You Got to Love The Germanic Mentality

A

Austin1776

Inactive
So, I opened up the two boxes of cases of Hirtenberger surplus military 308 I recently purchased. My God. The wood cases it is packed in look like quality furniture. I've seen a LOT of wood cases of ammo and NOTHING compares to the quality of the wood cases these Teutonic obsessive folks made. They even stained the wood, then provided "hinges" for the boxes, and cloth handles on them, and then close them up with steel two steel straps and then...also...a "seal" on them. Only the Germans. These throw-away crates are much nicer than the crap furniture we bought when we were first married!

Enjoy these pics of German quality at work. I mean, seriously?

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They'd be more enjoyable if they were a size that didn't take 30 minutes to load and a wide screen TV to see all at once.
 
Only the Germans. These throw-away crates are much nicer than the crap furniture we bought when we were first married!
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Sorry you bought crap furniture when you were first married, I can't help that. ;) (the wife and I decided early on not to buy good furniture, until we were done having children in the house. We love them, but the little house apes are the death of any kind of "fine" finish or appearance. And, interestingly enough, when the kids had grown enough that we could have gotten nice things, having those nice things was no longer very important to us.)

But, I think you are making an assumption that isn't exactly true. About the ammo crates being "throw away", intentionally.

I think it is a combination of multiple "mindsets", the US and Germanic have a number of points of congruence, but also a number of points of difference.

Two of them are (when making things for German use) to make them the best way they can, and to make them reusable. This is a combination of "old world craftsmanship" and tradition, as well as design and use philosophies.

Yes, the box is clearly overbuilt (by our standards) for a single use item. The very fact that it has hinges shows it was made for reuse. Single use boxes have lids that are nailed on.

Many German made things are built to allow reuse, despite the fact that many do get thrown away, WWII German machineguns did not use disintegrating link belts. Ammo belts, ammo cans, shipping crates, and many other things were intended to be collected and reused, whenever practical. And, sometimes, they actually were.

Different attitudes, lots of places. There's the story about an American buying a German sports car, and complaining to the dealer about the lack of cup holders...the German dealer's response was "das Auto is fur DRIVING, not fur drinking!"....:D

One "attitude /design philosophy" very common in Germanic firearms is that the safety is to be operated with the non-trigger hand. Another seems to be that pistol holsters are gun cases that you can wear, fastened with straps and buckles, and not well suited to rapid deployment of the gun.

Quite different from American attitudes, and while newer German designs do show some influence from American attitudes, tradition still hold sway with some things.

"The customer is always right" is not a typical German attitude. There are, of course, exceptions..
 
I had practically no furniture when I was young, got acquired piece by piece over a period of several years for the first set. Me and my ex-wife's mattress was bought last after the kids each got one. We slept on a floor for a long time. We had nothing and we were happy and excited to get the opportunity to succeed, just took some hard but satisfying work and a bit of redefining of what success was.
I have used ammo crates just like that as furniture I often wondered why so much hardware was used to make them.
I also remember when surplus stores had real military surplus at awesome prices. Most nowadays are commercial knock-offs. I bought my first set of tools at a surplus store.
thanks for sharing.
 
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Some of our nicest stuff was found at the curb. Basically anything that was real hardwood we would collect and refinish. We got good at repairing furniture, too.
 
44 AMP said:
Sorry you bought crap furniture when you were first married, I can't help that. ;) (the wife and I decided early on not to buy good furniture, until we were done having children in the house. We love them, but the little house apes are the death of any kind of "fine" finish or appearance. And, interestingly enough, when the kids had grown enough that we could have gotten nice things, having those nice things was no longer very important to us.)

But, I think you are making an assumption that isn't exactly true. About the ammo crates being "throw away", intentionally.

I think it is a combination of multiple "mindsets", the US and Germanic have a number of points of congruence, but also a number of points of difference.

Two of them are (when making things for German use) to make them the best way they can, and to make them reusable. This is a combination of "old world craftsmanship" and tradition, as well as design and use philosophies.

Yes, the box is clearly overbuilt (by our standards) for a single use item. The very fact that it has hinges shows it was made for reuse. Single use boxes have lids that are nailed on.

