Many new guns look sloppy.

[AlongCameJones]

There are new revolvers up to $1,000 that look sloppy. I don't like sloppy letters and numbers printed on any guns. I don't like uneven bluing or blotchy metal work. I don't like finding chips in the checkering of guns. I don't like warped forends that pinch the barrel on one side. I don't like finding plastic or rubber mold flash on stocks and grips. I've seen sloppy looks on new Rugers, Smith & Wessons, Colts and Mossbergs.

American gun brands and Japanese-made guns tend to look sloppy these days. Older American guns, say pre-1980's, tended to look much neater. The Europeans and English probably make the neatest guns. Italian guns can look neat or sloppy depending upon brand, model and price.

 

[O4L]

Didn't we already do this one recently?

https://www.okshooters.com/threads/...hill-in-a-wheelbarrow-in-modern-times.316548/

 

[AlongCameJones]

I can't remember: it's been so long. My memory is bad in my old age. Please pardon my old memory. Anyway, please consider my latest thread a refresher course in firearms esthetics or lack thereof. I don't want gun buffs to ever forget or disregard gun esthetics. As a matter of fact, I would prefer it if people pass up on buying guns on account of substandard esthetics so gun makers will start to get the message and maybe they will start to produce neater guns.

I think the popularity of online buying these days has given gun makers an incentive to produce sloppy products because the pictures on gunbroker and others will never tell the real story. You have to hold a gun front of your face with a flashlight and jeweler's loupe to either appreciate it or say forget it.

 

[MCVetSteve]

Part of the problem is that as more and more things are automated and skilled craftsmen are responsible for less and less of the process the amount that they care about it becomes less. It’s a “oh, welp not muh job. Bet they’ll wish it hadn’t come out the mold looking like that.” By the time it gets to a QC guy/gal there are so many “welp not muh jobs” on it that it would take forever to fix it

 

[OHJEEZE]

They have taken shop classes out of the schools and most of people born after gen X have no clue to what quality craftsmanship is!

They do not know because they never made anything.

Note:

My first employer was a Tool & Die maker who not only worked as a Tool Maker at Packard Electric (division of GM back then) but owned / operated the small shop I was employed at as a apprentice.

He said to me one day "If your going to screw up and make scrap, at least make sure it looks good!"

"Chances are if it looks good they will not check it!"

 

[BillPenn]

Every gun I have purchased in the last few years, I have had to take apart, sand, file, and/or polish. Just to get them to run smooth. This is across several brands, Glock, Savage, Remington, etc... I would say at best most new ones are 95% complete.

 

[Oklahomabassin]

 

[Duncandl]

I refer to my garage gun as my sloppy gun. It is a Sig P2022 that I traded a $200 brand new upper for years ago.

I have to admit that it is my SHTF gun and if I had to choose a pistol in my house to keep or get rid of my sloppy gun would 99% be the one that never leaves me.

It’s like a really good pair of Levi’s and boots in a world of Gucci suits.

 

[dennishoddy]

Pretty much everything on the consumer market is mass manufactured now with CNC machinery that is very precise. Much more so than the old manual screw machines the old manufacturers used to rifle barrels.
Back in the day you were almost required to reload to get the best accuracy from a rifle. With CNC machinery the tolerance is repeated barrel after barrel so a lot of factory ammo is pretty good stuff these days for most distances.
The days of a gun maker spending a day on a single stock are long gone to fit and finish. Dozens are produced daily in a jig that are exactly the same as the first one being the same as the last one.
Nobody hand checkers anymore but high-end gunsmiths and it's not cheap. Lasers pretty much do the work now.