What do you get when you combine a kickass team of small arms design and manufacturing specialists with a love of motorcycles? You get Magpul Heavy, home of the the Ronin motorcycle. We wrote about the Ronin during SHOT Show 2010. The Ronin started life as a Buell 1125R sport bike (no longer in production) and then received the “Magpul” treatment.
While Ronin is an experiment, so to speak, we would certainly like to see Magpul continue to carry on with similar projects. Go see for yourself what we are talking about and let them know if you’d like one.
www.MagpulHeavy.com or on Facebook
Tags: Magpul Heavy, Ronin
Projects such as bikes and atv’s will get media and public attention, and do generate feedback from advertising dollars.
What comes to mind is what any of it has to do with firearms accessories. When the big picture of track record on major projects comes to mind, these sideline projects aren’t so much reality as playing the public for attention.
If you want to see how Buell might actually do with a Magpul styled bike, just consider the Remington ACR. Fantasy doesn’t always meet reality with well executed products. Buell isn’t known as a Tier One superbike builder, just Harleys’ sidemarket to exploit the Made in America ninja bike buyer. Just keeping their toe in.
A real insight to Magpul is the Iphone cover. That’s their market – tacticool wannabe. Despite the hoopla in firearms, note they weren’t the ones to develop and market a polymer mag carrier.
Point being, they have their fans, and their fans use phones more than guns. Superbike? No thanks, should someone want to ride a death ticket, they can get a Hayabusa or Ducati.
That’s the real message, if you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, ….
Dude – that’s like saying that Crye shouldn’t bother with MultiCam becuase hardware is where their market is – or vice versa. Or why should car companies produce super-car concepts that will never see the production line?
At the end of the day, its about DESIGN – that’s what these companies do. And long may they both continue to do it. Sure, not every design gets produced – some aren’t even producable – but if you don’t continuously push the envelope with new and exciting concepts then you whither and die.
Personally, I think that bike has “Batman” written all over it. 😉
I think MarkM and Strike-Hold are ultimately talking about the same thing from two different directions.
Magpul is in the firearms industry, but they are willing to deviate from their standard product field in search of “cool”. After all, companies usually “push the (design) envelope” in their own immediate field. I mean, Ford won’t suddenly introduce an BUIS or RIS, right?
Magpul could have put the time and effort they spent on the bike design into putting out another firearm or firearm accessories (you know, their actual business). Instead, they worked on a bike design. One could argue that Magpul was just letting its creativity run wild, but they could’ve just as likely designed a watch or a chair instead if we’re talking about “pure” creativity and things they are familiar with. No, they went and worked on a type of product that was already seen as cool (as MarkM mentioned, iPhone covers).
So here, “design” is an end to a promotional/branding (rather than product) means, it’s about designing new things that can contribute to making the Magpul brand seem even cooler (hence why Magpul won’t be designing towel racks, but an Android cover is likely).
This is not meant to be a cynical description of Magpul. It is what it is. Personally, Magpul’s ability to make itself stand out from the competition is awe-inspiring.
Hmmm, well said.
I want one in Megaforce colors.
I don’t care what color, I’ve got Krylon
Just as long as no one says MultiCam or UCP.
Oh no, I said it! LOL
Great, just the thing we need for remakes of Megaforce (add forward-facing rocket launchers) or Delta Force (add a rearward-facing rocket launcher)!
The design isn’t very original. It seems like they were trying to make a bastardized version of the Confederate wraith.