I’ll peruse the other threads as soon as I can. I am working on a move and have other things on my plate.
Let’s make sure to keep “our side” civil. I read some of the hysterical replies in the Armalite thread already and am rather dismayed.
Rob_S let me first off say that I think you are a class act guy. Somehow throughout this wonderful collection of information known as the chart you have lost your way. Understandable by the amount of flak I’m sure you have caught over the years. Although I am not new to the M4 rifle as I have carried one for the last 5 years I am new to the Close to M4 civilian version. I would like to stress to you the importance of your work (based on the fact that while it hasn’t been an end all be all for me it has been a tremendous foundation on which to build my research) to a new user and the teaching him to fish analogy that would be merely my speculation. So I will go another route. You have started like what was said an unbiased knowledge-base of what more known manufacturers produce as standard. Some people claim that you fudge figures but over the last thread (which I spent all day reading just to find out this one) I could find no instances of where you stated different. You simply made a check if they did it or not. Now which brings me to my point. You have done great work for the benefit of AR style buyers as a whole. I’m sure you realize this. You have given US as a group a voice now. You are our face to the companies that claim to give a quality product. You are the boogieman because of your statements. The chart while it is still an informative being to new users has become more than that. It has become a representation of a standard of how a quality rifle should be made or at least value of said rifle. People who blame you and the chart are naive in the fact that you didnt make the rifle substandard they did. You simply put it in black and white. (Or Blue 
) If they feel that they put out a quality peice than the Public Opinion will correlate (see KAC). If they dont on the Chart than the public also usually correlates (see Oly). I also think that you have made an impact on some said bottom tier companies to put out a better product. Which is I feel the most important part of what the chart has become. I think that we all agree that “Mil-Spec” is a loose term at best nowadays. While most of the columns on your chart are based on it I think that they have a place as what the civilian world deem the standard still. So are they really still Mil-Spec or have they become Educated Buyer Spec for lack of a better term. I am also aware that there may or may not be products that exceed the Spec but since most people arent engineers (and taking the word of one is also hearsay) I would say Mil-Spec and mass Public reviews are still the standard. I only base this assumption on its been proven for years in combat. It is my opinion however so please dont berate me for it. I also do not bash a company for putting out a lower standard product. It covers a void of people wanting to get into the AR market for whatever reason and cant afford top tier makers. (Any gun is better than no gun for defense) I think that at the end of the day the end user needs to decide his risk vs reward. IE being this rifle is cheaper but it may fail over this more expensive one that is proven. Again thank you for your work and if you ever considered broadening this to the rest of the AR industry let me be the first to volunteer to help out. I think that its a dirty job but someone has to do it. Also I apologize if I have jumped around too much in this. ADD gets the best of me still.
I looked at the threads in Armalite, Rock River Arms, and Bushmaster. I have been trying to contact Armalite with mixed success and I will try to contact the RRA rep who posted his email address shortly. It’s unfortunate to see that BM just isn’t likely to reply to anything, as evidenced by some of the complaining about even their warranty service on their industry page.
I think that if I can get replies from Armalite and RRA I’ll go ahead and publish. I’d really like to include BM and S&W but neither of them seem likely at this point. Neither does DPMS, another player from the old Chart that it would be nice to include, along with Olympic but that’s obviously out of the question now.
Rob, about DPMS etc., how about including their data from the previous Chart, and indicating that they declined to update?
It’s more complicated than that. The new version has nearly double the number of entries.
A real shame S&W isn’t participating but I hope ArmaLite and RRA do. Can’t wait to see the new chart!
Would be nice to see BM and DPMS but by not participating they’re only confirming everything we already knew.
Loved the old chart, really interested in seeing the next.
Keep up the good work Rob.
Evidently the powers that be on TOS decided they didn’t like their sponsors being asked questions. As of yesterday the threads on both Bushmaster and RRA’s forums were removed. That is unfortunate as at least the rep from RRA seemed willing to participate. If anyone happened to get the email address he posted or has the thread archived somewhere and can send it to me I’d appreciate it.
