Is the death of fine machining, high polish, and quality metal treatments upon us?

[Sam1911]

People are cheap, most are unwilling to pay for quality. ... Most folks are satisfied with brushed finishes full of flaws and rubber grips. This is a world where "good enough", is good enough for most.

That's true enough. I don't want to pay for a polished finish on a gun that I'm going to carry in a holster, bang around in a thousand practice sessions, and run hard. I'll use the pee out of it and it will just get scarred. All that work -- and my dollars -- will go to waste.

I'd like something that will keep the gun from rusting if I'm caught in a rainstorm and then don't get a chance to strip it down right away. Fortunately, there are some fairly inexpensive finishes that do that just fine.

I don't (necessarily) want to pay for a forged and machined metal frame, if that frame weighs more sitting on my hip than a well-executed plastic frame that will last just as long (practically speaking) and can't possibly rust.

And so on. Some of the aspects of "quality" are really things that people don't have any reason to want at all, as a function of the purpose to which they will use their firearms.

Sooooo... I could almost say that a Springfield xD, with a plastic frame and melonite slide finish is a "higher quality" gun than a S&W Registered Magnum -- for the purposes that I'll put it to.

How's that for irony!

As a result, gunmakers like Freedom Arms, USFA, Cooper, Dakota Arms, etc. will always be small niche makers.

And it somewhat comes full circle. None of those firms make weapons that I perceive a personal need to own. Beautiful? Yes! Functional, surely! But a horrid WASTE of money for my purposes.

Is that "quality?" Am I beling "greedy?"

 

[jimmyraythomason]

Full of cheap single shot 12 gauges and .22s.,etc.

My brother has our dad's old 12 ga single shot "Hero Arms" shotgun. My great uncle bought it new from a hardware store in 1904 for $4.25. It has a nickled receiver,is a take-down model and very closely resembles H&R and Iver Johnsons of the period. It has patent dates of 1899 and 1900 on it. Everyone in the family learned to hunt with that shotgun. My dad and all of my uncles as well as my dad's cousins. My nephews and great nephew learned to squirrel hunt with it as well. The hammer and trigger are worn down to half their original size and the fore end is just a sliver of wood now. NO parts have ever been replaced on this gun except the bead sight. I doubt many modern guns living that long with such consistant use.

 

[Sam1911]

The hammer and trigger are worn down to half their original size and the fore end is just a sliver of wood now. NO parts have ever been replaced on this gun except the bead sight. I doubt many modern guns living that long with such consistant use.

That's pretty cool. I have a few of those old family treasures as well. Really hard to put a round-count on any of them, though. How many shells could have been fired through it in a century of squirrel hunting and teaching a few dozen guys to shoot? Do you think the average could have been 250 rds a year over a century? That would be 25,000 rds.

Some competitive shooters are putting that many through a single Glock or M&P in a single year. A bunch more would be hitting those numbers in two years. And I'd say tens of thousands of shooters would get there in three years of competition. Aside from a spring or two, I can't picture much needing to be replaced.

Even if my guess is off by half, or even more, it doesn't make much difference -- and I seriously doubt any single-shot 12 ga. lived through 100,000+ shells without shooting loose. It wouldn't be the recoil so much as the wear on the hinge and locking mechanism.

 

[jimmyraythomason]

I can't picture much needing to be replaced.

I would think the weakest link in such a gun would be the firing pin,which is original in our gun.

 

[Sam1911]

O.k. The firing pin. And a firing pin that (might) break in many tens of thousands of rounds denotes poor quality? Seems to me that there is a short list of "small parts" like springs, firing pins, and such that it acceptable to have to plan to replace as part of the service regimen of a quality firearm. Not every week. Not every 1,000 rounds. But at some "reasonable" service interval.

At the very least I can't imagine we're really debating that the two aren't pretty darned "close" in level of quality.

 

[jimmyraythomason]

I guess we could wait a 100 years and see what guns are still on active duty(talking about break action single-shot shotguns for a fair comparison).

