frame if you can't reliably get grips for it. The mould to make the grips is $$$$. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seth Posted December 21, 2009 Share Posted December 21, 2009 (edited) No. Frame is patented too. http://www.google.com/patents?id=59olAAAAE...;q=&f=false and combined... http://www.google.com/patents?id=vkgmAAAAE...;q=&f=false Edited December 21, 2009 by Seth Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Cheely Posted December 21, 2009 Share Posted December 21, 2009 Well, point still holds. Who wants to drop the 50 grand + it would probably take to make the mould to produce plastic grips. It would take a large volume to recoup the cost of such an endeavor. Even if you could undercut the price on the Aluminum grip, you're not going to do it by much, and your whole grip+frame is still going to cost $500 plus retail margin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JThompson Posted December 21, 2009 Share Posted December 21, 2009 I thought the STI patent was for the plastic grip and not for the metal frame. I believe you're correct. But it's pointless to produce a frame if you can't reliably get grips for it. The mould to make the grips is $$$$. Yup. The reason SV did the Aluminum thing is their deal to use the STI mould expired. Major bucks for the mould................. JT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve J Posted December 21, 2009 Share Posted December 21, 2009 What do you guys think? Would you buy a knockoff S_I? I get pissed when all I can find is the house brand at a grocery store or chain drug store. I want the name-brand product. They are always a higher quality. Life is too short to save pennies on junk... so, I guess that's a no from me. So if you were gathering parts to build a new 1911, you'd go with a Colt frame and slide because they're "higher quality" than everything else? That comparison today is taking it to the absurd. Today there are "name brand" parts today that are far superior to Colt's and there are also junk parts available. If you go back 30+ years to the same point on the availability timeline, the vast majority of non-Colt parts that first appeared on the market were not superior. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twodownzero Posted December 22, 2009 Author Share Posted December 22, 2009 No. Frame is patented too.http://www.google.com/patents?id=59olAAAAE...;q=&f=false and combined... http://www.google.com/patents?id=vkgmAAAAE...;q=&f=false I already linked to both of those. Both are expired, and have been for over 3 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loves2Shoot Posted December 22, 2009 Share Posted December 22, 2009 From these post, I think a lot of people do not understand the cost of doing business and that copying an established product might be a good way to waste a lot of money IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jasonub Posted December 22, 2009 Share Posted December 22, 2009 wait till norinco of china discovers that the s_i patent has expired Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G-ManBart Posted December 22, 2009 Share Posted December 22, 2009 I actually have a limited gun that my friend has loaned me for the season that I can shoot whenever I want, so this isn't about me, but just more a more broad topic about bringing more into the sport. Plenty of people shoot Glocks, Tangfolios, and all kinds of other, hinged trigger guns in limited. That's not the topic here. Well, you said something different in the previous post. I wasn't changing the topic, just commenting on what you said: The poor people (like me) in this game are shooting production and single stack, and perhaps some L10. The barriers to limited/open are the expense of the equipment necessary to be competitive. The barrier to any division may be the expense of the equipment necessary to be competitive, but it doesn't require significantly more to be competitive in Limited/Open than the other divisions if you dont' want it to be. I shot Open as a broke college student, so I know it can be done Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G-ManBart Posted December 22, 2009 Share Posted December 22, 2009 What do you guys think? Would you buy a knockoff S_I? I get pissed when all I can find is the house brand at a grocery store or chain drug store. I want the name-brand product. They are always a higher quality. Life is too short to save pennies on junk... so, I guess that's a no from me. So if you were gathering parts to build a new 1911, you'd go with a Colt frame and slide because they're "higher quality" than everything else? That comparison today is taking it to the absurd. Today there are "name brand" parts today that are far superior to Colt's and there are also junk parts available. If you go back 30+ years to the same point on the availability timeline, the vast majority of non-Colt parts that first appeared on the market were not superior. Hey, I'm not the one that used an absolute I won't debate that frequently the original is the best, but sometimes there really is no difference, or the "copy" is as good and sometimes even better. Based upon the methods required to make a 2011 frame I can't see anybody coming out with a bargain basement version that is significantly inferior...i.e. it's not a simple casting like most 1911 frames are. Using modern equipment and materials it's easier than ever to reverse engineer something to be a really exact copy of a high quality, complex item. Now, that doesn't imply that the folks doing the copying are even remotely capable of understanding the process it took to get to the end result, but the items in hand may well be identical save for markings. R, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j1b Posted December 22, 2009 Share Posted December 22, 2009 I'm no lawyer either so the truth is from a legal standpoint I have no earthly idea. That said, if the patent is indeed expired, is long since expired, and no capital rich company has opted in to create "inspired" goods starkly similar to the original would indicate there's a fair number of people that don't see the R.O.I on the deal. Perhaps it is cost prohibitive to jump into the pool. Or perhaps the uncertainty of the political environment today makes such investments feel riskier. It would seem like a no brainer for Springfield, S&W, or Kimber to integrate the frame into their production line. But they haven't. Which means there is a barrier to entry, though I don't really know what it is. The other thought is wondering if it would in fact drive business. Cheap 1911's have their place in the world, but you don't see many at an IPSC match. Entry level shooters or not. While opening price point goods in general boost the number of viable consumers, it is conceivable that in this specific market it simply doesn't pay for itself. Specifically if margins on the goods aren't that great anyhow. If the "premium" priced guys aren't margin rich, then the opening price point gig would definitely not feel very good. The point of premium in most cases is to deliver quality to the consumer and margin to the company. Like Bart, in fact WITH Bart, I fought through the dead broke, college days, of IPSC shooting. Reality for us back then was there really was only two divisions, open and limited. And where we played, there was really only open. If the stars align, and priorities are made, then it can be done. Even on a miserably low i.e. dangerously close to negative, income level. Jack Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
want2race Posted December 22, 2009 Share Posted December 22, 2009 Based upon the methods required to make a 2011 frame I can't see anybody coming out with a bargain basement version that is significantly inferior...i.e. it's not a simple casting like most 1911 frames are. Using modern equipment and materials it's easier than ever to reverse engineer something to be a really exact copy of a high quality, complex item. Now, that doesn't imply that the folks doing the copying are even remotely capable of understanding the process it took to get to the end result, but the items in hand may well be identical save for markings. R, We know the frame can be done in a garage ("that guy" that makes his own). I know the grip can be done in aluminum. I'm not a machinist, yet I prototyped one on a 2 axis vert. mill. Not all that hard. STI frame and Al grip is over $700. To be a viable alternative to a standard frame kit the price would have to be the same as the standard kit. The added cost of the grip is the key. If you don't have a supply of grips, you can't be competitive. If anyone tried to buy grips for their own frames, watch how fast that source gets shut off by STI. If the patent is gone, there are other variables keeping others at bay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maks_H Posted December 22, 2009 Share Posted December 22, 2009 Just for comparison. Prices in Erope are. STI plastic grip...........225$ STI alu grip................600$ SVI plastic grip...........300$ SVI alu grip S or L......675$ SVI alu signature grip.720$ SVI SS grip S or L.......870$ SVI SS signature.........915$ SPS plastic grip.............75$ I just hope, that Kimber or any other cheaper company will start producing 2011 guns. I don't mind on lower quality for vault guns. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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