I suppose it’s a side-effect of having a… polarizing personality but it’s too bad that sharing information can’t rise above that.
Rob I had the e-mail address for the RRA rep in my post up above. Just replace the word ‘at’ with @ and remove the spaces.
thanks.
sent him an email just now.
also, re-sent email to two contacts at Armalite.
No problem. Interestingly enough, it appears a couple of us were banned from TOS over this. Since the only threads I had posted in over there were asking manufacturers to provide current info for the chart and in the EE I don’t see what else it could be for.
I had heard about the banning issue but didn’t want to be the one to bring it up. Unfortunate, but not surprising. I think I’ve been gone from that site for five years this month (based on my registration date here) and some of them still haven’t gotten over it. :ph34r:
I don’t see the harm in getting as much information possible to as many people as possible. We’re not talking state secrets here. It is especially troubling in the RRA forum as the manufacturer appeared to have no issue with the request and was even continuing the discussion in their forum, which makes one wonder who trashed the threads and handed out the locks.
I AM sorry that my asking you all for help and your participation in same resulted in bannings, whether temporary or permanent, and evidently without warning, notice, or explanation. :sad:
No biggie. It’s not like it’s your fault. Since I had a very low post count over there (as in less than 20 in 6 or 7 years that I’ve had an account) my posts were probably viewed as trolling. They weren’t intended that way, but I would guess that’s how they were received. I’ve sent a couple of e-mails asking for an explanation, but haven’t gotten a response yet. As of right now I have no idea if it’s permanent or not. Hopefully I’ll at least get the courtesy of a response. Either way, it appears that asking a manufacturer to make information known to the public is frowned upon over there.
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I guess when it gets down to the nut-cuttin’, it is all about money. They figured “we” were biting the hand that was feeding them.
What surprised me was that Matt from ADCO (GreenM4Guy) made some goofy statements concerning The Chart and mil-spec as a whole??
But maybe it’s just me…
Oh well…
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ADCO has been involved in asshattery before, so no surprise there.
And on polarizing personalities, I feel for rob_s on this. I know I have one, as everyone seeks me out in my field, but lots of people go away butt-hurt when I tell them the truth.
Data is data is data. And I have no sympathy for those who need it presented in a certain way to recognize its value.
Some people fear knowledge. Humans don’t like being shown they are wrong. They would rather hold onto a falsehood than admit they were wrong. Nowhere is this more obvious than TOS.
This kind of tells you what you need to know about them.
No one should ever be banned for asking a sponsor a question (especially one of technical value).
C4
I got the following response to my e-mail just a little while ago.
The account was locked for spamming, specifically for posting in orionz06’s threads in multiple forums.
I find it interesting that asking for technical information over there is considered spamming. I made a grand total of three posts, one in each of three threads asking manufacturers to participate in the new version of the chart and my account was locked. None of those posts were confrontational in nature. All of the other forums I’ve ever been active on would only give you a warning the first time you stepped out of line (which I don’t think I did in this case).
Anyway, you’re absolutely right Grant. This tells me everything I will ever need to know about that site and the people who run it.
If anyone’s keeping a count, add me and orionz06 to the list of members here who have been banned from TOS.
Wow. I’ve officially given up on ever defending tos on other forums.
Just ridiculous.
While I know it’s going to be difficult given the circumstances, I would like to keep this from getting too much further down the path of TOS discussion as we’ll only wind up inspiring trolls.
I will say that it was encouraging to see the responses from Armalite and RRA, and that Steve at RRA responded positively to me this morning as well. This leads me to believe that these actions were not based on the manufacturers and are instead “corporate” decisions from on-high.
I am learning to find the good in the bad, and perhaps the good in the bad of the bannings here is that we can see encouraging behavior from manufacturers.