 

[easyg]

It used to be that the average firearm was a revolver, and it was machined to perfection. Two pieces of metal can come together in such a way that even complex joints appear to be one solid piece of metal, and all of it buffed to perfection then blued so deep that it appears to be liquid coal.

It used to be that semi-automatics were made of steel, by hand, in the days before computer controlled machining. Parts were hand fitted, adjusted, and tested on the factory floor.

I think you're looking back through rose colored glasses a bit.
Yes, some of the old guns were as you described, but there were plenty of cheap crap guns being made in the old days too.
Not every blueing job was so great and not every joint was so invisible.
And autoloaders, by and large, were not as reliable as most modern autoloaders.

Now-a-days companies can throw a piece of metal into a machine and a gun will pop out the other end. No skill is required to machine a gun out of metal these days, and a laborer can be trained to operate the equipment

If only it were that simple.
But the truth of the matter is that it's not that simple.
Making a gun which is accurate, reliable, and durable is still no easy task.
Many have tried and failed miserably.

So why the heck are guns now made of plastic,

Well, not all of them are.
If you want a brand new steel or aluminum handgun you can buy one in just about any gunshop in the USA.
But polymer-frames have become very popular because they WORK!
They're both lighter weight and more durable than the steel frames they replaced.

slides now powder-coated black,

If you want a bright and shiney handgun then you can buy one right now at nearly any gun shop in the USA.
But non-glare coatings are more popular because that's what folks want.
Personally, I like the military/tactical look on my handguns (maybe it's a carry over from when I was a soldier).

and all parts made as cheap as they can be made while still functioning?

So long as the parts come together to provide to me an accurate, durable, and reliable weapon, then I don't care.
Modern polymer-framed guns from Glock, Sig, Ruger, HK, S&W, Springfield Armory, and others are more durable than most old guns made of all steel.

It seems like every company is jumping on the bandwagon. Make it out of plastic, and pocket the profit from selling it at full price alongside the metal guns that are soon to be phased out.

Don't be a luddite.
It's called "change".
Get use to it.

 

[M-Cameron]

i think part of it is that the gun is no longer a status symbol.....

back in ye' olde times.....a man carried a sword.....if a man carried a finely crafted sword....chances are he was a man of some importance....

...this carried over to the firearm.....the finer the firearm, the higher status the man tended to be.....

...nowadays, we have other items such as a nice car, watch, cell phone, ect. .....and the firearm has more or less been demoted to a "tool"..

...in much the same way as you rarely see a finely made hand engraved hammer.....you are less likely to see a very finely made gun....

 

[hardworker]

A lot of people here are forgetting that the number one rule of business it to make a profit. Smith and Wesson, and Colt, and whomever else, they don't make guns for the sheer fun of it. They make them to sell. The market dictates what they produce, not the other way around. The average person who wants a gun just as something to leave loaded in a drawer will be more likely to plop 500 on a Glock than 900 on a beautifully blued Smith and Wesson revolver. The beautifully blued Smith eventually becomes unprofitable to produce without jacking the price sky high, and is dropped or added to a custom collection where the price reflects the inconvenience involved in production.

 

[easyg]

All steel and blued vs polymer frame and non-glare blacking.....








Which do you think is of higher quality?

 

[Old krow]

I suppose you could say that it's a buyer's market. We dictate what it sold. If everyone wanted a metal gun we wouldn't have polymer, if everyone wanted polymer we wouldn't have metal.

What I look for in a gun, specifically handguns, is durability and reliability. I personally don't care as much for the way the gun looks as much as I do its functionality. I'm a bit of a utilitarian with mine. I don't own very many handguns, and compared to the standards on this forum I'm in the lower percentile for sure, but what I have gets used a lot. I own both polymer and metal guns. I like both. Each has it's intended purpose and I like them both when they fulfill their intended purposes. I don't think that there's anything necessarily wrong with spending your money on either end of the extreme, this is just where I spend mine.

