New Gun Design
Interested in designing and developing the next evolution in the combat hand gun catagory. Need some help getting foot in the door with someone with the manufacturing capabilities to make this a reality. Will build off an existing platform (Desert Eagle, Sig Saur, Para Ordanance ETC...)I assume this will be negated to police or military personel only, certainly in Ca. Marget is ready to be shaken up.
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PAPO,
Welcome to the Gunbroker Forums!
I'm not completely sure what you have or where you need to go with the couple of short sentences in your post.
If you want to design the next 'new' thing in combat handguns, you need to work on the design then get it patented right away. The patent process can be expensive so plan ahead for that cost.
If you just want to be the idea man behind the product, you need to get the ideas down on paper, dated and witnessed then have them copyrighted and patented. I'm not an attorney so consult one for the proper procedures.
You will also have to be fully aware of patent infringements and research on such. You can't just run out and use someone's chassis and call it your own, it doesn't work that way. If a product is still protected, you will have to negotiate a waiver (dollars) if the owner will even consider it.
From there it's a longer process of detail drawings, more lawyers, more drawings, more lawyers until you get to the prototype stage. Then you need a rapid prototype shop to handle this for you. There is a system out currently that allows small shops to handle this but it is probably out of reach for us small guys. It's named NextEngine:
https://www.nextengine.com/indexSecure.htm
Before you involve any prototype shop or manufacturer, be sure to have your end covered legally. Many a great idea by a little guy has been stolen by a little legal maneuvering.
I suggest a lot more research into the process until you know it inside and out and have your legal team assembled. You can't just run to the store and buy a patent, it can be a lengthy process. Start early, stay late.
Best.0 -
quote:Originally posted by PAPO
Interested in designing and developing the next evolution in the combat hand gun catagory. Need some help getting foot in the door with someone with the manufacturing capabilities to make this a reality. Will build off an existing platform (Desert Eagle, Sig Saur, Para Ordanance ETC...)I assume this will be negated to police or military personel only, certainly in Ca. Marget is ready to be shaken up.
You want to be the next Gaston Glock?
And I'd like to [have lunch with] Angelina Jolie. . .[;)]
Ok, seriously, if you're an experienced arms designer or engineer, you'll know what to do, and you won't need the help of the peanut gallery on the anonymous internet board (none of whom, I assure you, have brought a new successful handgun design to market).
If you're not, politely, before you go build the "better mousetrap", you have to realize that modern handguns (like Sigs, Glock, etc) are designed by teams of experienced engineers with CAD/CAM technology. Even "simple" guns like the Kel-Tecs are still designed this way, and its not such an easy process to design a gun that is a. reliable, b. practical and cost-effective to manufacture, c. not violating anyone elses patents, and d. actually better than what's already out there.
While I do agree in principle that there actually is still room for innovation in handgun design (particularly with respect to modularity, and such), you have to realize the market is pretty darn crowded with very good gun designs already.
If you want your new gun to be successful, it has to find a precise market niche, and in this marketplace, that's going to be tough.
Next, designing and prototyping a gun is NOT cheap. . .far from it, and you may be looking at costs in the six-figure (or higher) range just to design *A* gun and get a working prototype, let alone actually tool up for manufacturing.
So my bottom line answer for you is this:
If you ALREADY HAVE a design that you believe is a. better than other things on the market, or (at least) b. has a good market niche, then all you need to do is PATENT it, then shop it around to Ruger, Smith and Wesson, or any one of another half-a-dozen companies that have the resources to build and market it. A working prototype (or several) is probably necessary, *unless* you have a VERY strong background and reputation (in which case, you wouldn't be posting here).
If you don't have a good prototype, don't expect anyone to toss money in your direction to do this, unless your last name is "Glock" or "Browning", etc.0 -
All things considered, if you are planning to design the next best thing, I think a combat rifle would do more good and have a larger market than a combat handgun. I am surprised, it you have the knowlege and experience to design guns, that you don't already know the people in the industry you need to know. 0 -
While I would disagree with Beantown on the point that no one here has brought a gun to market (he might be surprised on who reads and answers some of these posts), I would agree with most of his comments.
Big $ involved:
1. Check Patents. Assure you are in Pat Pending status.
2. Assure you have NDA's for anyone you talk with.
3. Design or pay to have a 3D model drawings made.
4. Have SLA's made.
5. Take concept to Med or Small MFG that has an engineer.
6. Have a business plan made which includes costs and distribution method.
7. Based on #6, implement plan.
8. Assume at least 1-2 years for market to recognize the product is available.
Bringing a new idea to market is not cheap and is a long process. People "think" they have a great idea but don't often think of the cost to market the product. As an example, if you were selling through a "big box" store you would need a sales price of about 4-6 times the cost of production. So work the numbers back from "market price" to even see if the idea is viable. I WOULD NOT recommend going through an "invention" group since most are a total waste of money.
Best of luck, it can be done.0 -
quote:Geeguy
While I would disagree with Beantown on the point that no one here has brought a gun to market (he might be surprised on who reads and answers some of these posts), I would agree with most of his comments.
Well, maybe Gaston Glock, Nehemia Sirkis, or George Kelgren do post on these boards. . .wouldn't know. But to be clear, the question was about "the next evolution" in handgun design, not just any new gun brought to market, and I specified a "new successful handgun design" in my comment.
