Have the mighty fallen?

[nd21]

I knew someone who worked in QC in electronics. Said back in the day every board would go through QC. Now its only 1 out every 100 boards get checked before being shipped out. Told me a lot of companies are doing this. Pretty crappy standards if you ask me.

When you produce only 100 boards a day it's a lot easier to check each one than if you produce 10,000 a day.

The other problem is that people want bargains. If that company still checked every single board, they would have to hire many more workers which will then drive up the price.

[H K corporate assassin]

Great responses. Some people get angry and others try to rationalize. Probably some truth in all of the arguments presented here. Very clever and thoughtful answers. Thanks for your participation. Don't get angry at me. I loved this hobby as much as the rest of you do and don't want this to be true. I do however believe that cost cutting measures by companies is a deliberate action and they should be held accountable by loss of sales. Smith and Wesson Holding Co. is a good example of a deliberate "cheapening" of a product while Sig Sauer may be a case of simply expanding too quickly. I am a big fan of all of these companies and simply want them to retain the reputation that they are famous for. Is that too much to ask?

[Merc1138]

Of course cost cutting measures are deliberate. These businesses are in business to make money. If they can produce a viable product using cheaper methods, then it only makes sense to do so. Why should anyone need to be held "accountable" by a loss in sales just for that? Again, where are you getting the idea that the percentage of failures has gone up?

[Shrubmaster]

All valid points. But I think another cause for all of these problems is that so many new shooters are not properly prepping and maintaining their firearm. I've noticed a lot of new guns come packed with all kinds of crap that needs to be removed and the firearm lubed. Reading the owners manual is near non-existant. I've had many friends ask for my help in purchasing a firearm, but they all want to skimp on the care products (cleaning kits, oils, solvents Ect).

I see many problems that are made worse because the shooter didn't read the owners manual and attempted to fix the problem incorrectly.

[Knomad]

I don't believe it is anything like that at all.

First off, there is no hard data, just anecdotal stories.

Let me give you some more anecdotes then.

I bought my first two handguns in the late 1970s. I still have both, and have never had a problem with either.

In the past few years I've bought five handguns. Two of them have had problems including unreliable feeding. In a product intended as a self-defense tool, I consider that unacceptable, and it could literally become a fatal flaw. One of the guns was so far out of tolerance that it could not be made to work without hand fitting, the other I'm working on now and I think a new extractor may fix the problem which is less severe than on the first gun.

At a two day tactical pistol class I participated in a few weeks ago, there were no catastrophic failures but almost half the guns had FTE or FTF issues. One lost a front sight. I don't ever remember that happening more than a few years ago, not even under harsh conditions.

I place the blame squarely on some manufacturers accepting excessive tolerance ranges and on various QA/QC failures.

[JDay]

All valid points. But I think another cause for all of these problems is that so many new shooters are not properly prepping and maintaining their firearm. I've noticed a lot of new guns come packed with all kinds of crap that needs to be removed and the firearm lubed. Reading the owners manual is near non-existant. I've had many friends ask for my help in purchasing a firearm, but they all want to skimp on the care products (cleaning kits, oils, solvents Ect).

I see many problems that are made worse because the shooter didn't read the owners manual and attempted to fix the problem incorrectly.

Many new shooters don't even clean their guns. I had to show one of my buddies how to properly clean his ar. He was just running a dry boresnake through it and squirting lube on the bcg after wiping it down. He's in the habit now though.

[SilverTauron]

At a two day tactical pistol class I participated in a few weeks ago, there were no catastrophic failures but almost half the guns had FTE or FTF issues. One lost a front sight. I don't ever remember that happening more than a few years ago, not even under harsh conditions.

Beware of assigning malice on the manufacturer when user neglect is the likely culprit.

Remember that most gun owners are NOT like us. We're gun geeks, so we spend $$$ and time maintaining our hardware to a T.

The typical shooter does not. They buy a gun, stick it on a shelf, run 100 rounds every other month through it by shooting cans 21 feet away, and think Hoppe's is a type of flower. I can easily imagine a casual shooter ignorant of diligent maintenance running into malfunctions when they go to a tactical training course. Even a Glock pistol will fail if its never cleaned, oiled, or cared for.

This thread reminds me of people who say domestically made cars are unreliable. I then ask them how long ago they changed the oil, and I get a blank stare in return.

[Merc1138]

Let me give you some more anecdotes then.

I bought my first two handguns in the late 1970s. I still have both, and have never had a problem with either.

In the past few years I've bought five handguns. Two of them have had problems including unreliable feeding. In a product intended as a self-defense tool, I consider that unacceptable, and it could literally become a fatal flaw. One of the guns was so far out of tolerance that it could not be made to work without hand fitting, the other I'm working on now and I think a new extractor may fix the problem which is less severe than on the first gun.

At a two day tactical pistol class I participated in a few weeks ago, there were no catastrophic failures but almost half the guns had FTE or FTF issues. One lost a front sight. I don't ever remember that happening more than a few years ago, not even under harsh conditions.

I place the blame squarely on some manufacturers accepting excessive tolerance ranges and on various QA/QC failures.

So how many of those failures were due to MIM, and not related to ammo(well, the front sight one obviously wasn't) or a complete lack of maintenance?

First thing I do when I get a new gun? Detail strip it. If I don't know how, then I learn how. Then clean off all of the crappy packing oil/grease, then properly lube the moving parts, put it back together, and function check.

Now when I get home from the range, do I completely strip, clean, and re-lube? Hell no. I'll field strip, examine, wipe off old lube, re-lube, and put it back together and function check again.

Most people can barely field strip their firearms, let alone detail strip. Then there's all of the "youtube gunsmithing"(paint/cerakote/duracote without knowing wtf they're doing, "trigger jobs", randomly polishing parts like feed ramps and barrels, etc.). I also can't forget the "I just bought this but I need to spend an extra $200+ to upgrade it immediately-itis", where people go changing spring weights just because someone said they should, then never bother to see if the thing actually works afterwards.

The funny thing about the people who watch the youtube gunsmithing stuff, is that even if the videos may be correct, the viewer fails to realize it was meant to address something specific that doesn't apply to them, or the person in the video leaves an important bit of info out(like using light loads with softer primers so they can get away with reduced spring weights and such).

Then you've got the people who never bought any more magazines and have banged around the original mag and wonder why the feed lips are warped(they don't seem to understand that mags can wear out). Or the people who have had a gun for decades and never bothered to replace the springs in it after a few thousand rounds.

There's all sorts of issues caused by user error. Even the front sight falling out could have been user error swapping the sight and not knowing what they're doing(or a crappy gunsmith). Heck, go to a shotgun forum and you'll see people asking if they should put lapping compound on the hinge of their O/U, and you know that there are people who never bother to ask and just do it anyway.

I haven't even mentioned the problems caused by improper but overkill maintenance. Screwed up crowns, people dumping a half gallon of CLP into their buffer tube because they heard it should be run "wet".

There are just so many ways for users to screw up firearms that would have otherwise worked perfectly fine, it's mind blowing(although it keeps gunsmiths in business). One guy on calguns even suggested people put electrical tape around the buffer springs in their AR to get rid of the *sproing*, wtf.

[TireMan]

I'm with 67goat.

I'm also with 67goat as I have been looking for 67' Goat for the last decade. Post some pics!

[67goat]

My first was a 67 Tempest, last year before the goat was its own car. You're the first to get the reference and mention it.

Unfortunately, no pics of any current vehicle. It's more of an aspiration than reality.