on common politeness

N

Newton24b

Moderator
people like to bash entire brands and specific models of handguns based on mechanical issues that are common to all companies. heres a few examples of what i see on here quite often.

1. person buys a used sw colt or ruger revolver. it turns out to have sticky chambers. the purchaser says "oh figures, its normal to find so ill just be happy and get my bore brush and portable drill and shine it up. no problem"

person buys a used charter, rossi, or taurus with the same problem and the gun and the entire brand is SOLID CRAP because no gun of any quality should have that problem.

2. person buys a new sw or ruger, and has the same sticky chamber. because its those brands they merely polish the chamber and say "yeah it happens, stupid minimum/maximum tolerances these days"

person buys a brand new rossi, taurus, or charter and instead of saying "yeah its normal, no big deal ill just polish it". they declare "my oh my, this things a solid piece of CRAP. no one should buy these guns'. and every one laughs at them for over reacting or for buying from that company in the first place.

3. person buys a sw or ruger with a little cylinder play, tight/loose chamber, uneven finish, etc and its no big deal as "things happen but its fine."

person buys a taurus, charter, rossi with identical minor issue, and then its suddenly "have a congressional hearing into the matter, we need to shut these companies down for selling inferior product."

But yet in the last two months wever had a gentleman on the forum admit that he bought a brand new sw revolver with a 6 shot cylidner that had 7 chambers in it, and to be polite the anti taurus/rossi/charter crowd were merely "interesting, send it back for repair. things can happen when assembly line workers dont care".
but the rest of us were "hey see, even the great sw puts out lemons like everyone else has in the last 100 years"
 
This is very true, in firearms and also in sports cars.

To devoted auto enthusiasts, especially of certain british/german/italian makers, these problems are known as 'quirks' to be accepted without much-ado.

When these problems occur in lesser, usually much cheaper, brands they are labeled as evidence of inferior design and manufacturing.

Works in all hobbies I guess!
 
Yep, I see that too.

<sarcasm> Good thing that never happens in political discussions. </sarcasm>

I think it's just human nature. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to avoid doing it, of course.
 
We hurt the gun community as a whole when we bash brands. Why? An example, person comes on a forum and says I have $350.00 to spend max on a brand new gun. What should I get? He will get two recommendations from the group:

1. You should save up more money until you can buy brand X.
2. You should look into buying a used gun.

The problem with answer number 1 is that perhaps that is all the money that the person has available. They cannot save anymore perhaps it was a gift or a one time windfall that they can take advantage of. They need to know what they can get for that ammount that they have quoted, not what they can get for that ammount plus $300.00 more.

The problem with answer number two is while buying a used gun is a great idea it can also be fraught with peril. If your not experienced in buying used guns or knowing what to look for or having access to someone who is then you could indeed wind up with a lemon orchard.

This happened to me when I was much younger. I found a FEG HI POWER CLONE at a gun show for $275.00 (oddly enough I have now seen this same gun going for twice that at online auctions and gun shows) that price included the pistol, 3 mags, and a hard cover carrying case. The guy at the show had zip tied the hammer so you could not rack the slide, I asked but he said it was his policy to always keep them zip tied so people could not abuse the gun. ( The first red flag I should have noticed) I got the weapon home and discovered that some back woods bubba gunsmith with one strap missing off his bib overalls had tried to do some "tatical gunsmithing. When the slide release was used it not only allowed the slide to release...BUT IT DROPPED THE HAMMER AS WELL! It was unloaded at the time and I was glad I had sense enough to test it empty rather than loaded. I called KBI and explained what the problem was and they fixed it for free (they said the sear had been "modified"). If that money I paid for it was all I had available and I could not to pay to get it repaired then I am out my money and am still unarmed.

I could recommend both Taurus and Rossi because I have good luck with them. I had an old school Taurus model 66 blue steel with half lug 6 inch barrel that I got in the early 90's. I only paid $169.00 for it because the sporting goods store selling it was going out of business. The ejector rod housing came apart a the range after I had put about a 1000 rounds total through it. I called Taurus and they sent me a shipping label and had my weapon returned to me within two weeks. I have never had a problem with one since then.