 

[John Wayne]

To the OP:

If you value these features enough to pay for them, why don't you buy one of the many custom or semi-custom guns that are still made to these specifications?

S&W production revolvers may not be up to your standards, but they have a custom shop (as do most manufacturers including Colt, Springfield Armory, etc.), as well as Pro Series, Champion, and Performance Center lines to fill the void between production and full custom.

Other high-end 1911 makers like Ed Brown, Wilson, and Les Baer all hand-fit parts and offer any finish you could want, provided you're willing to pay for it. Korth and other manufacturers make fine revolvers. Lots of gunsmiths offer enhancement packages for factory revolvers to give them the custom touch.

As others have stated, this is nothing new. Just because all you hear about is nice Colts and S&W registered magnums being sought after by collectors doesn't mean that most people weren't buying Sears single-shot specials, Iver Johnsons and H&Rs. Colts and S&Ws are rare and collectable for a reason.

 

[CraigC]

Sooooo... I could almost say that a Springfield xD, with a plastic frame and melonite slide finish is a "higher quality" gun than a S&W Registered Magnum -- for the purposes that I'll put it to.

That's not a difference of quality. Quality is really a non-negotiable, quantifiable thing and mutually exclusive of intended purpose. In this case there is absolutely no question that an original S&W Registered Magnum is of higher quality than a Springfield XD. A $250,000 Purdey hammer double is most assuredly higher in quality than any AR-15 ever made but which would you rather take to a hostage crisis and which would you rather take on a quail hunt?


IMHO, the bottom line is that the folks who appreciate quality and are willing to pay for it have no shortage of outlets for fine guns at fair prices (fair, not inexpensive!).

 

[JohnBiltz]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, today is the golden age of fire arms. If I need to shoot something I want something that shoots good not something that looks good.

 

[GLOOB]

Take a top of the line Bosch jig saw. This is the Rolls Royce of jig saws. The motor, bearings, and gears are all top notch. There are external steel parts where needed. Everything fits and moves together like a swiss watch. The saw will last a lifetime of hard use. But the actual housing and some of the internal parts are made from plastic. And yet, today's Bosch jig saw is the best you can buy at any point in history.

The plastic reduces the cost and weight of the tool, but it does not compromise the accuracy or durability of the machine. If it did, then someone would be making (and successfully selling) an all steel version, no matter the ridiculous cost. If you think a Bosch jig saw should cost the same as a Black and Decker, just because they're both made out of plastic, then you just have no clue. Same with polymer guns. Some are cheaper than others.

So a plastic gun won't always be cheaper than a steel gun, but you have to take into account the facts that there are still plenty of machined and finished steel parts in a polymer gun. Quality of guns varies. And fact is that polymer is just flat out superior to steel in certain applications, gun frames arguably one of them.

 

[BCRider]

As everyone has said already this is not the case at all. There's still much in the way of very nice metallurgy, design and finish detailing alive and well. It's just that not many of us are willing to pay for it.

High end trap and skeet shotguns from various makers are works of art that perform consistently for many thousands of rounds. But they come with a price tag.

The S&W Classic line of guns are things of beauty that all reports I've read on them suggest that they are up to the old standards of workmanship. But they come with a price tag.

US Firearms produces lovely single action replicas that no one has ever suggested are in any way lacking. But they come with a price tag.

Perdosoli out of Italy makes some very nice replicas of the old classics. Their Highwall being one of them. From what I've seen and read these are solid firearms. But they come with a price tag.

If you think you should be able to buy this same level of craftmanship for a reasonable cost then you're out of touch with today's realities. THe key is the "CRAFTMAN" part of "craftsmanship". Skills today cost since they are not being passed on like they were way back when. Fortunetly with today's larger population there will always be a fringe of people that enjoy and value learning and practising such skills. But because it's an elective rather than a manditory training like way back when we are going to find that we are darn lucky to have such folks. Far too many think that CNC will solve all the issues. But CNC is just a parrot that can only copy what it is fed. The art and understanding are either in that downloaded package or they are not.

