And so marks the end of cordial holiday gatherings at the McMillan residence. This year at SHOT Show we told you about McMillan’s new Mc3 line of polymer stocks designed to bring the accuracy and comfort of McMillan’s fiberglass stocks to the more budget minded segment of the market. There’s just one problem: Ryan McMillan, son of Kelly (the owner of McMillan), had already launched his own company to service that exact same segment of the market with a nearly identically positioned product at a similar price point.
Ryan’s company Grayboe introduced injection molded fiberglass stocks in roughly the same pattern as McMillan’s famous and time-tested designs, and at right around the $350 price point last year. At the time we in the firearms media thought that this was a prime situation for the two companies to cooperate, using that technology to allow McMillan to enter a different segment of the market. Instead, McMillan went the Bill O’Riley route and decided to introduce a competing product at a lower price point.
Where Grayboe is injection molded fiberglass, McMillan is injection molded polymer (which is more prone to stretching and deforming). And their Mc3 stocks are being offered at the $275 price point, which is $75 less than Kelly’s son’s stocks. It seems like a pretty blatant attempt to steal market share from the upstart Grayboe by cutting them off at the knees.
We’ll have to see how well McMillan’s new Mc3 stocks stack up to the competition. But one thing is for sure: Thanksgiving at the McMillan house will never be the same.