State of the Industry; An Open Discussion.

[Firefly]

Trump is very much a NYC man.
His idea of Pro-Gun is very, very different from yours.

But should we be allowed our 2nd Amendment 'privileges'....

We have come so far on AR knowledge thst it is easier to suss whats good, whats bad, and what is a gimmick.

It isnt what you put on it, as it is what you do with it.

And you really only need one.

[26 Inf]

The problem with the current industry is too many consumers are quality illiterate. Your average customer, when asked, cannot articulate why one AR is good over another AR. The problem with quality illiterate consumers are that they will buy into anything that seems new or novel. To them something is good because its new or different. Newness replaces quality in their minds so companies are just coming up with products that arent even necessarily better just different and novel to attract customers. Look at the bolt gun industry, how many different calibers did they have to invent just so they can sell more bolt guns? When in reality simple a .308 bolt gun will serve 99.9% of all the hunters out there. People are doing the same thing with ARs that they are with the new uber caliber bolt guns. Keep telling yourself that the new 6.whatever will make you a better shooter so you can spend more money.

Just discussing.

The problem with the current industry is too many consumers are quality illiterate. Your average customer, when asked, cannot articulate why one AR is good over another AR. The problem with quality illiterate consumers are that they will buy into anything that seems new or novel.

You are absolutely correct in this assessment, but I think we need to keep in mind it is that way across ALL industries. One of the hats I wore was 'driving instructor' people who knew me would ask me questions. One lady called me and asked me if I had any idea what was wrong with her car, a Hyundai Sonata, as it was braking in turns - she didn't understand the traction control - she's a pretty aggressive, and good driver, but not knowledgeable about her car.

Look at the bolt gun industry, how many different calibers did they have to invent just so they can sell more bolt guns? When in reality simple a .308 bolt gun will serve 99.9% of all the hunters out there. People are doing the same thing with ARs that they are with the new uber caliber bolt guns. Keep telling yourself that the new 6.whatever will make you a better shooter so you can spend more money.

Most of those new calibers began production as Wildcat cartridges designed to overcome a specific shortcoming in another cartridge. For example, the 6.5 Creedmore, the round with which many folks replaced or supplemented their .308 bolt guns:

The 6.5 Creedmoor ,,,, was born out of a gripe session between one frustrated shooter and his friend. The shooter was Dennis DeMille, a legend in the world of High Power Rifle competition. The friend was Dave Emary, senior ballistician at Hornady Manufacturing. The date was August 2005, and the location was the National Matches at Camp Perry, Ohio.

“It was during service rifle week. Dennis and I were sharing a condo. At the end of one day we were sitting and talking, and he told me he was getting frustrated with the 6XC,” Emary says. The 6XC, though it had been winning matches, was still a wildcat, without any published reloading data. Reloaders hadn’t worked out the kinks yet, and their ammo was frequently blowing primers and breaking extractors.,,,,,

“I went back to the condo that evening and told Dave I was ready to pack up and go home,” DeMille says. Instead, Emary persuaded him to stay, asking DeMille to think about everything he wanted in the ultimate cartridge for across-the-course shooting, as High Power is also known. The next morning, DeMille gave Emary his list. (DeMille went on to win one of his two champion crowns in High Power that year, by the way.)

DeMille came up with seven requirements. The hypothetical cartridge had to:
1. Be magazine length for the rapid-fire strings in competition.
2. Have light recoil, much less than a .308, for rapid fire and general shooter comfort.
3. Shoot flat, with an accurate, high B.C. bullet.
4. Promote good barrel life.
5. Use readily available components, including powder, so that it could be easily replicated.
6. Have the reloading recipe listed on the box.
7. Be produced in quantities sufficient to meet demand.

With those guidelines in hand, Emary went back to Hornady and got to work. He collaborated with Joe Thielen on the project, and at SHOT Show in 2006, he gave DeMille an unmarked piece of brass. The yet-to-be-named round was based on the forgettable .30 T/C, whose only legacy will be the cartridges it has spawned......

DeMille did some testing with the cartridge and gave feedback on how to improve it. Hornady figured they would call the round the 6.5 DeMille, but DeMille quickly rejected that idea.

