The corporate buyout of McMillan probably means that the days of ordering a stock just exactly the way you want is over. Moreover, prices-which have increased steadily in recent years--are unlikely to decline. With that in mind, you might get on gunbroker and search for the seller beck694. He/she/it is selling about 10 McMillan stocks at sub-$400 prices. The stocks might be a bit odd in terms of inletting or barrel contour or LOP, but if you can use one--even if it going to take some tweaking--it might be a good opportunity.

No connection with the seller, although I did buy the only LH stock he was selling.

Utah,

What has changed other than stock choices for certain rifles ?

Print screens of McMillan's current order form, still the same options:

I have heard that some stock designs will only be available as flattops. I may be mistaken; time will tell.

I'll call McMillan tomorrow AM to confirm and report back. They sent me a spreadsheet with active inlets.

Beck694 is probably the new owner of McMillian, Since it was Bob Beck that bought them.

Yep, Beck694 is the owner of McMillan now. They have a lot of big changes going on these days.

I’d be interested to hear what they say as well.

Just got off the phone with McMillan, I spoke with McMillan CS rep Josh Deards. The changes to options so far are fairly minimal, they are simply trimming the herd to rid the slow movers. From a production standpoint this makes sense, it simply takes too much time for machine setup to produce one stock for a single order.

Regarding the Winchester 70 stocks, at least 50% of their Win 70 models are still "active" for full inletting per Josh. That includes the RH Win Supergrade. Others like the Echols stocks require an order of 10 to produce flat top only. This makes sense since Mr. Echols prefers to do his own inletting anyways as did my former smith. The Win 70 Supergrade LH is flat top only since its less popular. So to state McMillan will not be offering full inletting for all of their Winchester 70 stocks is not correct or true.

McM's Winchester Featherweight is closed, the mold is being re-purposed. Just not enough demand. Others such as the pre 64 Win 70 are still available for pre 64 inletting and they might even expand options in the future for the pre 64 Win 70 crowd.

If you want to order a stock for a Win 70, I suggest you call McMillan to confirm before you order. Its that simple.

I did ask Josh about a stock for the Kimber 84 crowd. As was with Dick Davis there just is not enough demand for an aftermarket stock for the Kimber 84 to engineer and produce a mold. The bottom metal can be tricky to inlet for as well. In other words its not profitable and I certainly can understand that.

The changes McMillan's new owners are making are still being evaluated and won't be final for at least 8-10 weeks and will be posted on their website. The new owner's goal is to improve wait times down to 2-3 months. Some less popular stock models were dragging production times down considerably.

Great info !
Thanks for checking into it.

Seems pretty reasonable to me. Thank you for the G2.

Thanks for the f/u. Appreciate it.

A buddy of mine was told that they will not be doing custom camo colors anymore.

I wonder if that will effect the swirly orders too?

Unless they're planning on getting blanks done ahead of orders at some point, it doesn't take any more time to stick your finger in a black tub of paint vs puzzy pink.....

I hope that’s not the case. I would wait a year if I could just keep ordering what I want. That is how I kept ordering them after the price increase. The fact they offered my favorite stock(Sako Hunter pattern) for whatever rifle I needed it for and my choice of colors.

Sounds as though they’re moving towards just being able to crank out rem 700 stocks as fast as possible. This new owner is taking a big dump on a lot of people.

I understand what you and Kaleb are saying about losing an option for your favorite stock. However, it sounds like the previous setup was taking a dump on everyone regarding time to keep all options open for a small % of orders. I'm not arguing for one or the other but it sounds like new management is making a sound production decision for the company that will be beneficial to the majority of buyers.....but it does cut out a smaller percentage of buyers.

I get it and I don’t mean to be putting them down at all. I wish them the best. I understand the majority of the stocks ordered are not for someone’s mid weight hunting rifle.

If it was such a small percentage, it would not be clogging the system like you claim. Their wait times will go down. So will their customer base and revenue.

^^^^^^^
You have any proof to back up what you posted?

Seems you know alot about McMillan's operations.

I confused about the Winchester FWT mold being repurposed. A mold makes a specific shape, so how do you repurpose it?

Reading MtnHtr's info, my understanding is it's the setup for a small number of stocks that eats up so much time. The smaller the percentage or number of stocks, the more cost ineffective it becomes to take the time to change things over for their production.

And now the A-2 is gone.

Not sure either exactly what the rep meant, guess if the dimensions are small enough they could remachine it?

Before posting any potential misinformation I would call McMillan to confirm.

1-623-582-9635 Ask for Josh Deards

I got no dog in McMillans change, just don't care for some of the misinformation being posted.

If the new owners don't offer what I need I'll look elsewhere. But all of em make mistakes sometimes.

I know I’m the odd ball along with a few others and not everyone wants a McMillan Hunter in orange camo or purple swirly.....lol.

Do you? I know you will claim to as your normal procedure. We shall see won’t we?

One thing I do know for sure. Their story isn’t the same story twice.

I have. You?

I’ll call again this morning and see if I can come up with version three.

I'd assume that the molds are all created via CAD/CAM, so once the specs have been settled on and the software programs saved they could be made over and over again. Maybe they'll just make a new Winchester 70 FWT mold when or if they need one again.

All I intended with this thread was to let people know about some interesting prices on some McMillan stocks, and did not expect it to become a big deal. But it is winter on the campfire, so it is not surprising.

By the way, more info derived from my purchase: as people deduced from the gunbroker user name, the seller of the stock is Extreme Outer Limits (Bob Beck) which is based in Oregon,and is the new owner of McMillan. The stocks are shipping from Phoenix, so maybe the new business model is to sell inventory clutter on gunbroker rather than through the sale page. The one I bought has a 2018 date on the build spec tag.

I appreciate that you posted about the inexpensive McM stocks on GB. I looked at a few of the spec tags and saw how unique they were, so I wasn't a buyer. If there had been styles inletted for rifles that I wanted to bed in McM stocks, I would probably have been a buyer.

McM stocks priced over $500 don't seem like a particularly good value to me. I hope that they can make a quality product in the $500 range and that their customer service gets a whole lot better.

New owners bring change, but probably not for a while. They need to get in there and learn the business without running off key people before they start changing things around.

Once they think that they understand how the business really works, then we'll see changes. They could bring in technology that lets them deliver more inlets, not fewer, and do it faster.

Time will tell.


Okie John

They are sending mixed messages. My gunsmith and I made separate calls to McMillan. We were both told flat top only for Winchester stocks and that the ONLY stocks they would inlet for a Model 70 was the Game Hunter, Warden and Scout.

I just ordered a Manners MCS-T.

405wcf

I think I have 12 mcmillans on REM 700s and Sakos. Stopped buying them couple years ago cause I thought the price was out of line and the wait time ridiculous. I’ve bought four other manufacturers stocks in the last six months. Hope the new McMillan gets it together.

I agree, $750 for a gel coat stock is getting retarded.

If they are sending mixed messages then it's best to shop elsewhere, correct?

Only trying to bring some clarification to the matter, and I was told I could order certain models of Winchester stocks with full inletting.

As for the high price I would agree it's high but Manners is pretty high now too.