Interesting theory there Dusty, but are you thinking that the majority of customers are own gunners?
If you look at how most UK sites make their money, it is from paint sales
If they sell paint at 6p per ball will they drop it to 5p a ball, doubt it as that equates to a loss if income of £20 and when you factor in site cost of retooling, where is the benefit for the likes of Delta Force to switch all their sites to .50cal.
Now looking at own gunners they will probably save about £5 per box, but to cover the cost of re-equipping yourself to shoot .50cal, you would need to be using 90 boxes in the year and if you work it out not many average players actually use that amount whether in tournament or woodland.
At the end of the day, it all boils down to money and all we are hearing about are the respective ballistic qualities of .50 and .68cal. We know they can make the balls fly and burst very similar with a bit of tweaking, although it "may" need a slight bps increase.
The question is, are there any real benefits to UK Sites Owners and UK Customer base or are we just going to have to move with the times because its good for the US and possibly others?
And if anyone is interested I have no affiliation either way.
Joe the punter doesn't care, a hundred shots is a hundred shots no matter what size they are, as long as the price is reasonable and the customer doesn't walk away feeling robbed then its all good.
End of the day you go to a restaurant and order a steak it's £15. You aren't worried about the fact that steak only cost a quid or two, you walk away feeling you've had value for money.
The benefit to the customer is less pain and thats always going to encourage repeat business, people who don't like the sting won't come back as often. Repeat business means more people likely to be own gunners, more of them translates to tourney ball, tourney ball also grows.
Also keep in mind most sites will spend as little as possible on paint, often meaning really cheap, hard, nasty paint when as little as £1 extra a box can make a huge leap in quality.
The downside is that £1 per box translates to £130 a skid, or £260 for 2 skids, or £390 for 3 skids. Take it over a year and if the bigger sites are going through even 2 skids a month thats 24 a year which is over 3 grand.
I know there's one site in Ireland pumps through hundreds of people every weekend, and i mean hundreds as in 4-500. If each customer only shot 500 balls thats still 250 boxes a week, or 2 skids, which is over 100 skids a year.
Hands up if you are spending hundreds changing from your 09 gat to the latest 2010? Ego 9 - Ego 10 honestly are there hundreds of pounds worth of performance benefits? DM9-DM10? Yet they're still selling....
Once people see for themselves if there are REAL benefits to .50cal changing over won't be as bad as all that. The manufacturers WILL bring out drop in kits, Eclipse have started the rest will follow for fear of losing their customers for the sake of a drop in. If they don't people like Custom Products if they are switched on will make a killing manufacturing drop in kits for all guns.