China
William Jesse Magnum said:
Made in China???
what if your favorite pistol/revolver (S&W, Colt, Glock, HK, Steyr, Springfield, Kimber, Para-Ordnance, Ruger, Walther, etc etc. )manufacturer in the USA / Germany / Austria, etc suddenly took a detour and had their firearms be built in China?
(no offense to the people of China.. this is purely an honest curious question about Manufacturing companies who have chosen to give-up pride, dignity and legacy of their company for profit)
1. re: Chinese guns
due to US import regulation, it's probably not possible to import most centerfire non-sporting guns from China, but according to our Canadian brethren, latest generation of Chinese made guns are excellent! Latest generaton of Norinco/Polytech M14S priced to be b/w $300-$400 USD is supposed to be a much better buy than US made Springfield Armory Inc. M1A which cost several times that of Chinese made copy. It appears that they have fixed the earlier problems with soft bolt and out-of-spec parts.
IMHO, stamped AK receivers made by DCI and sold by NoDakSpud are probably the best stamped AK receivers on the market right now. Couple of months ago, I asked a local Class 2 manufacturer and engineering consultant how much the receiver would cost if there was no import regulation and it was to be made in China according to strict spec. In his estimate, the actual manufacturing cost for stamped Chinese receivers would be couple of dollars or even less.
2. Chinese junk products
BTW, it's possible to have products with poor quality from China. It's also possible to have very high quality products from China. It all depends on manufacturing specification that is used. Enforcement of manufacturing specification is done via reputation and choices....manufacturing business in China is very competitive. If one manufacturer fails to satisfy the specs, they lose future business with that customer.
3. mixing countries and product quality
I wouldn't mix countries with product quality. For example, Nikon have set up optics plant in Thailand. In order to ensure high quality, they have created and enforced rigorous product QA protocol. Incidentally, there are low quality and high quality Japanese optics...it all depends on product specification. At one point, "Made in Japan" meant cheap, low quality stuff. Today, it's synonymous with high quality, especially in the area of automobiles and electronics.
BTW, KIA and Hyundai cars are rising in product quality today.
4. state of Chinese manufacturing technology
You have to remember now that China now has its own space program as well as its own domestically designed and produced nuclear submarines and ballistic missiles. Also, corporations from various developed countries(US/Europe/Japan) have spent huge amount of money transferring technological and manufacturing know-how to China in the process of setting up highly efficient and modern manufacturing plants.
5. Productivity issue
US have a very high per capita GDP while China still has a relatively low per capita GDP. The amount of productivity based on farming and manufacturing is limited compared to information and services oriented economy.
If Chinese or anybody else can do the equivalent task cheaper than us, it's actually more productive to do so.
Incidentally, China itself is facing competition from other emerging market countries. Why? Wages are rising due to rising living standard. Now, countries which are even poorer than China can do manufacturing for even less.
6. GREAT BOOK on understanding the benefit of free trade:
THE CHOICE by Roberts
7. good article on Chinese economy
interesting BusinessWeek article on Chinese economy and the problems it has
Broken China