DeMille suggested instead the name Creedmoor, not only based on the company where he was general manager—Creedmoor Sports—but on the history of the location on Long Island, New York, where the first national rifle matches were held.

The following year, in 2007, the 6.5 Creedmoor was launched by Hornady at the SHOT Show, but with no expectation that it would come to dominate the broader hunting and shooting world within just a few years.

https://www.outdoorlife.com/evolutio...eedmoor#page-3

When in reality simple a .308 bolt gun will serve 99.9% of all the hunters out there.

Agreed. You could make the same assertion regarding a base Ford F150 and a Ford F-150 Raptor.

[NickB]

Allow me to separate this into 2 parts.

To the first paragraph, amen. 100%. That is a great observation; it is one I have struggled to articulate for a long time. Innovation for the sake of innovation is not a good thing. I think it boils down to a disconnect between people who like guns and people who like shooting.

I hate guns, But I enjoy shooting. I want to get on target faster and more accurately and if it doesn’t do either it is a waste of my time and money.

Some folks just wanna dick around with guns in their basement. I don’t get that, but it is a thing. Unfortunately, and this is true for not just myself but many on M4C, the gun likers outnumber the shooting likers by a lot.

The perfect gun store for a person who wants to be a better shooter would be a wall full of 6920s and a pistol case full of Glock 19s. They’d sell two types of 5.56mm and 9mm ammo - FMJ and Gold dots. Accessories would be Aimpoint T2s, Surefire M300/600s, Streamlight TLR1s, and behind the counter would be a display of quality NV kit such as lasers, monoculars, and WP Bino’s.

They could round the place out with some display racks of steel and paper targets, kydex holsters, and maybe ear and eye pro. Directions to the nearest Advance Auto Parts store would be free so folks could get their Mobil 1 and White lithium grease for lube.

Done.

Think about how quickly that store would go out of business. That’s why these companies have to produce bs like skull faced AR lower receivers. But I’m ok with that because those people keep the 6920s and G19s available.

It’s kind of like Jeep Wranglers. The 4 Doors are super gay and scream mall crawling soccer dad (or Mom). But if they never made the 4 door, my beloved 2 door solid front axle soft top with a manual transmission wouldn’t have been anywhere near profitable enough to make. In many ways, the only reason the 2 Doors are sold at all is because people decided to drive a gay SUV.

Now that people are done stockpiling everything they can get, the industry is probably going to have to get a little gay to generate revenue. Look at the handgun industry. Guys - I know this is gonna generate flak but if you want a fighting handgun you buy a 9mm Glock. Period. But believe me when I say this - if there was a gun on the market that had the aftermarket support, the reliability, the proven track record, and all of the tangibles that the 9mm Glock has I would sell all of mine, all of my mags, all of my holsters and switch platforms today. There just isn’t anything on the market that is worth doing that. But why are people buying M&Ps and HKs and CZs? It certainly isn’t because they are measuring their performance objectively. It comes down to being a “gun guy” and what you like subjectively. This is who manufacturers need to cater to. I just hope that when they do they don’t forget about the people who hate guns and just want to shoot.

To the second paragraph, I disagree. Shoot a 308 and 6.5 Creedmoor side by side at 1000 yards. You will absolutely see the benefit within the first round of each. I promise.

I legitimately laughed out loud several times reading this response, you nailed it!

[Mr. Goodtimes]

I think the reality is that we’re going to see a lot of these AR manufacturers going under. The market is flooded and there’s too many manufactures and too little demand.

I literally laughed at a buddy when he talked about wanting to start a company making AR-15’s. I asked him if he was retarded and then asked... why would I buy your rifle and not someone else’s? To which he had no reply.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Shooterman017]

The perfect gun store for a person who wants to be a better shooter would be a wall full of 6920s and a pistol case full of Glock 19s. They’d sell two types of 5.56mm and 9mm ammo - FMJ and Gold dots. Accessories would be Aimpoint T2s, Surefire M300/600s, Streamlight TLR1s, and behind the counter would be a display of quality NV kit such as lasers, monoculars, and WP Bino’s.

