I guess it goes for other stuff as well.

a guy can read blogs about a gun, watch youtubes on the same gun and scan forums about the same gun, then he gets ready to go get said gun after saving for 6 months,
then
a combat veteran shows up on a website and spends 12 minutes telling you how the gun won't do this very long or provides poor service after that many rounds
or

speaks to poor customer service from thet company
or

it won't work with these three ammo's.

Is there always going to be one bad gun from the factory that goes to a computer owner ?

I gotta believe that computers have helped make guns more popular than ever,

I still find it disconcerting when seemingly reputable people tear in too one bad product.

It's a phenomenon of the modern day I guess, and not just guns.
Cars, appliances, any consumer good you can think of - read enough reviews and you will find such a wide range of good to bad you don't know what is right.

To some people, everything is a urinal.

It’s sorta like scoring some Olympic events. Throw out the high and the low, and the truth is somewhere in the middle.

- People are far more likely to complain about a product or seek answers to a problem with a product then to take the time to say said product just works.

- The reality of guns in general is that the vast majority of us have no need for a firearm that will run for 100,000 rounds without fail blah blah etc. However we now see that the Glock 17 or USP this or whatever has been shooting proof loads for 20 years and has eleventy billion rounds through it and now that is what we MUST HAVE along with 100% reliability.

The reality is the Beretta 92, for example, is not as durable as say a Glock 17 but for all practical matters it is and literally has been a GO TO WAR gun for everybody and their brother.

-Torture testing on the internet has pretty much gotten to the point where if it won't run after being submersed in hot molasses and super glue for 11 hours and subsequently dragged through sanding media then it is a worthless firearm. When the reality is a single grain of sand in the wrong place at the wrong time can cause a malfunction of any kind.....or not.

-There is also a fair bit of confirmation bias. Unless I say my Glock 17 has been 182% reliable with every crappy round I put through it then MINE is broken or I chose poorly. The reality is most of us have had malfunctions that we have either forgotten or glossed over without a thought and therefore say we have a 100% reliable pistol. I would say that all of my pistols are VERY reliable and some truly 100% so but its not a matter of if they will ever malfunction but when. I see this with "HK PEOPLE" a lot. I contend that many 9mm HKs need a small break in period before they will run crappy ammo. I LOVE my HKs and have a bunch of them. That being said saying an HK might not be utterly reliable with EVERYTHING out of the box with nary wipe down is like heresy to some folks.

I just try to look for trends or common problems that seem to exhibit across many folks before I worry about anything systemic.

The other things the internet has "taught me" about guns include....

-Nobody can learn to shoot DA/SA and those might as well be relegated to the museum with the Brown Bess

-Striker fired guns are the ONLY guns you should ever take seriously for self defense

-Caliber doesn't matter AT ALL!!!

-Caliber is the ONLY THING THAT MATTERS!!!

-Using sights in a shooting will just get you killed!!!

-Not having good night sights will just get you killed!!!

-GLOCKs are the ONLY firearm you should take seriously

-GLOCKs are cheap crappy guns with good marketing for the masses.

-Having a manual safety is a complete liability and will get you killed!!!!

-Glock's have no manual safety and that will get you killed!!!


I could go on. Its the internet. Wheat from chaff and all that...grains of truth in fields of bullshit if you will.

In all seriousness I tend to look past the "I am an expert" folks and more towards the "Here is my opinion and here is why folks. Especially the real experts who provide actual practical insight as well as opinion knowing that it is opinion.

We could zero in on one or two reliable and trustworthy sources for info and ignore all the rest.

As an example, looking some months back for info on double edge razors, I disregarded the opinions of this one internet guy with a full beard.

For guns, there's Hickok45.

How about a source for trustworthy info on everything, from guns to scuba gear, to cigars, cars, trucks, divorce lawyers, knives, movies, just about everything?

Anybody got a suggestion?

I think cslinger hit the high points, especially the first one. If you buy something, and it does what you expected and works fine, how likely are you to want to drop everything and run around telling people about it? If you spend a bunch of money on something expecting it to be great, and have a bunch of problems with it, and get super pissed about it, how likely are you to want to drop everything and run around telling people about it?

I'd add a couple more.

- There are a lot of idiots out there that will break something or try to use it wrong and then be convinced that all the problems are the fault of the product.

- There is no perfect design or manufacturing process on earth. If you build enough of something, some of them will fail.

- The internet makes opinions from the entire world available to you. Thirty years ago, if you wanted to know about a product, say a gun, maybe you read some magazine articles, asked all your friends, talked to the guys at the local gun store, etc. You get opinions back based on a very small number of experiences. If Imaginary Gun Company made 100,000 pistols and had a 0.5% failure rate, then 500 of them had problems. Chances are, no one you talked to got one or knew anyone who did. Now, 100 of the 500 people who got problem guns go on the internet and bitch about how Imaginary Gun Company makes expensive piece-of-shit paperweights, and when you look for reviews of Imaginary Gun Company's guns, you find those complaints.

I can't accept another persons opinion about guns, especially handguns. Guns are like shoes, different people have different needs. After 50 years I have narrowed my needs, but my needs are not yours. If I see a documented problem, such as the 320 issues some months back, I'll take the guidance and get the remedy. As far as this or that gun sucks, I completely disregard it. It's usually a small number of people (like 3) dissatisfied with a specific issue that the company will likely correct.

That's why I get 99% of my learnin done here. Every other forum or blog has some neck-beard telling me I need the fo-tay cuz of it's hi-cap clips and knock down power.

quote:

I need the fo-tay cuz of it's hi-cap clips and knock down power.

I could probably knock you down if I hit you up side the head with a fo-tay P226 stainless. I mean that would really leave a mark.

quote:

Originally posted by sigmonkey:
To some people, everything is a urinal.

For men, it's the universe.

When considering buying a firearm or any associated gear, I do the intergoogle trawl. And then I come on here and ask the hive mind about the thing. 98% of the time someone will give me real world, accurate info. Using this plan, I have bought:
Glock 20. Glock 19. P320. CZ P-07. And I will be soon buying a Dan Wesson 1911.
Works for me!

If you look you can find negative reviews on anything. Google “known issues______”
There is so much information good and bad. It can lock up anyone’s decision making process.

Lots of people don’t have realistic expectations. People want a rifle that provides M240 capacity and rate of fire, AI accuracy, and 10/22 weight and size.

quote:

I gotta believe that computers have helped make guns more popular than ever,

AND .... don't forget you can buy anything on Internet {Bazooka, machine gun, etc] with no background check - it's the Internet Loophole founded by the NRA and God.