Ag,
Are you not capable of separating out a writer's opinion & verbiage that offends you from actual info presented that you can use yourself?
Don't you do that with other products? Can't you listen to a buddy talk about a new car, for instance, and weed out his opinion while using what he tells you about it in deciding whether it'd work for you or not?
You'd have to sit there & quibble with him over his use of individual words in describing his impressions of it?
I've read several articles over the years where I've found the author's opinion useful to me, and several where I didn't. (Also, as mentioned, that 4-inch rough standard.)
In those cases where the writer viewed a gun & its purpose differently from the way I did, and based his conclusions in conjunction with his experiences which may differ from mine and uses I may not have applied the gun to myself, I simply disregarded his opinion, and used his findings to form my own opinion.
I've seen numerous articles over the years where the author, if not outright stating it bluntly, at least implied a given rifle should have done better.
Along the lines of "This gun SHOULD have done better than 1.5 inches at 100 yards, but 1.5 inches is OK, I guess." (Generalizing to make a point, don't waste your time or mine by picking that one to death.)
If I was interested in that gun & the features it had, but didn't need it to do any better for my purposes & my purposes differed from his, I ignored his opinion & formed my own, based on the rest of his findings.
He may have liked the 24-inch barrel he mentioned in describing the rifle, I may prefer a 22-inch barrel. If he described that as "the perfect length", I may differ. Perfect for him isn't binding on me, and neither's his opinion. I may be interested in the features & caliber of that rifle as a relatively short-range brush gun, while he may be viewing it as a 200-yard hunting gun.
I note the data point listed, a 24-inch barrel, disregard his opinion, and look for another data point I can use.
I don't have to agree with his opinion to get something I can use out of his article.
There's always going to be a difference in how people perceive an individual gun.
Writers will vary in how they describe their findings.
Their interpretation of test results may differ from yours.
Their description and verbiage may differ from yours.
So?
Use your own brain in interpreting what you see on the printed page, just like you should be doing everyday everywhere else.
If Rob Leatham says a 1911-pattern pistol HAS to have certain features & HAS to do this or that, I take note of what he says. I grant him the right to authoritatively form, hold, and express the opinions he states.
If he tries a gun & finds it falls short of "specifications" (expectations), I look at what his expectations are, what his orientation is, what his experience is, and whether his conclusions have any relevance to me and what I'd do with a 1911 based on my own experience, orientation, and projected use of one.
Context & personal judgement.
He's a competitor, I'm not.
He's talking about a competition gun, I'm looking at a carry gun.
He's got better eyes than I do, the sights he can use may be invisible to me.
And so on.
He's got his list of "1911 Must Be" features & expectations, I have mine, and they may have some commonality, but won't mesh entirely.
I grant him his right to his opinions, and I don't toss them out because he may apply a phrase like "absolutely essential" to a feature that I don't find absolutely essential for my needs.
I don't get hung up on an opposing opinion or a word he uses that I don't like.
I'm not going to get into discussing individual articles or individual writers any farther than I already have, which is farther than I usually go in discussing other peoples' work.
If you're totally incapable of comprehending the concept of "get what you can out of an article & ignore the rest", as you do everyday in life, there's nothing else I can say to you that'd get through.
If all you do in reading an article is look for "verbal tricks", you may want to develop a different hobby that'd aggravate you less.
Denis
