Rich,
I believe that the dislike of the A-Bolt is a holdover from the "Cult of the Big Stick". If you've been around long enough to remember him, you'd likely understand.
For the benefit of the newer folks,
Big Stick was a rather charismatic fellow who hung out here for a few years until he got bored with us. He developed a fairly large following in a fairly short time. ..........
.........
It also seems Mr Stick harboured an extreme dislike for Trashco scopes, A-Bolts, and Savage rifles.... amoung other things...
But I digress....
Grasshopper,
Thanks for sharing your insight on this issue. Are you SURE that this "Big Stick" isn't still posting here on occasion under another alias? I think he's still around....unfortunately.
Seems he morphed into "Boxer", his newest handle. Sounds like the same old Larry, maybe a bit more incoherent and with less good info than from times past. The guy is intelligent, is a great photographer and seems to know a good bit about rifles and long range turrets.
He did have an effect on the Fire culture, pushing the Kimber Montana rifle (I think coining the term "Montucky"), WSM (Whizzum may also be his term) calibers, especially the 7 "Whizzum", Leupold scopes (particularly fixed power 6X) with turrets, McM stocks with swirly paint, Talley L.W. scope mounts, etc.
Currently, he seems more involved with baiting posters into pizzing tournaments, the more pizzed he can get them, the more sarcastic and personally insulting he becomes. To me he appears angry and vindictive, prowling the Fire, continually looking for a fight. At least in the past, he was known to be very helpful, at times, with at length explanations of technical issues that made good sense. I don't see that anymore.
Reportedly, he got in trouble with the Fire mgt., pizzing on certain sponsors' shoes. He is good for hits on the Forum and I guess he can do his thing as long as he picks his pizzing partners more carefully, excluing revenue positive sponsors, of course. Hits are good for advertising sales, pizzed off sponsors, not so good for business. So, I guess Big Stick (Boxer)et.al., is just a cog in a greater economic wheel. As long as the net effect is deemed revenue positive, OK. But, if not, back under the bus he goes.
IMHO,
DF
