I'll peruse the other threads as soon as I can. I am working on a move and have other things on my plate.
Let's make sure to keep "our side" civil. I read some of the hysterical replies in the Armalite thread already and am rather dismayed.
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I'll peruse the other threads as soon as I can. I am working on a move and have other things on my plate.
Let's make sure to keep "our side" civil. I read some of the hysterical replies in the Armalite thread already and am rather dismayed.
Rob_S let me first off say that I think you are a class act guy. Somehow throughout this wonderful collection of information known as the chart you have lost your way. Understandable by the amount of flak I'm sure you have caught over the years. Although I am not new to the M4 rifle as I have carried one for the last 5 years I am new to the Close to M4 civilian version. I would like to stress to you the importance of your work (based on the fact that while it hasn't been an end all be all for me it has been a tremendous foundation on which to build my research) to a new user and the teaching him to fish analogy that would be merely my speculation. So I will go another route. You have started like what was said an unbiased knowledge-base of what more known manufacturers produce as standard. Some people claim that you fudge figures but over the last thread (which I spent all day reading just to find out this one) I could find no instances of where you stated different. You simply made a check if they did it or not. Now which brings me to my point. You have done great work for the benefit of AR style buyers as a whole. I'm sure you realize this. You have given US as a group a voice now. You are our face to the companies that claim to give a quality product. You are the boogieman because of your statements. The chart while it is still an informative being to new users has become more than that. It has become a representation of a standard of how a quality rifle should be made or at least value of said rifle. People who blame you and the chart are naive in the fact that you didnt make the rifle substandard they did. You simply put it in black and white. (Or Blue) If they feel that they put out a quality peice than the Public Opinion will correlate (see KAC). If they dont on the Chart than the public also usually correlates (see Oly). I also think that you have made an impact on some said bottom tier companies to put out a better product. Which is I feel the most important part of what the chart has become. I think that we all agree that "Mil-Spec" is a loose term at best nowadays. While most of the columns on your chart are based on it I think that they have a place as what the civilian world deem the standard still. So are they really still Mil-Spec or have they become Educated Buyer Spec for lack of a better term. I am also aware that there may or may not be products that exceed the Spec but since most people arent engineers (and taking the word of one is also hearsay) I would say Mil-Spec and mass Public reviews are still the standard. I only base this assumption on its been proven for years in combat. It is my opinion however so please dont berate me for it. I also do not bash a company for putting out a lower standard product. It covers a void of people wanting to get into the AR market for whatever reason and cant afford top tier makers. (Any gun is better than no gun for defense) I think that at the end of the day the end user needs to decide his risk vs reward. IE being this rifle is cheaper but it may fail over this more expensive one that is proven. Again thank you for your work and if you ever considered broadening this to the rest of the AR industry let me be the first to volunteer to help out. I think that its a dirty job but someone has to do it. Also I apologize if I have jumped around too much in this. ADD gets the best of me still.
I looked at the threads in Armalite, Rock River Arms, and Bushmaster. I have been trying to contact Armalite with mixed success and I will try to contact the RRA rep who posted his email address shortly. It's unfortunate to see that BM just isn't likely to reply to anything, as evidenced by some of the complaining about even their warranty service on their industry page.
I think that if I can get replies from Armalite and RRA I'll go ahead and publish. I'd really like to include BM and S&W but neither of them seem likely at this point. Neither does DPMS, another player from the old Chart that it would be nice to include, along with Olympic but that's obviously out of the question now.
Rob, about DPMS etc., how about including their data from the previous Chart, and indicating that they declined to update?
A real shame S&W isn't participating but I hope ArmaLite and RRA do. Can't wait to see the new chart!
Would be nice to see BM and DPMS but by not participating they're only confirming everything we already knew.
US Army 1966-69, VFW Life Member, Retired Geek
Loved the old chart, really interested in seeing the next.
Keep up the good work Rob.
Evidently the powers that be on TOS decided they didn't like their sponsors being asked questions. As of yesterday the threads on both Bushmaster and RRA's forums were removed. That is unfortunate as at least the rep from RRA seemed willing to participate. If anyone happened to get the email address he posted or has the thread archived somewhere and can send it to me I'd appreciate it.
I suppose it's a side-effect of having a... polarizing personality but it's too bad that sharing information can't rise above that.
thanks.
sent him an email just now.
also, re-sent email to two contacts at Armalite.
Last edited by rob_s; 06-09-11 at 07:58.
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