General GunTuber thread

[Club Sandwich]

dead set on buying PSA

don't. used WASR rifles (also imported as the Romanian GP series by Century) should be around $1k or slightly under, with minor mark up if you have to ship one from somewhere. yes, it's probably more than what it's worth, but it's a fairly decent rifle with minor (if any) issues. the three biggest issues i've seen are out of spec magazine wells (can be filed to fit, or built up with weld and filed to fit), right angle gas blocks that are on a barrel drilled for the angled gas block (many WASRs were made from genuine military surplus parts kits and the assemblers were not "AK" people...) and lastly canted front sight tower or entire barrel assembly (fixable by an experienced person and involves replacing the out of spec parts).

heck, AR-15 complete lowers and uppers are under $600 in some places...

legitimately don't understand gunbroker prices

gunbroker collects fees on items sold, and for commercial entities making a post, there is a cost for each listing as well. because of this, reasonably priced items are removed from the site after being sold, leaving the overpriced stuff behind. additionally, like amazon, if you're a commercial entity, if you don't have anything listed in your account for sale, you are pushed out of the search results, so simply to keep their search results rating "high" the site encourages you to list something even if it's not likely to sell.

employees rather shoot the shit with their buddies

depends a lot on the store. most are very small businesses and while margins on guns are thinner than you might think, with accessories and services making the bulk of income; the type of employee you get on hourly or "hired because they know the owner" is fairly random. someone might not care much about the job or they know they basically can't be fired. another aspect is catering to repeat customers that basically always buy from them - some guy you see every week that spends a couple hundred bucks each time is a good person to "shoot the shit" with alongside him probably bringing friends or buying for friends too. new customers take effort to earn their business and some employees don't want to earn it because earning something means work and guns are supposed to be fun. like a summer job as a life guard at the beach. a young guy doesn't take that job because they have a burning desire to save people from drowning.

chain stores can be much the same but with more bureaucracy. ultimately though, if you cultivate a relationship with the store, you'll likely get better service. if you want to start with fairly decent service, either go with a friend to a store he frequents (and have an "in"), or go to a chain store where the omnipresent management encourages Good Customer Service. you also have the option of bespoke gunsmiths and shops that specialize in something. often this points you towards making your own gun and just buying receivers or barreled actions, and sometimes just using local shops to handle imports or transfers.

 

[WhoBusTank69]

With all the problems they're having, I'll give Russel credit - he's keeping his schedule open to personally fix each and every rifle that has been sent out.

 

[Puff]

With all the problems they're having, I'll give Russel credit - he's keeping his schedule open to personally fix each and every rifle that has been sent out.
View attachment 2172283
View attachment 2172285

Might not be a total lolcow of a production run, huh. If they're willing to fix their shit, I'm cool with them.

 

[White Devil]

Might not be a total lolcow of a production run, huh. If they're willing to fix their shit, I'm cool with them.

Niche product with niche youtube consoomer crowd, they have to fix it.

 

[WhoBusTank69]

Might not be a total lolcow of a production run, huh. If they're willing to fix their shit, I'm cool with them.

He previously mentioned that it's his opinion a product lives and dies on public perception. He has to fix each of them because his reputation is on the line and if there is any sort of perceived slight that could be avoided he's done for.
That's why he's so forward with pushing his email rather than having people posted receiver gaps and misaligned receiver matings.

 

[Club Sandwich]

product lives and dies on public perception

in my humble experience doing similar work, this is kind of true. the exceptions are bespoke guns where you individually work on a "perfect sample" for the customer, or tools, where it's part of a large contract, in which case you must meet the performance goals of the contract, regardless of perception.

 

[TerminalTryHard]

Niche product with niche youtube consoomer crowd, they have to fix it.

Not really. Thanks to rampant fanboying of FW/IR they've probably already made a good amount of money and the same fanboying means people will still defend all these blatant faults.

 

[HumptiDouji]

So is there anything at all about Duelist1954 which is at all interesting, drama-wise? He strikes me as overall very inoffensive, kind of an old dork, but in a charming way, has written some good handloading guides for actual gunrags, and makes good videos on shooting cap and ball guns, etc.

I recall he was once kicked out of some shooting club and banned from their range, something which made him visibly sad and teary eyed as he mentioned it. Anyone have any ideas of if there was anything crazy and lolcow worthy about this? He strikes me as a bit awkward, if not in a very weird way.

 

[likeacrackado]

Major downside to gun stores is often the employees rather shoot the shit with their buddies or ogled anything remotely attractive instead of trying to sell. I been to enough gun stores where if I had Elon Musk or just a handful of Benjis level of cash to burn, I still walk out without buying anything cause they ain't interested in selling.

