Average shooter vs "Trained shooter"

[bamashooter]

COTS IS COTS when it comes to government specs and standards. Less a specified tolerance allowance, the first item produced via a contract vs the millionth item produced should be the same unless otherwise specified.

[AFshirt]

OP Lost me as soon as he said he puts more rounds downrange than most people on this page.

[Failure2Stop]

One of the biggest problems with COTS that I have observed is that there doesn't always seem to be consistent quality control with replacement parts. The "less than meets the standard" replacement parts can be a real issue to track down and replace, often they cannot be 100% sure and a lot of money gets spent in trying to make this right.
My best guess is that someone making replacement part "X" gets a bit sloppy with projecting lifespan and maintenance requiring replacement of parts and then replacement parts fall well below what is actually needed and then someone panic buys something less than adequate "Off the Shelf" from an unproven vendor. You're really screwed if you've got a .mil contract and you now have to replace part x on thousands of weapons systems.

https://www.gsa.gov/cdnstatic/SF368-...orceDownload=1

I work no-kidding real government procurement programs.
To be a qualified vendor for program of record items, you have to jump through a bunch of hoops and testing; from DCMA inspection to packaging and labeling.
If an item isn't meeting the government spec, there are PQDRs (like the one above) that anyone in the receipt chain can initiate. If, however, the specification/drawing is wrong from the government, you're gonna get the part that matches the requirement. Not the fault of the supplier.
"Lowest cost" is a function of many selection criteria (as illustrated above), but mostly applies to commodity items (high volume, simple items like bore brushes and sticky-notes). Even items that technically fall under "COTS" can be highly complex items with detailed inspections and testing for each part, "COTS" is a weird thing in that it is less what it sounds like and more in how it protects intellectual property rights of the manufacturer/supplier.

[Dr. Bullseye]

OK Military guys out there, listen to your peer. This is a experienced guy talking about inexpensive ARs. This is his wife's $550.00 AR. Go to the 14:06 mark of this video. It is a minute or two of your time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRHLk__3ZJU

[vicious_cb]

OK Military guys out there, listen to your peer. This is a experienced guy talking about inexpensive ARs. This is his wife's $550.00 AR. Go to the 14:06 mark of this video. It is a minute or two of your time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRHLk__3ZJU

OK Military guys out there, listen to your peer. This is a experienced guy talking about real world stuff. Go to the 0:00 mark of this video. It is worth 3 minutes and 34 secs of your time.

[titsonritz]

OK Military guys out there, listen to your peer. This is a experienced guy talking about inexpensive ARs. This is his wife's $550.00 AR. Go to the 14:06 mark of this video. It is a minute or two of your time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRHLk__3ZJU

Oh well, that settles it.

[1168]

OK Military guys out there, listen to your peer. This is a experienced guy talking about inexpensive ARs. This is his wife's $550.00 AR. Go to the 14:06 mark of this video. It is a minute or two of your time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRHLk__3ZJU

Not all “military guys” are created equally. I’ve never worked with that dude, so I do not presume him to be my peer. Maybe he knows more than me, maybe not. See OP.

Most “military guys” know less than nothing about weapons. Like most cops, they shoot the gun they were issued, and know the things they were taught about the weapon they are issued. Like max effective range, etc. most “military guys” are taught that they have to clean the everliving crap out of a gun every 65 rounds. There are lots of Soldiers that, no kidding, fire a grand total of 130 rounds a year. So if they run out and buy a PSA, and it doesn’t explode after 420 rounds, they presume that it is as good as or better than their issued weapon.

A minority of “military guys” are “gun guys”. Most of these guys are just like bubba at the gun store, and repeat much of the same crap you hear from Bubba at the gun store. Remember, most of these guys were not physicists, physicians, paramedics, engineers, ballisticians, or competitive shooters before they joined the Army/USMC. They are mostly guys that have graduated high school/GED and many have never even had a previous job. They saw an awesome opportunity for a decent job, or a chance to make something of themselves and took it.

I’ve heard many Soldiers and Marines say crap like: “The Army should have stuck with .308” and “the M4 isn’t reliable enough; we should get AK’s” Most of those have never deployed, or even carried a weapon across mountainous terrain.

Then a very small percentage of us are obsessive nerds with some formal education, that also lucked out with the opportunity, luck, and good genes to work our way into units that actually had a budget for ammo and training.

[ogtruckin]

OK Military guys out there, listen to your peer. This is a experienced guy talking about real world stuff. Go to the 0:00 mark of this video. It is worth 3 minutes and 34 secs of your time.

I gotta go slay some Frickin bodies OK good to go

[The_War_Wagon]

That reminds me... IS The Chart still floating out there anywhere? Sweeney makes reference to it in his books on the AR1, but I've come up dry with years of trying.

It's easy enough to find, but beware - folks were "fiddling with it," even in Rob_S day, trying to make some models look better than they were.

It's also so old, some of the brands originally tested, like, Charles Daly, Sabre Defense, & Olympic, have SINCE gone out of business! DID "The Chart" lead to their demise? WHO knows. But good rifles are STILL made, & yet cheap rifles still abound. Go figure?

[titsonritz]

The "chart" is a snapshot in time and is not necessarily accurate today.