How is your job going at Nioa?
For someone who's been on the forum such a short time you're sounding a bit on the agro side though correct me if I'm wrong....this isn't the place for some of your remarks. Keep it civil and mature as it's just a discussion amongst like minded individuals passionate about shooting and shouldn't be personal attack on anyone.
I don't work for NIOA (I'm self employed) but I have done business with them and continue to do business with them cause of the big importers in Australia they are by far one of the best to deal with. Of course they are in business to make a profit and it's in our best interests that they continue to be profitable cause if they fail we end up paying more due to less competition in the market place or we lose certain brands all together. You ever tried importing firearms or components into Australia? I have and it's a lot of work & BS for an individual and a massive amount for a distributer, possibly as On_One_Wheel posted they may only have been allocated a set amount of a production run and couldn't order more, I'm sure they'd love to sell thousands. There could be any number of reasons why the numbers are limited in the first shipment so be thankful that we're getting any and we shouldn't be bagging them. The Australian market to arms manufacturers is insignificant and barely a bump on their sales books so it's good we have the variety of products that we have here due to the efforts of NIOA, Winchester, Beretta, Grycol and the lesser known Interdiction Logistics and Delta tactical plus many others.
Do we know if this particular shotgun is going to be legal in all states cause I'm sure some F...wit politician will try banning them once they see Adlers rapid fire demo on the website. The possible 750,000 potential customers may get culled somewhat by legislation and not all of them are interested in buying a lever action shotgun no matter how much better they look then the fugley Chiappa offering. Just over 2000 expressions of interest from approximately 750,000 license holders is not a great number by any means. (Number extrapolated from Aus Crime Com data 2012). Surprisingly the percentage of firearms owners per 100 population has decreased over the past several years, more a factor of immigration / population growth rather then departures from the interest.
The risk of failure encompasses the full spectrum of possibilities, from warranty claims, recalls, injuries. Although their testing was thorough before deciding to import the shotgun they may have only tested half a dozen or so from one batch or were given "Sample Specials" and the actual mass produced product may be of lesser quality. Adler may get swamped with demand and suffer quality issues as a result of trying to meet that demand. The ABS doesn't track death by faulty firearm as they consider it an accident and it's grouped in with other unintentional shootings. I personally know 2 people injured by a faulty rifle 1 due to manufacturing fault with the breach and another by a double charged factory round so it does happen and both were awarded settlement amounts by the courts. I've only been shooting for 40 years so 2 incidents isn't that many but I haven't been looking for other instances, I'm sure there's plenty of others out there that don't make the press and no one is capturing the correct statistic or it's being filed as a general accident. Winchester recently refunded $10,480 for a rifle with a faulty barrel that posed a possible risk to the user and these incidents all incurred expenses by the importer. I know of the Winchester refund personally cause it was me and on top of the refund they compensated me for my losses with a free Steyr Pro hunter stainless with set trigger in 300 Winchester Magnum. Had planned to sight it in and start load development tonight but business came up so it'll have to wait.
Anyway, let's get back onto more productive discussions and respect each others viewpoints
Lets all agree it's a good thing and will be better when all those who want one have one and that it looks better then the fugley Chiappa 1887 thing (my personal opinion, I'm sure to some it's a thing of beauty). I fully intended buy the Chiappa in stainless a few months back, went to HPGS and after getting a hands on look I decided against it and bought a Akkar Churchill Combo U/O with 20" & 30" barrels and don't regret that decision in the least. Strangely enough Chiappa make some nice looking shotguns like the Triple Crown so I don't know how the 1887 got so fugley, may have been whelped by a project manager