If you can afford top of the line companies products you are very lucky indeed, however realize that not everone can afford a Kimber or Springfield Armory, or Smith & Wesson. For some Taurus and Rossi is the best they can do and that is ok. Have enough respect for your fellow gun owner to not mock the company that manufactured their weapon. You may be in the same boat as they are someday.
 
This Basher and Fanboy nonsense reminds me of 3rd graders arguing over who has the best ball glove. There is room to discuss the merits or flaws of respective brands--and specific examples--without engaging in such demeaning behavior.

While you can't stop others from doing just that, you can refrain from engaging in it. I have quit many a potentially good thread, here and elsewhere, because the noise-to-signal ratio compromised the information being shared.

It is a sad fact that some are more interested in argument than information.
 
I would also like to say that assumptions are also not nice. I mean, hey, ford built some bad pintos once upon a time but they build some nice stuff (though im a chevy guy). Ive seen REALLY bad "top of the line" firearms, and Ive also seen 1MOA "sub-par/generic" rifles. Things happen. But I think if it is in your price range and YOU like it, then more power to ya. My buddies poke fun at my NEF 12gauge single shot, but it takes birds and small game better than my mossberg (probably due to the IC barrel on the mossy), and my buddy has a super old stevens .22 that outshot a pretty nice ruger 10/22. Each gun is it's own in terms of quality in my eyes. Some are great shooters and others are nice conversation pieces... Not to say there arent execptions, or high end guns that shoot really well, just my thought. Sorry for the rant
 
"Bashing" a brand is LOOKING for things, EXAGGERATING things, excessively HARPING on things or perhaps even MAKING UP things in order to make a brand look bad.

It is, in my opinion, trolling for all practical intents and purposes.

Pointing out a trend or tendency exhibited by a particular brand, assuming it's done in a reasonable manner and with some reasonable level of logical and factual support is not automatically "bashing" because that trend or tendency happens to be negative. Nor is it automatically "fanboyism" simply because the trend or tendency is positive.

The examples provided make sense EXCEPT that things don't happen in a vacuum and so it's a mistake to assess a single event as if that's all the evidence in the world to base an assessment.

I was a pretty good student back when I was in school, but that doesn't mean I never made a bad grade or that I never got into any trouble at all. The difference between me and the class screwup was that when I made a bad grade or got into trouble the teacher viewed it as an anomaly because of my past history. When the class screwup made a bad grade or got caught breaking the rules, it was par for the course--also because of past history.

Same thing applies to products. Some companies are known as "good students" that occasionally make a "bad grade" or "get in trouble" once in awhile while others are known as "class screwups" who often make "bad grades" and are "in trouble" a lot.

So let's say that the class screwup and I are standing in front of the principal because we were fighting. This is the 23rd time the principal has seen the class screwup in the last two weeks, but the only reason he knows my name is because of my perfect attendance award and because he's read my name off the honor roll several times.

By the logic of the OP, we should be treated identically because the nature of our offense was identical. In fact, if the principal takes any other action than treating us identically, the OP suggest that he's lacking in common politeness.

I suggest that it makes more sense for the past record of a person (or gun company) to be taken into account when deciding how to assess a particular incident rather than pretending that the particular incident has happened in a vacuum and provides the only available evidence or means of assessing the situation at hand.
 
The OP fails to note that the issue is not whether brands have lemons.

The issue is a combination of the rates of lemons that go out of the store (by some dealer accounts, at one point last year Taurus was over the 60% return mark on NIB guns), and the experiences people have dealing with customer service in the event of a problem.

From following this and other forums; from personal experience and the experiences of friends; and from talking with dealers I know (as opposed to ostensible FFLs online whom I do not know), these are the trends I've observed:

S&W gets high marks for QC and CS. So does Colt.

Beretta gets very high marks for QC, but poor marks for CS.

SIG gets fairly high QC, fairly high CS; used to be high-very high in both, but had some hiccups over the last couple years.

Ruger gets high QC and CS. Ruger recalls are normally not held against them, because Ruger tends to be proactive about recalling and repairing problems. That said, I'd wait for the second year of a new Ruger model, but that's me.