Its a pretty big distinction.
If you think about it, many of the most successful gun introductions (and by "successful", I mean "profitable" and "popular") weren't really new designs at all.
For example, how much money is being made now selling recycled 1911 and AR-15 designs? Those are among the most popular handgun and longgun designs, and everyone is putting out variations of the same thing. As another example, putting out a single-action Colt-Peacemaker style gun in .357 isn't really all that much of a technical advance, but it sure sold a lot of guns back in the day!
Which brings me to another important point. You can have a GREAT design, but still end up doing poorly if you lack the appropriate market niche, have bad marketing, bad execution in manufacture, poor distribution, or poor customer support. A brilliant new gun design is important. . .BUT its actually neither sufficient nor even necessary to sell a lot of them. That's just one piece of a pretty big puzzle.
On the other hand, good marketing and having a good business model (with cost control) can make up for a LOT of flaws in the actual design. We can all name guns that sell in quantity that objectively really aren't all that great (and the converse, guns that actually ARE quite good that don't move a lot of product).
I think ultimately the biggest trick isn't coming up with a fancy new design, its figuring out where the market niche is and filling it. That where (for example) Bill Ruger was a genius.
I also do agree with He Dog. Are you really going to start with a clean sheet of paper and come up with something better than a Sig 226 (for example)? And are you going to build it better than SIG does or in a cost efficient way? If, for example, you are starting with a SIG, and modifying the design what's to stop a. SIG from suing you into oblivion or b. Waiting to see if your design is successful, and if it is, just making essentially the same changes itself and piggybacking?
As a point of reference, there are qualified people who seriously contend that for most practical purposes, a modernized 1911 (ie a 100 year old design) is still about as good as it gets in a combat handgun.
So again, I still think there are market niches to be filled, and I do think there is room for new guns, but its a pretty competitive field including new designs.
To come up with the "next best thing", well, yes it CAN be done. . .but its not so easy.0 -
I use CAD/CAM, design plastic parts, injection, vacuum & thermoform molds.
I do design some accesssories and tooling for various makes of semi-auto pistols.
geeguy has laid out a good plan.
Even simple (looking) plastic accessories are not easy or cheap. The vast majority of people have no clue as to what goes on in order to bring a product to market, and why things cost what they do.
Having been in the plastic's machining & molding industry since 1986, it has been a very enlightening experience.
I have also built extrusion machines and done a lot of CAD/CAM/CNC work on various parts for medical, aerospace, industrial, automotive, communications, military, aviation parts, pieces, assemblies.
Personally, in todays anti-gun climate, I don't know that I would want to put my neck out there.0 -
Don't let the negative guys discourage you. If their attitude prevailed over the last 200 years we'd all still be shooting flintlocks and walking through horse poop in the streets. Great ideas and designs are seldom the product of any committee in spite of the politicaly correct hype. Rather, great products get to the market more often IN SPITE OF a committee. Sam Colt, Oliver Winchester, Henry Ford, George Eastman, etc. didn't answer to any committee. In later years after the innovators were gone, committees drove each company into the ground.
You will want to get your ideas quite well along, at least to the nonfiring working model stage before consulting any of the big firearms manufactures. There is a lot of "not invented here" and "if it was a good idea, we would have thought of it" attitude in those design teams. At least 9 times out of 10 you can expect more success by going to a second or third tier manufacturer where the guys in charge know guns not accounting.0 -
quote:Originally posted by glabray
Don't let the negative guys discourage you. If their attitude prevailed over the last 200 years we'd all still be shooting flintlocks and walking through horse poop in the streets. Great ideas and designs are seldom the product of any committee in spite of the politicaly correct hype. Rather, great products get to the market more often IN SPITE OF a committee. Sam Colt, Oliver Winchester, Henry Ford, George Eastman, etc. didn't answer to any committee. In later years after the innovators were gone, committees drove each company into the ground.
You will want to get your ideas quite well along, at least to the nonfiring working model stage before consulting any of the big firearms manufactures. There is a lot of "not invented here" and "if it was a good idea, we would have thought of it" attitude in those design teams. At least 9 times out of 10 you can expect more success by going to a second or third tier manufacturer where the guys in charge know guns not accounting.
I agree that it may be easier to go with one of the smaller (ie second or third tier) shops to get the gun on the market.
Nobody is saying you need a "committee" to design a gun, just that in today's era of lawsuits, liability and intellectual property theft, bringing a gun into the market isn't entirely trivial, and it can't be done entirely by one person. It never really could. . .
Designing a gun is one thing, but if you actually want to MARKET it, you probably WILL need a "team" that includes at the very least, a designer, lawyer(s), fabricator(s), and marketer(s). That's the reality for ANY product, let alone something like a firearm.
By the way, for what its worth, the Glock pistol was actually designed by a team of engineers (eg a "committee") commissioned by Gaston Glock. Glock himself was an expert in molding plastics. . .he didn't know squat about making guns. His gun designers adopted features from older guns, plus some new ones (like the molded frame).
Along those lines John Browning may have designed the 1911 by himself, but he didn't just cook it up from scratch. He had many years of practical gun designing experience starting as a kid, and the 1911 was a progression from a long series of guns he was working on for Colt, (with whom he had a full shop, assistants, etc).0
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