Since I started writing for the gun magazines I’ve heard the claims that gun companies give the writers special treatment. More especially, that we are given special guns for our testing. Well, if that’s true, then it means that I’m not on the “A” list because I’ve been sent some real Loo Loos over the years. And I am not the only one. Consider these situations.
- A gun company brought a bunch of guns to a writers event. Within 30 minutes of getting to the range, Mike Venturino and I were each shooting revolvers that fell apart. And, up on the shotgun range, one of the shotguns went south for another writer.
- A gun company sent me a slim, little pocket auto for testing. My son was begging me to let him shoot it, but I decided that I’d better put the first rounds downrange with the gun. It made sort of a “Brrrrrp” sound and went full automatic. The company told me to send it back and they would replace it. That was 15 years ago and I’m still waiting.
- A writer/friend got a neat single action for testing. It looked good but it just wouldn’t group the shots. I mean, it wouldn’t group inside a #10 washtub at 25 yards. He checked the action, he checked the timing, he checked the dimensions of the cylinder throats, and couldn’t find the problem. That night, when he was cleaning guns, he discovered that there was no rifling in the barrel!
- The same writer and I were on a hog hunt with a new revolver. While we were sighting in, the writer called me over, handed me his revolver, and asked me to load it. Five cartridges dropped right into the chambers but the sixth cartridge wouldn’t even start to go in. The sixth chamber was undersized; the company had not finished boring it out.
- I was sent a prototype .45 auto for testing and evaluation. It shot fine. However, on about the 4th magazine, the gun blew up! I mean, the barrel went one way, the recoil spring another, and the whole thing just cratered. I picked up the pieces, sent them back, and suggested that their engineers needed to do a little more work.
I’m sure if we got a group of veteran writers together that we could come up with 10 times the stories. No, we don’t get special guns for testing, but I sure wish that we did!
It alwyas amazes me what some companies do for beta phase product testing. Usually you should have done all the requisite internal testing before sending the prototype to external reviewers. Bad pubilicity reviews travel fast.
Interesting. How come we never hear about these failures or issues from the companies, but EVERY review I read has these firearms being the next incarnation of John Moses Browning’s mind.
Dammit!! That’s the only reason I wanted to be a gun writer!
Now I have to find some other way to get rich…
The best one, yet, was not a gun company’s fault. A gun writer fired an expensive rifle and the barrel split! He’d forgotten to take his cleaning rod out of the barrel!
Oops!
We’ll get Bryce Towsley & Bart Skelton on here….I know they’ll have some good stories to share, too.
Wow! Sounds like they were pulling them out of the oven before they were cooked! After a few let go it would make me a bit leery of shooting before the ransom rest test was done.
Elmer had some great stories about problems he discovered and learn to find ways to protect his own reputation and integrity when he got a lemon.
Most gun magazine articles won”t have anything really bad to say about the guns they test. Why? Because those same manufacturers advertise in those magazines, and to badmouth them would be like cutting their own throats. There used to be a magazine put out by Phil Engledrum that would not take ANY advertising from gun manufacturers, and he bought the guns he tested from gunshops instead of letting the manufacturers supply them with one. Back then he rated a lot of guns like the 1st generation of S&W semi autos like the models 39 & 59 as junk, while the other magazines were praising them.
Also, if one of those magazines test a firearms from one of their advertisers, and it has problems, 99% of the time it gets sent back without a word uttered about it. And if it is ever mentioned, the name of the manufacturer is not told.
T.J. you do get to read the failures/issues in at least in one of the magazines Sheriff Jim writes for. Do we allow him to dawdle needlessly if the manufacturer remedies the problem in what would have been covered under warranty? Nope. BUT, he is going to report it so consumers have the edge in looking for bent feed lips, light primer strikes, etc., when they’re in the store. Luckily with today’s manufacturing methods and metallurgy, catastrophic problems are extremely rare. And Sheriff Jim is one of the best at figuring out stoppages and malfunctions, take my word for it.
Jim for the record I have always found you to be very honest about your reviews and in other matters. To call you or others into question was boorish at best. I would have to say I cannot recall a particular incident where I would ever question the veracity of you or another reviewer. Being objective in my opinion does not mean one needs to be overly vociferous about the negatives but simply state them as factually as the positives.
Wow Hunter…you hit this one on the head and I wish I would have put it that well. Thank you.
Interesting thoughts. RT @sheriffjim: Special guns for gunwriters? A Misconception: http://t.co/LSISNmsM
Taurus? RT @dominiofeminino RT @sheriffjim: Special guns for gunwriters? A Misconception: http://t.co/o5WHRmIc @marcelomcvet