Many German made things are built to allow reuse, despite the fact that many do get thrown away, WWII German machineguns did not use disintegrating link belts. Ammo belts, ammo cans, shipping crates, and many other things were intended to be collected and reused, whenever practical. And, sometimes, they actually were.

Different attitudes, lots of places. There's the story about an American buying a German sports car, and complaining to the dealer about the lack of cup holders...the German dealer's response was "das Auto is fur DRIVING, not fur drinking!"....:D

One "attitude /design philosophy" very common in Germanic firearms is that the safety is to be operated with the non-trigger hand. Another seems to be that pistol holsters are gun cases that you can wear, fastened with straps and buckles, and not well suited to rapid deployment of the gun.

Quite different from American attitudes, and while newer German designs do show some influence from American attitudes, tradition still hold sway with some things.

"The customer is always right" is not a typical German attitude. There are, of course, exceptions..
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Those "pistol cases" are not unique to "die Deutschen", but have been used for over a century all over Europe. Did they invent the style? Perhaps, but it's not just Teutonic thinking that employed them.

As someone who lived and worked in Germany for over two years, I can tell you for sure that the Germans don't "always make great stuff". They're good people but for some reason Americans like to put them on pedestals for whatever reason even if their experience with the country ends at buying a few German products.
 
Where did you get that crate? I hung a wood rocket crate on the wall of my reloading room, added shelves and made a cool cabinet. Sort of like hanging your Arbuckles coffee box on the wall of your sod house.
 
But, I think you are making an assumption that isn't exactly true. About the ammo crates being "throw away", intentionally.

I think it is a combination of multiple "mindsets", the US and Germanic have a number of points of congruence, but also a number of points of difference.

Two of them are (when making things for German use) to make them the best way they can, and to make them reusable. This is a combination of "old world craftsmanship" and tradition, as well as design and use philosophies.
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Actually - - it's all about German packaging laws.....

A manufacturer is 100% responsible for an item - and/or it's packaging, from "birth to grave", via the recycling laws.

A lot of makers, Festool is the one I'm most familiar with, use that to their advantage & package their line of high end tools in a "Systainer" - an expensive plastic stackable carry case.

The laws date back to 1991's "Packaging Ordinance".

Here's a brief look at how things are over there:
http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/dsd_aofw_ni/ni_pdfs/NationalReports/germany/waste.pdf

It's also one of the reason German goods cost so much.
 
In my experience, the biggest difference between Austrians and Germans is that Austrians get "D" in German class for their poor pronunciation. :rolleyes:
 
Mine does not have fancy hinges but I bought this back in this somewhere between 1989 and 1992. Looks like yours and I'm sure there is a spam can inside. :)
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Obviously I know where I bought it but cannot remember the country in was mfg in? Spain maybe?
 
"...Only the Germans..." Nope. CF 7.62 came in the same kind of box. Didn't have the steel strapping unless it was being shipped a long way though. Steel strapping is normal for securing all kinds of containers though.
Portuguese 7.62NATO, I'd have to look, Used the box as a pistol box for a few years) came in a solid wooden box with a tool made specifically for breaking the steel strapping on the nest box. The tool caused a lot of somewhat heated debates as to what its purpose was.
Note the boxes from assorted places.
https://www.marstar.ca/dynamic/category.jsp?catid=76551
"...Spain maybe?..." Says so on the box. 'Espanol' is Spanish for Spain.
Hirtenberger ammunition is owned by the Swiss group RUAG technology now. They own Dynamit Nobel, Norma, RWS, Rottweil(shot shells) and GECO. Plus a bunch of shops making military stuff.
 
Model12Win said:
As someone who lived and worked in Germany for over two years, I can tell you for sure that the Germans don't "always make great stuff". They're good people but for some reason Americans like to put them on pedestals for whatever reason even if their experience with the country ends at buying a few German products.
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I recall a remark is an old gunzine saying that before the 68 GCA, German makes occupied both ends of the gunmaking quality spectrum, with American makes in the middle.

Shooters today tend to think HK while forgetting about Röhm/RG. :rolleyes:
 
Shooters today tend to think HK while forgetting about Röhm/RG
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Ja, but the Roehm/RG was made for export, primarily. Und, if foolish foreigners vill buy zem, ve vill make zem! Alles in Ordnung, hier! :rolleyes:
 
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