Is Novritsch killing local shops?
So you’ve probably seen in one of my last posts about me writing about posterboy Novritsch before and how he helped “design” the SSG24. I got a question if i knew more and yea. I know more.
Let’s start from the beginning so everything is crystal clear, unlike the Star Wars saga pacing. Novritsch started out as an youtube airsofter like many others but with some help video and PDF to become an better sniper and some T-shirt (23 June 2015). I watched some videos back then when he was only running around in the small woodland area with his VSR, and at IWA 2015 I got a question if i knew any upcoming players and I answered that his name would become very well known. And about the same time he was featured on (or paid a promotion to) LAD Bible where the video “Airsoft Sniper Gameplay – Scope Cam – Urban Sniper 2” was playing. Now as a side note here I enjoyed the videos for what they were and he is a skilled speedball sniper (the two combined it’s a good combo).
Then came the Novritsch “upgrades” that were nothing else than rebranded EdGI kits which was very fast noticed by the old-school forums. But i’ll give posterboy the benefit that he mostly helped EdGI to get their kits out. It’s good kits and you should buy them directly from EdGI (https://www.facebook.com/EdGICustomWorks/) to save some cash in the process. Later on we got to follow his gameplay in the US. I actually liked these videos really much and for what they were are very entertaining. Also in one of the videos we get to see the person i told at IWA dropping of some goods to him at Jets place. I was thinking “told you so”, but it gave me a big smile.
After this posterboy was about as big as Jet in the already playing airsoft community. Then came the zebra gun. You know the one wrapped in some zebra paper because it was a secret. Watching them back then i already saw on the front that it was a M700-ish oval at the handguard. After some talks with some friends we checked what was in the form factor and was about to be released. We knew he didn’t design anything himself and that the work was already made. We found the most possible candidate, the Modify MOD24X. Next gen of the Modify MOD24 with some improvements. The “revile”-trailer was released where he goes through the internal parts of the SSG24 and then when he showed the hop up. Hell, that’s just like the…oh no…
Following year at IWA we checked the MOD24X that was still on the wall but not released yet (yes a whole year it was “almost” ready). We asked questions about release and they said it was already released in Taiwan. This confused us since they usually released everything about the same time for everyone. We kept asking questions about all kinds of things about it until one of the owners catched on and said straight out “You want to know what’s in the SSG24?”. A brief smile and we were home. The only difference between the MOD24X and the SSG24 was that the spring guide didn’t have ball bearings on it in the SSG24 and that the upgrade part CNC hop arm was already installed.
That’s it..oh and a twisty barrel for all those alternative people who want to define themselves by the youtube people that they like. So that was it. The MOD24X was not to be sold outside Taiwan and only the SSG24 was to be sold as a per person basis with long wait times because they sold a lot of them very fast. And as some stories say the QC did not get done properly at times where some couldn’t cock the gun etc. because faults.
And then to the title of this entire post. Is he killing local shops? Yes. He says he wants to bring costs down but that’s bullshit since posterboy is getting a piece of the cake that was supposed to be to local fields. We have 1 shop in Sweden that sold Modify Tech long before they were anything mainstream and held them very high. Now he wasn’t able to be able to sell one of the best selling guns. What motivates him then to keep the hobby alive? Not much since he was right about 2 brands very early and both of them started doing some “on the side”.
And that’s sad to see, not only is local shops losing income even if they’ve been on board with the brand a long time but the brand themselves don’t understand that everything they will ever do when they base their success on someone else name is that they start all over again building their name. If you are interested of sniping and you are not fooled by the low price tag of the SSG24 (that you aren’t checking the import taxes) i highly recommend the forum Airsoft Sniper Forums (http://www.airsoftsniperforum.com) where you can get a lot of info on how to build something that outperforms the SSG24X…
About the Author
Senchoo Started airsoft back in 2005. Now mostly working a day job and getting into the details of gear, optics and NVG.
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