Blaser F3 custom?

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MK82

Active member
Joined
Jun 8, 2020
Messages
27
Hi all, 

Just wanted to know where I can get a custom fitted F3 Blaser? (when this lockdown clears obviously...). Does anyone arrange factory visits / customisation at all?

Thanks and Happy Christmas!

 
Hi all, 

Just wanted to know where I can get a custom fitted F3 Blaser? (when this lockdown clears obviously...). Does anyone arrange factory visits / customisation at all?

Thanks and Happy Christmas!
I’ve been informed that Ian Milliner has a Blaser F3 try gun. He’s also Blaser’s only appointed/trained service gunsmith.
Coombe Farm Sporting, Orston Shooting Grounds, E J Churchill I’m reasonably sure can/do all arrange factory visits.
Malmo Guns, Premier Guns, Braces’s of Bristol, Chris Potter, Bywell Shooting Ground are also approved dealers as far as I know. I’d be surprised if they cannot help out.

Perhaps not the route you wish to go down, but if it’s an off the shelf action with a custom fit stock your after, Manuel Ricardo in Portugal can work out much cheaper from as little as £500 for grade 1 to around £1,100 for exhibition grade wood. You don’t need necessarily go to Portugal for the fitting. Manuel offers a remote service whereby you send him your stock dimensions (according to his requirements, which you can obtain locally in a gun fit session) and a couple of videos of your mount. 

 
I’ve been informed that Ian Milliner has a Blaser F3 try gun. He’s also Blaser’s only appointed/trained service gunsmith.
Coombe Farm Sporting, Orston Shooting Grounds, E J Churchill I’m reasonably sure can/do all arrange factory visits.
Malmo Guns, Premier Guns, Braces’s of Bristol, Chris Potter, Bywell Shooting Ground are also approved dealers as far as I know. I’d be surprised if they cannot help out.

Perhaps not the route you wish to go down, but if it’s an off the shelf action with a custom fit stock your after, Manuel Ricardo in Portugal can work out much cheaper from as little as £500 for grade 1 to around £1,100 for exhibition grade wood. You don’t need necessarily go to Portugal for the fitting. Manuel offers a remote service whereby you send him your stock dimensions (according to his requirements, which you can obtain locally in a gun fit session) and a couple of videos of your mount. 
Thanks Lloyd, very helpful as ever!

 
Not all Germans up to the same standards of engineering? As they're not made by Krieghoff? Honestly curious. 
Can’t be that’s the reason, surely?

One only needs a quick scout around tinternet and will find many a complaint about triggers, barrel regulation, choke seating etc. I’m sure Krieghoff are good guns, better than others? Well, I think that may be a bit like saying Catholicism is better than Protestantism. If you believe it’s true then that’s your de facto best gun.

You could near buy two Blaser F3 for the price of a K80. I’d wager the combined life of two F3‘s would be in excess of one K80. I’d not be surprised if it were twice as much. 

Then again you could buy about a dozen silver pigeons or B525 for the same money and could last you maybe 300 years or more. I’m pretty sure both the K80 and F3 would be well past their sell by date in 300 years.

Shooting like fishing and golf is rife with snake oil gun feature and tack on gadgets and their snake oil salesmen to pedal them, often with the same sort of pseudoscience that the snake oil salesmen of yore would.

For me, you pick your faith and you can be a cardinal and a zealot at the alter of your chosen one. You can never be wrong with religion. You need actual science for that

 
it's a marketing thing, make a good product, as good as a fair amount of others,then spend not a small amount sponsoring some of the top people, then you soon have a bevy of people no where near as good,or spending the many hours of training to get there.

And then stand back and wait till those same people buy the product thinking it's that that brings the glory

 
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Having a favourite gun or brand is laudable. If you feel you're gun is the gun for you, yay for you. Shoot like it and enjoy it. 

Slagging other guns or even entire brands because of it is laughable. That said I'll assume it was in fact intended as a pun. 

 
"Make sure you get 2. "

Perhaps the suggestion was that if you get Manuel Ricardo to make a custom stock it maybe worthwhile getting a matching pair - If it was me and at the prices quoted it would make sense to have a second set of wood for a rainy day.

I doubt the reference was an F3 having a short life span.

 
"Make sure you get 2. "

Perhaps the suggestion was that if you get Manuel Ricardo to make a custom stock it maybe worthwhile getting a matching pair - If it was me and at the prices quoted it would make sense to have a second set of wood for a rainy day.

I doubt the reference was an F3 having a short life span.
Could be. Manuel Ricardo is very cost effective and he has 30 years experience as a stocker. At those prices, I reckon if fancy wood isn’t something you’re overly concerned about, or you have suitably deep pockets, one could have new stock every couple of years or so as you perfect your mount/changes in body/fitness etc.

I simply cannot imagine the inference has anything to do with Blaser’s reputation for gun making. There surely could not be any implied notions of their making guns less reliable, less durable than other brands. As I said previously, you can find issues on all of the brands. And let’s be clear, fewer issues with guns made in smaller quantities doesn’t equate to superior product. This could only have relevance on a pro-rata basis.

Blaser for example state the materials they use for barrels as being the same specifications as NATO small arms directive. One could reasonably assume give this benchmark, that they also know about milling, turning, drilling, grinding, honing, lapping, electro-discharge machining, brazing/soldering, heat treatment, metal finishing NDT (non-destructive testing) as well of course woodworking. I think you could probably say this about any gun maker.

Any inference that a gun/brand is substandard compared to another would simply highlight ones ignorance of manufacturing, which of course is fine. It’s not a subject which everyone needs to know about in detail. However, if such a person was famous, or infamous  for that matter person with a strong association to a particular brand, to imply another brand is inferior would first of all demonstrate that persons ignorance, It would also demonstrate naivety of what constitutes being a good brand ambassador. Slagging off other brands for anyone, but in particular anyone of “good standing in the community” is nothing short of crass to say the least. Makes me thankful that I’m a nobody and don’t have to gauge my opinions in such a way.

So, no... I really can’t see the comment being a criticism or even a joke (one would expect an emoticon of some sort to indicate playfulness).

But until our Andy Dufresne “crawls through a river of $h1t and comes out the other side clean” there won’t be any boat restorations on the beach anytime soon. 

 
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Blaser have had another price increase!

A factory custom stock now costs just over £2,000

A F3 Competition Sporting (flat rib) with a grade 5 factory custom stock comes in at £10,262

My 2015 F3 with about 4 ½ years warranty still remaining plus MR stock cost a smidgen over 1/3rd of that.

You can spec the wood and ‘standard’ engraving options up to just shy of £25k.

I shudder to think what a custom engraved F3 would cost now. North of £40k?

 
Blaser have had another price increase!

A factory custom stock now costs just over £2,000

A F3 Competition Sporting (flat rib) with a grade 5 factory custom stock comes in at £10,262

My 2015 F3 with about 4 ½ years warranty still remaining plus MR stock cost a smidgen over 1/3rd of that.

You can spec the wood and ‘standard’ engraving options up to just shy of £25k.

I shudder to think what a custom engraved F3 would cost now. North of £40k?
I actually think they are pricing themselves out of their intended markets, £4k for an F16, £7k for F3 seems too much

 
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