Man, SAS dropping some serious truth throughout this thread.

A visit to the rifle counter in gun shops is a sad state of affairs for sure. Surely there are lots of pieces to the puzzle of why, many have been pointed out here. It seems any product manager at a major rifle manufacturer could watch the price trend of used rifles on Gunbroker and develop a business case for a high quality, hunting style rifle. Maybe the volume of the cerakoted crap rifles is so high that the profitability trumps this opportunity, I don’t know.

I’m in a Bergara group on Facebook, I guess because I own one. Anyway, watching posts and trends there provides some insight to the ignorance and sometimes lack of intelligence amongst many of the rifle buyers in the market today. I think clockwork_7mm hit the nail on the head here:

“Some of this has to do with a false cultural shift. Black Rifle Coffee and Instagram type stuff make it seem like everyone has a huge beard and a Barrett 50. It's a mirage just like the political echo chambers...”

Much of the current rifle buying customers now are flat out fakes. They only care that they look like fit in group so they mimic what they see others doing/buying and have no clue how a product should work or perform, and seemingly what it’s supposed to do. Almost daily, someone with a new HMR posts on the Facebook page something like,”what’s everyone using for ___________?” The blank could be suppressors, scopes, scope levels, magazines, tripod mounts (my fave, lol)…you get the idea… They might as well scream, “I can’t read, comprehend and discern for myself what to get, but that doesn’t matter because all that matters is that you accept me so tell me what to do.”

When the consumer is concerned that his product makes him part of the crowd more than whether it functions as it should, and is ignorant to the point he might not even know when it isn’t functioning as it should, well, it’s very easy to be impressed with a cerakoted barrel that’ll have some surface rust in the bore before you can get it home from a morning hunt in a light drizzle.

It’s a fake culture, as clockwork said, where appearance matters and substance just isn’t important.

Rant over….

Last edited by drano 25; 01/09/22.
Don't speculate when you don't know, and don't second guess when you do.