Here is another article on Hodge from the NRA.
http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/...8#/add2d3f8/10
I'm not exactly impartial, as Jim is a close friend of mine. Not for nothing though, one of the reasons I like him so much is the way he approaches his business and products. I know how much thought and planning goes into every roll pin and detent spring to ensure they're the best available, even if a cut corner would have had little consequence. When we first met, I asked what was different about his rifles. There are the small details you'll feel a difference with...the perfect safety, the enhanced takedown pins, the enhanced billet bolt catch, and Jim's proprietary home-brew paintbrush-applied factory lubricant...when you handle the gun. But the answer was really, "I build every gun as perfect as possible out of the best parts I can get." I get that some people might not prefer certain features...I changed the grip and trigger on mine for a K2 and SD-E. But to compare the rifle in general to "something anyone could do better at home" is a plain fallacy. I joke with Jim and tell him the safety and takedown pins are as crisp and precise as my trigger, and stuff like that matters to me. After I got two rifles from a popular uber-manufacturer (in reality an assembler...like most) last year that were non-functional (one didn't have an indexing pin on the barrel and the brake was cross-threaded on the muzzle, the other wouldn't shoot 8" at 50 yards due to a grossly out of spec barrel), and I've grown to notice details and choose not to believe the hype these days. Like others in this thread, my personal gold standard for carbines is the KAC SR-15. I think it represents the best that our industry has done with the DI AR15's operating system and quality, due to the tremendous talent, institutional knowledge, and technology KAC has. I see what Hodge has in the cooker, and I see the potential for that level of innovation and excellence in other areas of the AR-pattern rifle, all from a 1 man show with a couple of helpers, and some friends he's made an impression on along the way.
I wouldn't write Hodge off because of a forum post, or because a happy customer otherwise unrelated to the company took a picture with a porn star because he is that happy with his purchase (which I am grateful for). While I don't think anyone would disagree, this is my personal opinion and doesn't reflect the opinions of my employer, etc. etc. The MOD1 is greater than the sum of it's parts sitting in a box, and I've happily got the one I bought sitting here beside me. It's got thousands of rounds through it (10K+??), I don't keep track on my guns like I used to, but I'd say it's filthy to the point it can never be clean again. Mostly suppressed no less, and I've used it for high-volume testing and a host of other things I normally wouldn't volunteer my personal guns for, and it's still my go-to rifle. Many of my friends use them, many guys you folks would know through industry associations as well as some end users. Never an issue, never anything but boring reliability and accuracy. That's not free folks, as I'm sure on the other side of the coin we could all imagine (or more likely have seen in person) the end state of all these quality parts when a mongoloid assembles them on his kitchen table isn't always up to snuff. I'd encourage most folks that are not impressed at this point to dig a little deeper, or at least enter a holding pattern for the future. I'd be happy to chat with anyone to the degree that I can as a customer, but the man himself has opened up the invite a few posts up and I don't imagine anyone would find they wasted their time taking him up on it.
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