I only trust maybe 4 or 5 vendors for online sales of gun related products. I rarely buy anything at gun shows or the internet classifieds and here is why
Now a fugitive believed to be in China, Yongming “Steven” Sui, 53, chief executive officer of Field Sport Inc., was charged by state prosecutors with two felony counts – manufacturing and selling a counterfeit mark (a form of trademark infringement) and possession of an assault weapon.
A buddy of mine was looking to put Knights rails on all his guns. I quoted him a “buddy price” and he told me he found them “much cheaper” on the internet from some guy on arfcom. I remember feeling like a dick and worrying that he must now think I really tried to put the screws to him.
But if he found them at 80% of my dealer price, I was just glad he got a good deal and felt like I really needed to try and get better wholesale sources.
So we get to the range and eventually his Knights rail shears off the gun. Grade A “Made in China” die cast metal knock off. As it would be discovered later, while marked Knights Armaments, Vero Beach FL they weren’t perfect copies. Side by side with the real thing it was obvious if you knew what to look for.
He bought 6 of them and ended up paying 80% of the dealer price for the real thing for $20 airsoft quality fakes.
I had a friend once who had a saying, “buy shit; eat shit”. I have tooted the vendors here since I joined this forum. I have done business with many, if not most of them and have never, ever had an issue with any of them. There is a reason their radio buttons appear above the forum links; shop there/here and buy with confidence.
This is the logical end result of what you see at SHOT: hordes of Chinese with cameras snapping closeups of new products.
If people like Aimpoint, Larue, KAC, and the high end manufacturers/others were smart they’d form and fund a private industry anticounterfeiting task force to take some active measures against these fuckers.
Up until December of last year, this site in Beijing was selling knockoff sports jerseys for about 10% of what you’d pay for the real deal.
Homeland Security, DOJ, NIPR, FFA, and PTA all got together and confiscated the domain name, listed what fines and charges the owner faced, etc. etc. etc.
What happened to the owner? He got a similar domain name and is still selling.
My best friend has been to Beijing a number of times and tells me that the knockoff market thrives openly over there.
China seriously doesn’t give a rat’s ass about this kind of thing.