How long?

Not sure about popular but as far as reliability, if it was a brand like Ruger or S&W with great CS I wouldn't worry about waiting.

Honestly maybe a year or two. Depends. Nowadays if there are bugs you start seeing YouTube videos or threads etc. Usually, it is known (looking at you sig, lol).

I say a year but by this summer I had a hellcat, so who knows. My hypocrisy knows no bounds.

At least a couple years, but then my newest gun is 30 years old, so whadda I know?

Well, lets see. Colt came out with it, and it was adopted in 1911, and I bought my first one in 1984. 73 years is probably just too long. Some folks find me too conservative.
In reality, I'm pretty much with NorthBorder.

Well, popular I don't care about, but I suppose at least a year for reliability. With something like a firearm, I don't really care to be a mass-market guinea pig for some new device. I think by the end of the first year any product recalls due to design or manufacturing problems would have already been done.

That being said, if it was a variant / new model of an already well-established and reliable make and model, then my caution wouldn't apply.

I would say six months. Most issues are found in that amount of time. I always wait at least six day's before I buy some gun I really want.

If it was something I convinced myself I couldn't live without or one of those "wish somebody would offer a (whatever)" , Then there it is....I'd wait until it's actually available for sale.

If everybody waited 6 months to a year before buying a new model, production would shut down due to lack of sales before anyone made a purchase.

My belief is more black-and-white:

If I trust the company and their customer service - no wait at all.

If I don't trust the companies customer service - I won't ever buy their stuff.

AFSG said:

How long would you wait to buy a new firearm before you feel confident the bugs have been worked out and it will be popular and reliable.

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The normal cycle seems to be something like this: a new release gets hyped, some people rush out to buy them, some number of these people then either passionately rave or bitterly complain about them, and in about a year or so the emotional energy subsides enough for folk that aren't willing to be beta testers to sort through the fanboi and hater content (and recall notices) to arrive at some conclusion as to the good/bad of the product. So, I give it at least a year for most guns, just to know what I'm getting.

lysanderxiii said:

If everybody waited 6 months to a year before buying a new model, production would shut down due to lack of sales before anyone made a purchase.

My belief is more black-and-white:

If I trust the company and their customer service - no wait at all.

If I don't trust the companies customer service - I won't ever buy their stuff.

Click to expand...

I agree except one thing.
Only problem is new manufactures don't get a fair shake.

Time before purchase tells me little about how reliable a firearm is going to be, that comes after I have used it. I'd trust my firearms that have thousands through them (some over 100,000) more than I would any brand new out of a box.

AFSG said:

How long would you wait to buy a new firearm before you feel confident the bugs have been worked out and it will be popular and reliable.

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I'll find the bugs a squish them myself as often as not....

I would say from 6 months to a year. Should be enough time for an established gunmaker to figure what went wrong and to come up with a fix for it. Have to add that typically I'm in no hurry to buy the latest and greatest thing out on the market either.

Bfh_auto said:

I agree except one thing.
Only problem is new manufactures don't get a fair shake.

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Even new manufacturers have some indicators on how well their future CS will be. If they are promising a trip to the moon and all they have ever done in the past is shoot Estes model rockets, I am skeptical. If they new guys previously worked for a company that had a poor reputation, I am skeptical. If I pre-order and start hearing of people not getting but one magazine, I will probably be cancelling my order...

I'm too old to wait any longer than a day or two.

I think I waited almost two years before buying my P365. Really wanted to jump on the bandwagon earlier, but the huge amount of issues reported caused me to hold off. Glad I did. Mine has been 100% after being purchased earlier this year.

I jumped on the Taurus TX22 and people thought I was looney when I bought a second one. ".22's jam all the time in good gun's and your buying a TAURUS?" "It will fall apart in a week." "You'll never find spare magazines for it." Almost two years later both pistols are still shooting fine and a lot of my friends (Who are quoted above) would love to buy one but try to find one!

Thats a good question. I guess I dont have a time since I dont like unproven or new designs, let others find the bugs that didnt come up in R&D.

Except lithium ion battery powered hand tools.

There is a case to be made for buying early. Get it while they are still taking some care with assembly and before it slips into production line routine.