Snake Oil

General General Discussion
1

Anyone else think there is currently more snake oil available in the AR market than ever before? By snake oil I mean various doo dads and widgets that don’t really seem to offer much, or if they do they are incremental improvements at best and are siphoning off cash from the buyers that would be better spent on ammo, training, and magazines. Randy Cain calls them “transfer devices” as they are designed to transfer money from your pocket to someone else.

I don’t want to get into specifics as all that ever does is get a fan of one widget mad at the fan of another doodad. And I’m really not interested in the “simple” crowd coming out of the woodwork to decry lights and RDS as snake oil. Hell I’m reluctant to even mention the claims some of these products make because people will infer what I’m talking about and get bent.

Which is kind of the problem. Some of these products are instilling RABID allegiance from their buyers (“I will put an xyz on/in/through/on-top-of every AR I own from now on”), often buyers without the ability to hit the broad side of a barn, or who’s emergency reloads could be timed with a sundial. A better machine in the hands of a lesser operator does not a better overall system make.

Anyone else noticing this? Anyone else seeing a preponderance of products and think “well, maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t, but I’m not sure why I’d want to pay $19.95 to find out”?

2

I think it is just the nature of capitalism. Where there is a market, products will appear. If it is a large market, and AR15s are, lots of products will appear. Those products will run from junk to great, but any manufacturer will present theirs as “must have” and “better than the rest”.

More options is generally good. Discriminating shooters have their pick of top line gear. Those not so discriminating or cheap shooters have a plethora and will probably learn what works and what doesn’t.

The problem associated with gun parts particularly is that most products are marketed to be used in eventualities that most shooters will never come across. So when a shooter buys something for his “SHTF” rifle, HD rifle, CC handgun, etc; that shooter will have little opportunity to actually test the weapon/devices/configuration in a real situation. How many shooters have actually been in a shooting?

I stayed safe from gimmicks because I bought only stuff I had experience with in the military and have used overseas, it works for me.

3

Solutions in search of problems.

4

I don’t know. What I do know is that there are more and more products available that I would NEVER use or stick on my gun.

I don’t fault companies for trying to make money, but some of the stuff is just a horrible idea.

C4

5

A lot of the “snake oil” are products that actually have an extremely useful role in extremely niche markets. They start out as a solution to a narrow problem, but the people who actually use them have followers, because they do really cool stuff with them.

The super-accurate AR guys need stuff that actually make the combat shooters’ rigs less useful, for instance.

6

SALES, SALES, SALES.

It’s all about the almighty $$$. As for the Majority. Yes some are improvements, but it seems a lot of comp jumped on the band wagon, because sometimes people can be easily manipulated threw sales pitches. This is why you can obtain a degree in what I call “Sales Deception”. Do you know how to tell when a salesmen is lying?

His lips are moving.

7

I don’t mind gimmicks and gadgets, as my grandma used to call them, as long as they are high quality. You need innovation to drive progress. Some of it may be useless, but it’s the whole separating the wheat from the chaff story. Take Magpul’s “theory based products” for example. Some love them and can’t live without them, some hate them and can’t see a reason for the existence, but if there wasn’t a large enough market to support trying, progress would be slow to non-existent.

Our biggest problem IMO, is the low quality crap pouring out of China that is either made directly for airsoft and pawned off as real hardware or the crap that is intended to be real hardware but should never be used on anything but airsoft. Bad quality products leave a bad taste in everyone’s mouth and with the cost of entry so low to get products out the door, you end up with of flood of useless paper weights that tarnish all the real innovative products by lumping them all in the “accessories” category.

8

Some are good ideas, but the overwhelming majority of the products, is manufactured, and marketed to the “bubba” crowd, recommended by fellow “bubbas” and other uninformed folks. When said device is discovered to be “shit”, then get pissed, trashes the device, pursues another BS product, until burned again (some will take 3 or 4 times to get a clue). This person then gets really pissed, does research, finds M4Carbine, lurks for a year or two, then joins.:slight_smile:

9

Some of what is on the market has had zero field testing, but because they come from reputable companies, they are purchased like Barbie accessories. :smiley:

10

The same cane be said for 1911 pistols, Harley-Davidson motorcycles and rice-burnin’ Honda Civics.

This is the nature of our culture and is what supports our economy. Think about all the primary products (IE: firearms, cars, motorcycles, etc) out there and the market that it supports. If handbags and bland jeans never existed, do you think would there be a market for the “Bedazzler”?

Can you imagine how much worse out economy would be if these types of “Parasitic Markets” never existed? The computer industry owes a lot of its revenue to these “peripherals”. Why do you think that you can buy a brand new printer for $35, but replacement ink cartridges will cost you around $15 a piece? I guarantee that the printer manufacturers are not making much of a profit, if any for their printers but are making a killing with each cartridge.

Capitalism at its best, IMHO.

11

So, I am ahead of the game, having shrugged my shoulders at the Bubbas without getting burnt worse than a Remington R15 and then walked straight on over to M4Carbine? Shoot, I even skipped the ARFcom stage. Did I miss something of the experience or. . . . just get lucky? :smiley:

Woohoo! Of course I have been reading the crap out of this message board and learning a ton. Thanks all ya’ll (mods esp.) for running a tight board with solid info.