They could round the place out with some display racks of steel and paper targets, kydex holsters, and maybe ear and eye pro. Directions to the nearest Advance Auto Parts store would be free so folks could get their Mobil 1 and White lithium grease for lube.

Done.

Think about how quickly that store would go out of business. That’s why these companies have to produce bs like skull faced AR lower receivers. But I’m ok with that because those people keep the 6920s and G19s available.

I would totally shop there. But you have to have a rack of "Suck Less" t-shirts. Like Nike print on the front.

The bolded part...a place like that would last a month here...unfortunately. So...are we at the point where the 99% of shooters (or whatever 90ish%) and that lower common denominator is going to keep the 1ish% of the market (M4C members, as an example) going...?

Without getting too political, this isn't the General Disco section...is the landscape about to change to reflect otherwise? We don't have an "inflated", panic-driven market now. Is the "lower common denominator" on the market going to account for an increasingly smaller portion of the pie...? Then what? Not necessarily referring to the firearms industry as a whole, moreso focusing on the AR market.

[Diamondback]

I'm probably one of the folks Eurodriver complains about--hell, to be honest I don't even LIKE AR's (we'll come back to this in a minute), if I found myself with a huge lottery win my go-nuts-on buys would be various WWII and maybe Cold War-issue irons from all sides.

I enjoy shooting, but with aging and invalid relatives keeping me tethered pretty close to home I can't get out to the range as much as I'd like and on my budget I have to make every round count; and maybe I'm what some folks would call "Gear Queer" but I also usually prefer to build things over buy them, even if having built to my specs--this probably goes back to, before the Bitchy Little Girls in the local scene ruined it for me, my preferring building scale models over playing with regular toys as a kid. Even more, I enjoy craftsmanship--as previously referred to, the process of developing an idea, doing the research to source or if needed fabricate or modify parts for it, then doing the machining and assembly to finish the process of bringing that concept to reality.

Back to my first sentence observation: I may not LIKE AR's, but there are things and people in my life that they're the best option for enabling me to protect. Also, if you're one of those DIY types... well, GOOD LUCK cutting a Thompson or M1 Carbine receiver without heavy-duty machine tools, while knocking out an AR lower can actually be easily done with hand tools and stick-to-it-iveness. They're also much more adaptable to operator needs than any other weapon yet, and there's the factor that with a certain sector of hate-filled bigots wanting to do away with the 2A in general and AR's in particular... well, not to go political but these days any time a Democrat doesn't want you to have something that's a good reason to have at least three of it, more preferably a dozen. And with the whole push the Left Coast Left keeps trying to make for prelude-to-confiscation registration (which is the *real* agenda behind "Universal Background Checks")... well, my personal opinion is that except those mentally or morally unsuited, everyone should have a set of AR jigs, a few lowers and the parts and tools to complete them as a modern-day "minuteman's musket" in the basement along with the other survival supplies.

The simple truth is, it takes all kinds to make the world go round... and if we don't all hang together, the Gun Grabbers and their Quisling pets the Fudds will not only hang us all separately but cream their collectivist skivvies while doing it.

[Warp]

Allow me to separate this into 2 parts.

To the first paragraph, amen. 100%. That is a great observation; it is one I have struggled to articulate for a long time. Innovation for the sake of innovation is not a good thing. I think it boils down to a disconnect between people who like guns and people who like shooting.

I hate guns, But I enjoy shooting. I want to get on target faster and more accurately and if it doesn’t do either it is a waste of my time and money.

Some folks just wanna dick around with guns in their basement. I don’t get that, but it is a thing. Unfortunately, and this is true for not just myself but many on M4C, the gun likers outnumber the shooting likers by a lot.

The perfect gun store for a person who wants to be a better shooter would be a wall full of 6920s and a pistol case full of Glock 19s. They’d sell two types of 5.56mm and 9mm ammo - FMJ and Gold dots. Accessories would be Aimpoint T2s, Surefire M300/600s, Streamlight TLR1s, and behind the counter would be a display of quality NV kit such as lasers, monoculars, and WP Bino’s.

They could round the place out with some display racks of steel and paper targets, kydex holsters, and maybe ear and eye pro. Directions to the nearest Advance Auto Parts store would be free so folks could get their Mobil 1 and White lithium grease for lube.

