k*******n
发帖数: 5546 | 1 Trust No One: an insider's perspective
by Todd Louis Green, pistol-training.com
Trying to decide which pistol to buy? If so, you’re probably looking for
one that is guaranteed to be durable and reliable. Well, I’ve got bad news
for you. There is no such gun. The day when you could point to a particular
brand or model and be certain it would work 100% out of the box and last
forever is gone.
After ten years in the firearms industry, including jobs at two major
prestigious gun manufacturers, I have come to a very simple conclusion: no
one makes a gun that you can be certain will work. Bias and personal
preferences aside, most of the major manufacturers are more or less equal
nowadays in quality. It wasn’t always that way, but as price became an
increasingly important factor in buying decisions of both individuals and
government entities, everything changed.
As major gun companies began losing marketshare to Glock, surveys of
customers made it very clear that price was one of the driving factors. So
what could gun companies do? They had to start competing on price.
The result is, throughout the industry, reduced attention to quality. Both
companies I worked for, when I started, had a strict policy of test-firing
every single pistol that left the factory floor. Each gun was subjected to
two or three full magazines of shooting before it was given the stamp of
approval. By the time I left each job, both companies had stopped test-
firing pistols destined for the commercial (non-law enforcement, non-
military) markets … and in some cases, they stopped testing the LE guns, as
well. Why? Test-firing costs a lot of money. You need a range, specially
trained and equipped employees, and of course, ammo … lots of ammo. Test-
firing a pistol easily adds $25 or more to the price you pay at the gun shop.
But you can guess what happens when companies skip the step in production
validating that a product actually works. The number of inferior guns goes
way up. Duh! But gun companies are ok with that, because so few handguns
ever see 10,000 or even 1,000 rounds of use. Most problems never materialize
, or they don’t appear until years down the road when it’s either too late
or too bothersome for the owner to deal with. So while gun companies are
going to have a higher percentage of guns showing problems, that expense is
offset by the savings they get from cutting production costs. In other words
, low quality saves them enough money to deal with the occasional squeaky
wheel gun owner.
Some people think that brands and models which have been around a long time
are not as subject to these problems. One friend of mine has adopted what he
calls The Five Year Rule … he won’t carry or depend on a new design until
it’s been on the market for five years so that all the bugs can be worked
out. That sounds smart in theory, but in reality it just doesn’t matter.
How come? Glad you asked.
Gun companies are constantly changing their dimensional specifications,
materials, parts vendors, and quality control procedures. Beretta, Glock, H&
K, SIG, S&W … everyone is making changes all the time and often to major
components. The gun you think comes with a precise cold hammer forged barrel
made in Europe now may actually come with a much less expensive and totally
unproven barrel that was made on an EDM machine in Canada due to a
production change made last year. Your pistol of choice might come with that
brand new stainless trigger bar (which replaced the tried & tested carbon
steel version used for decades) that’s too soft because the manufacturer
hasn’t exactly figured out the proper heat treating process yet.
Doubt it’s true? Go to any brand-specific forum and look around. Complaints
abound. Sure, there are still some who drink the kool-aid, and even some
who want to force the kool-aid down other people’s throats. But you’ll
hear about broken rails and springs at Glock Talk, improperly assembled guns
or poor finishes at SIGForum, or mag drops and feeding problems at MP-
pistol.com. Not every day, but read about the problems people have
experienced over the past few months and you’ll see that no brand is immune
to mistakes.
As for law enforcement agencies, it’s easy to identify departments having
one serious problem or another with just about every model of every brand of
gun in service if you know where to look and who to talk to. Finish flaking
off firing pin blocks, out-of-spec chambers, broken hammer struts … even
high-profile customers are subject to problems ranging from the annoying to
the catastrophic.
So perhaps it really is worth the money to spend a fortune on a custom 1911.
But wait! Within the past year I’ve seen problem guns come from the
biggest and most respected names in the 1911 world like Les Baer, Wilson,
and Nighthawk, too. Having a $500 service pistol experience trouble is one
thing. If I just plopped down $3,000 for a custom 1911 that couldn’t
reliably feed and fire, I would lose my mind.
You may think I sound like Chicken Little crying “the sky is falling,” but
that’s not really true. After all, I carry one of these things (actually,
two of them) every single day, too. But I don’t expect any gun to be
perfect. Everything gets tested before it leaves the house in my holster.
And even then, I’ve managed to suffer breakages and failures in just about
every brand of handgun: Beretta, Glock, Heckler & Koch, SIG, Smith & Wesson,
and Taurus.
picture borrowed from excaliburworld.comWe want to believe that the gun we
carry is Excalibur, perfect in every way and indestructible. Truth is, most
of the (insert your favorite brand here) guns being produced will never give
you a bit of trouble. But they are all mechanical devices designed and
built by humans, subject to the same Mr. Murphy as everything else in life.
There are no exceptions. We should stop pretending otherwise.
Train hard & stay safe!
About the author: Todd Louis Green has worked in the firearms industry since
1998, including instructing for the NRA Range, Beretta, and SIG-Sauer. He
has over 1,000 hours of formal firearms and combatives training. A 3-time “
Advanced” rated shooter at Rogers Shooting School, Todd is also a graduate
of the NRA Tactical Pistol Instructor Development program and a 3 division
Master-ranked IDPA competitor. Todd is a certified Beretta, Glock, Heckler &
Koch, SIG-Sauer, and Smith & Wesson armorer; certified Simunition force-on-
force instructor; and certified Emergency First Responder. He is a long time
member of IALEFI, IDPA, and USPSA. | f*********n
发帖数: 11154 | 2 mass production的年代，造价决定一切 | F*****m
发帖数: 128 | 3 一声叹息。
说不定哪天，一次性手枪就出现了。全塑料，免维护，打完一百发就报废。 | k*******n
发帖数: 5546 | 4 木有这么悲观吧。我只是觉得还是要自己给自己当好QC，同时手里的几个牌子的枪爱出
哪些问题，心里要基本有个数。
买all purpose pistol我还是比较倾向"四大金刚", SIG HK Glock M&P, 毕竟有点小问
题，也很容易让厂家或者自己解决，用户多消息也多，零件和附件也不难买。
要是买纯靶枪我个人喜欢CZ,挺好打也基本没有后座力，价格也不算离谱。没玩枪时看
好莱坞电影，我老喜欢Berreta 92和1911了，后来打了几次发现92不是我喜欢的那种；
1911贵的舍不得，便宜的又不想买。所以还是要大家自己多打，彼此多交流。 |
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