12

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been playing with ARs for about 10 years now and there has always been a plethora of widgets and gizmos, it’s just that the latest bunch seem to be promising so much more, and with the proliferation of the internut give so much more opportunity for people to expound on the virtues of a product without ever having to qualify those opinions. The claims we get today seem to be all the more fanciful than yesterday but actually offer far less (both than their predecessors and their claims).

ETA:
I also understand that we only get the good by having hundreds of bad, so I am not anti-innovation and I understand that a large part of innovation is throwing the whole pot of noodles against the wall to see what sticks. If a shooter hasn’t bought at least one junk part/gun/accessory over their shooting career based solely on over-hyped claims that they bought hook, line, and sinker then they aren’t trying hard enough. :smiley:

13

“Widgets and Gadgets” can improve life/things for us yes. With out them where would we be.

I feel that when the product does NOT live up to it’s potential, and research has stopped, or worse yet was never intended to happen, then said product needs to “Cease and Desist”, or go to/back to, “R&D”.

In answer to your question, yes there are a lot of “Widgets and Gadgets” out there, and some are well worth their “R&D” while others serv no other purpose than to take peoples $$. The majority of these are Americans having things made to a knowingly far lesser quality over seas, just to take a portion of the “Money Market”. It is up to the “Buyer” to figure these things out.

Without “Free Enterprise”, where would we as a nation be?

14

The issue of people buying X gun or Y accessory and thinking it alone will make him a better shooter/operator of firearms is nothing new. I do think that the internet in particular has facilitated a larger flood of gun-related widgets of questionable value, on both the supply and demand side.

There is nothing wrong with buying widgets for your gun as long as you have, through proper means and methods, identified a need or point of improvement that the widget satisfies and that is justified given the cost (in money, weight, etc.). That could be training, competition, or even just the recommendation of somebody who has substantial experience and can explain its benefits and costs.

You’re right, though - a lot of people have low thresholds before they give outlandish endorsements, and go apeshit over some new widget after using for 50 rounds and 10 minutes at the range.

15

Sometimes you got to buy a bunch of junk and try it out before you find what works best for you.

At least I prefer that to, “buy whatever Costa has”, even though I did buy a Raven holster about 5 weeks ago.

16

its all Magpul’s fault. they opened the door, and everyone else with an idea and a couple of investors came barreling through. add to it the fact that the AR/M4 platform is growing in popularity in record scale, and there’s a hundred thousand suckers with credit cards looking to make their guns look like _________.

so yes- i totaly agree, rob. for those of us who have been doing this since before all this newfangled crap came out and became “essential,” it’s especially frustrating. we remember when all you needed was the GUN and your own skill.

17

What P.T Barnum said.

Rob- Emergency reloads measured by a sun dial- classic.:cool:

18

I belive it was Clint Smith who said “You cant buy competence.”

and you cant, but you sure can sell it !

19

I’m with BKB on this one… Blame Magpul!

I drank the Magpul kool-aid and I drank it hard. They make tested, proven, reliable products that add functionality. They don’t even really have that many products, when you think about it… 2 different types of rail panels, a hanguard, 4? different stocks, the AFG, the new VFG, B.A.D lever, MOE and MIAD grips, and the MBUS. Out of this, they have built an empire.

The draw to copy this sort of gear craze is a “no lose” situation for some businesses. Remember when the B.A.D was almost impossible to get? How many “copies” came out in that time frame? I can think of at least one. That company probably sold a few hundred. They made some money off of the item.

Innovation is wonderful. It truly drives capitalism.

The problem is… The more bullshit products we have out there the more bullshit problems arise. I mean, just look at the flood of rifle brands. How many of those are absolutely inferior products? Tons! The VAST majority. But if it’s $50 cheaper, a lot of uneducated people will buy them. And most of the time, they will work for what that buyer needs. The REAL problem arises when a Podunk cop (nothing against Podunk or it’s police force) listens to his/her buddy Bubba and buys that latest-and-greatest (and cheaper-than-Colt!) rifle, and it fails when people are at risk.

In the very short time I have been involved with ARs, I have seen only one item that I felt had no real benefit, at least for me. All the rest have been copies of existing items, or a small spin on an existing item. I’ve seen a million “new” RDS-type systems come out that I personally would never use. I’ll stick with my tried-and-true brand. As far as other gizmos and gadgets? Luckily, when advertisements make all the sense in the world (as they usually do… some people have more money than brains) I RUN to M4C/LF and see what the SMEs/Mods/Rob_s have to say about it.

I do want to end this long post with a HUGE “THANK YOU!” to guys like Rob, USMC03, MM…All the guys and gals that buy, often with their own money, and test the products we see all day. If it weren’t for them, I know I would have spent hundreds on bullshit.

20

it seems that most of the market niches are plugged with at least one (sometimes more, many more) quality products and several lesser products.

i see this as a positive thing.

inferior products often go to those who do inferior research, or have an apathetic mindset. at the same time, the very existence of those same products serve to drive down prices across the board, including quality products.

i dunno, it all seems very american to me.