Guess I'm lucky, my lgs/range is like this but they talk to customers too and most people who walk in to hang out buy stuff. But then I've also been to stores where there's no customers and its just 5 boomers in lawn chairs talking about what they saw on Fox News last night.

gunbroker collects fees on items sold, and for commercial entities making a post, there is a cost for each listing as well. because of this, reasonably priced items are removed from the site after being sold, leaving the overpriced stuff behind. additionally, like amazon, if you're a commercial entity, if you don't have anything listed in your account for sale, you are pushed out of the search results, so simply to keep their search results rating "high" the site encourages you to list something even if it's not likely to sell.

I realize this but it still surprises me. I'm looking for a cheaper AK right now and the already overpriced zpap m70 thats at my lgs for <$1000 is going for well over 1k on actively bid listings. Hell there's even one with the furniture I want at almost 2k. With ammo and retail gun prices down from the peak(for now), gunbroker doesn't seem to have come down at all.

 

[WhoBusTank69]

So is there anything at all about Duelist1954 which is at all interesting, drama-wise? He strikes me as overall very inoffensive, kind of an old dork, but in a charming way, has written some good handloading guides for actual gunrags, and makes good videos on shooting cap and ball guns, etc.

I recall he was once kicked out of some shooting club and banned from their range, something which made him visibly sad and teary eyed as he mentioned it. Anyone have any ideas of if there was anything crazy and lolcow worthy about this? He strikes me as a bit awkward, if not in a very weird way.

Not exactly lolcow-worthy, but I remember what you're talking about. I want to say it was something he wrote, being a journalist, but since those videos have been scrubbed(And Full30 doesn't work worth a damn) I can't confirm EDIT: Found a thread on The High Road about it - some retards got elected to the board and pushed some radical changes to the rules, he spoke up about it and they essentially grouped up to ban him from the range. Like I said, though, he's since taken down the video about it.
Not that it was a great loss for him but he was pretty attached. He seems normal enough, like he's one of the few genuine guys out there, though I don't doubt he's got his fair share of strange beyond the dorky behavior.

 

[waffle]

I remember back when AR's were like 800 bucks and you could get a decent AK for like $450. That was before/early Obama-era, once they tightened up imports and the bargain barrel AR became a reality I basically haven't understood anyone who bought an AK since then.

 

[White Devil]

I remember back when AR's were like 800 bucks and you could get a decent AK for like $450. That was before/early Obama-era, once they tightened up imports and the bargain barrel AR became a reality I basically haven't understood anyone who bought an AK since then.

Import AKs are miles better than domestic, some people just like to collect, and there's something to be said about having the genuine article.

But yeah, I miss the days of $300 dollar commie AKs.

 

[Smoke Manmuscle]

Import AKs are miles better than domestic, some people just like to collect, and there's something to be said about having the genuine article.

But yeah, I miss the days of $300 dollar commie AKs.

Anyone who buys a domestic AK is getting crap. I don't understand why it is no hard for a domestic producer to make a decent AK.

 

[Club Sandwich]

domestic producer to make a decent AK

AKM's generally have several key parts that are hand fit to that specific rifle (and why most AKM makers cannot be ISO 9000 certified, even foreign ones, for those specific product lines). this isn't unique to the AK, many older designs are like this and some modernized ones still are (the 1911 for example and many double-action revolvers are meant to be hand-fit if you want high precision). the better ones are generally small runs by smaller shops who know what they're doing and work from selected parts kits on US made receivers. generally it isn't the receiver that's the issue either, but the assembly and sometimes in-house manufacturing certain parts.

the few times i've built AK's for customers have been on a Nodak Spud or Childers stamped receivers, older ones were usually Cugir made imported flats that needed bending and welding. you used to see Maadi complete receivers, and even barreled receivers, back when they were still imported as well - i think InterArms or Pars brought in a pallet or two for custom builds and repairs and those were sold off years ago. CDNN had some for a while.

if you want a domestically made AKM, you are best off going to a reputable AK builder and supplying the parts kit.

 

[WhoBusTank69]

Anyone who buys a domestic AK is getting crap. I don't understand why it is no hard for a domestic producer to make a decent AK.

Multiple factories with decades of production technology and experience that began under the state and were forced through growing pains in order to arm everyone and their dog with the purpose of spreading communism largely outperforms a bunch of retards in a rented garage that think the value of proper heat treating is vastly overstated.

 

[waffle]

There's also the fact that the ak is one of those guns where the economy of scale only works out with high production quantities, because that's just how industrial metal stamping of relatively complex parts works.

 

[S.C.U.D.]

Cokeman taking his indoor shooting up a notch with the memest of meme guns, the deagle:

 

[Blasterisk]

Cokeman taking his indoor shooting up a notch with the memest of meme guns, the deagle:

Dumbass would rattle his brain around less if he aimed it through his ears smh.

 

[TheRedChair]

Dumbass would rattle his brain around less if he aimed it through his ears smh.

It's people like him that give the rest of us a bad name.

 

[White Devil]

When's he gonna hold a phone book while someone on the other end shoots him with that deagle?