Done.

Think about how quickly that store would go out of business. That’s why these companies have to produce bs like skull faced AR lower receivers. But I’m ok with that because those people keep the 6920s and G19s available.

It’s kind of like Jeep Wranglers. The 4 Doors are super gay and scream mall crawling soccer dad (or Mom). But if they never made the 4 door, my beloved 2 door solid front axle soft top with a manual transmission wouldn’t have been anywhere near profitable enough to make. In many ways, the only reason the 2 Doors are sold at all is because people decided to drive a gay SUV.

Now that people are done stockpiling everything they can get, the industry is probably going to have to get a little gay to generate revenue. Look at the handgun industry. Guys - I know this is gonna generate flak but if you want a fighting handgun you buy a 9mm Glock. Period. But believe me when I say this - if there was a gun on the market that had the aftermarket support, the reliability, the proven track record, and all of the tangibles that the 9mm Glock has I would sell all of mine, all of my mags, all of my holsters and switch platforms today. There just isn’t anything on the market that is worth doing that. But why are people buying M&Ps and HKs and CZs? It certainly isn’t because they are measuring their performance objectively. It comes down to being a “gun guy” and what you like subjectively. This is who manufacturers need to cater to. I just hope that when they do they don’t forget about the people who hate guns and just want to shoot.

To the second paragraph, I disagree. Shoot a 308 and 6.5 Creedmoor side by side at 1000 yards. You will absolutely see the benefit within the first round of each. I promise.

I think shooting at 1,000 yards automatically puts you into the 0.1% (he said .308 serves 99.9%) though

[Kyohte]

Guys - I know this is gonna generate flak but if you want a fighting handgun you buy a 9mm Glock. Period. But believe me when I say this - if there was a gun on the market that had the aftermarket support, the reliability, the proven track record, and all of the tangibles that the 9mm Glock has I would sell all of mine, all of my mags, all of my holsters and switch platforms today. There just isn’t anything on the market that is worth doing that. But why are people buying M&Ps and HKs and CZs? It certainly isn’t because they are measuring their performance objectively. It comes down to being a “gun guy” and what you like subjectively. This is who manufacturers need to cater to. I just hope that when they do they don’t forget about the people who hate guns and just want to shoot.

I get this, to an extent. I recommend Glock to most people but...

Many people I know move away from Glocks because of objective, quantifiable performance gains they can obtain with another pistol. I have a 0.4 second difference in my reloads between Glock and HK in similar sized pistols. My performance is objectively better. Same goes for splits between a Glock and a 1911 (and my 1911 reloads suck horribly). Reliability? Depending on how you define it, my 1911 is quantifiably more reliable than many Glocks (and requires maintenance more regular intervals). I can objectively measure these criteria and pick what aspects of a pistol I want to optimize and what I want to disregard.

As to the “state of the industry”, pistols are digressing horribly with everyone trying to one-up the next manufacturer with the lightest striker fires trigger. One of these days, someone’s going to get hurt...oh...wait...

In terms of semi-automatic rifles, someone already nailed it. With the panic of “I need to hoard 3 identical 6920s” over, manufacturers need a new way to make you buy a new rifle (or upper). They’re playing this right out of the bolt action book. Just look at the new .224 Valkyrie. This has worked with well the fuds, but fuds eschew semi-automatic rifles. I’m not sure this will pan out as a good investment unless big gov gets involved.

Bolt actions are pretty stagnant now, too. The best designs are well behind us (design peaked in 1917, but people seem to have forgotten that design) and with the exception of a few boutique companies, innovation has ground to a halt.

Ammunition wise, the 6.5 creedmore made a blip that may have the unexpected effect of reviving the almost identical, but not as “tactical”, .260 Remington. .300 AAC continues to chug along, but without cheaper ammo (I remember AAC saying that $8/box ammo would be a possibility), it will never become a house hold item. In terms of handguns, companies have realized that if they can make a round look like it performs good in gel, it will sell like hot cakes. I am skeptical of gel results translating to real world performance, though I do recognize they’re pretty much the most objective benchmark we have.