Taurus gets consistently poor marks for QC, and despite the "Lifetime Warranty," gets consistently poor marks for CS.

Charter (the old original, and the current iteration, but not the interims) gets good marks for QC and CS.

I haven't read up that much on Rossi.



SO... while S&W does have the occasional lemon (as does Colt, or for that matter Beechcraft, BMW, and Chris Craft), S&W has fewer lemons, and has a better track record for making lemon owners whole, than do the brands the OP is defending.
 
I'm just glad the internet finally showed up to show me the err of my ways. To think I'd been shooting all of those Tauri, Rossi, and Stevens 311's for years without ever realizing how terrible they were.
 
Its bad when people bash whole brands. I sometimes wonder if some of the bashers have even owned the brand they are maligning.

At the other end of the spectrum is when fans of lower priced brands chime in with _____ is just as good as _____. While it maybe true true that brand x is a decent firearm; someone trying to compare its quality to brand y thats three times more expensive is a bit daft.
 
From my sig you can see I've joined the Taurus bashers. I owned a brand new Taurus. It was broken when I bought it. I spent a year and a half sending it back and it was never fixed. It came back and fell apart when picked up on one occasion. They wouldn't let me speak to anyone other then the girl who would answer phones, who would just say "send it in". I'd ask to speak to someone higher up and only after arguing with the first girl would she transfer me to a no name voice mail that I never got a response from. This happened several times. The only good thing I can say about Taurus is after I filed a very well detailed BBB complaint they finally refunded my money. I think I gained enough experience with the company to make a real determination that they're not very good.
 
I take everything I read on the Internet with a grain of salt since it is pretty much impossible to 1) determine the expertise of the writer and 2) figure out what evidence in what situation the writer is using to base his/her opinion (and that is what most are - just opinions, loaded with lots of biases). There are no real statistics involved that would help determine if there really is a serious problem or just something that with a little common sense you would be able to see coming (i.e. you ussualy get what you pay for - so most inexpensive handguns, in this case, might just have more issues you think???Hmmm?). The manufacturers aren't going to give you something cheap if it was perfect.

As to gun reviews and/or bashing, there don't seem to be many professional reviews that aren't also tied into promotion in some way. The gun companies provide their bread and butter - they aren't going to jeopordize that. The bashing can ussualy be discounted based on lack of real experience (or maybe a real bad experience that the basher wants to unload on the world for lack of anything better to do) or some bias against some aspect of the gun (caliber being the most common).

Read what people have to say, check as many sources as possible and if something really does interest you buy it and take a chance like anybody else. Generally when I check out a prospective gun, after doing as much research as possible, I can tell whether there is something about it that just doesn't seem right (build quality often will show for example). Most of my guns have been bashed by somebody but they have all worked perfectly for me.
 
"brand new sw revolver with a 6 shot cylidner that had 7 chambers in it"

It only had six holes/chambers. The flutes on the outside of the cylinder were cut wrong. It was a big deal because it was a S&W and such a glaring error on their part. Sort of like newspapers only printing 'man bites dog stories' and not 'dog bites man stories', it was amazing because it was unusual.

If it had been made by some of those other brands it would have been a common, everyday man bites dog story and wouldn't have been news after the first few comments and laughs.

How many bad Taurus, Rossi, whatever guns do I have to see before I go buy my first one? Enough friends have bought them that I don't feel the need.

John
 
I do think that evaluating used firearms requires a significant skillset that most people new to guns probably do not have.

How does a newbie gain that skillset ? You'd have to have taken apart a particular model several times to be able to just tell by looking that something was wrong with any particular.

I will say though that I would never purchase a used firearm without being able to do a function check.

The whole thing though about closing the slide by releasing the slide stop is a touchy issue though with some people who feel that slamming the slide forward like that can damage the gun.

I'm not sure how that puts any more wear on the pistol than actually firing a round, but there is sensitivity around it.

If there are buyers out there who will buy firearms without doing a full function check and dry-firing the weapon, then dealers will prey upon them.

Why let someone do a function check that exposes a problem with the weapon? You'll never be able to sell it at a show once a customer exposes that the weapon is malfunctioning.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top