And it's not just related to gunsmithing. It's everywhere. Just try to find a good old world skills machinist or cobbler or carpenter these days. They ARE out there but they are rare.

Hell, just TRY and find an old world car mechanic these days! One with enough moral fiber that they aren't trying to rip everyone off. If and when you do you need to adopt them into the family and write them into your will because they seem to be rare and worthy of our love!... Just don't get shocked when they charge accordingly for their skills.

 

[Armed012002]

Colt makes really nice 1911s. Want even nicer? You can buy an Ed Brown, Les Baer, Wilson, or a bazillion other makes if you want a super nice, super handgun.

Browning Hi-powers are still really nice.

Browning and Beretta make really nice Over/Unders. Want even nicer? Try Perazzi.

Benelli makes really nice autoloading shotguns. Browning and Beretta ain't bad either.

Rifles? A Remington 700 CDL and BDL are still really nice. The Browning Medallion is still really nice. You can buy a GA Precision, Ed Brown, McMillan, etc. if you want a super nice, super rifle.

As for revolvers, I sure wish Colt would make the Python and Anaconda again, but Smith & Wesson revolvers are still nice. The Performance Center can refinish your new revolver to a super nice finish for $300 extra.

Ironically, Colt stopped making double-action revolvers, as nice as they were, because they would not run a modern business. Turns out, when you have very little automation and a lot of work done by hand, you have to pay all those skilled workers. Skilled workers need health insurance, retirement pensions, and paychecks. You need less skilled people to run CNC machines in a modern business.

There are plenty of nice guns out there. We have waaaaay more options now than there used to be. Isn't competition great?

While mile deep bluing is pretty, it will scratch if you look at it funny.

Modern coatings (Cerakote, Durakote, etc.), IonBond DLC, Melonite, etc. are very nice durable matte black finishes.

 

[Armed012002]

It used to be that semi-automatics were made of steel, by hand, in the days before computer controlled machining. Parts were hand fitted, adjusted, and tested on the factory floor.

Now-a-days companies can throw a piece of metal into a machine and a gun will pop out the other end. No skill is required to machine a gun out of metal these days, and a laborer can be trained to operate the equipment. Accurate machining is now cheap....

CNC machining is not like using Microsoft Word.

CAD/CAM is a lot harder than a lot of people think.

As someone who is actually interested in CAD/CAM, I'm surprised by how many people think any "laborer" can just sit down and start making parts with no skill.

 

[Sam1911]

CNC machining is not like using Microsoft Word.

CAD/CAM is a lot harder than a lot of people think.

Certainly true, however the skilled work part of it comes mostly in initial modeling, process design, tooling, and setup. Once those investments are made you get a lot of very high quality product, very repeatably, out of the machines.

While the people running the equipment must be very skilled, it isn't like there's a craftsman toiling over each piece for hours with a file and a loupe.

 

[JohnBT]

I was born in 1950, my father in 1922 and his father in 1892.

There have always been inexpensive guns that wouldn't last a handful of years if used regularly. The gun reference books are full of them. They appear to have been the majority of guns in fact. It's not like everybody was shooting Registered Magnums and Pythons back then. My father wanted a Python when he was a state trooper, but he couldn't afford it.

Crescent shotguns come to mind. My father's Essex 16 ga. was worn out - shot loose - in about 5 years of hunting prior to WWII. I won't even begin to list the cheap handguns, but every era had their own mass produced, cut rate, cheap, use-them-up-and-throw-them-away guns.

You want fine machining and high polish, look at USFA guns. You have to pay for quality hand work of course. You always did. Why do think my father was shooting a Crescent SxS and not a Winchester 101 (although he did buy a 20 ga. Model 12 in the '50s.)

 

[Walkalong]

JohnBT has it right. There are some mighty fine firearms being made. You just won't pick one up for $300 or $400.

 

[Old Fuff]

On CNC machined parts:

Once those investments are made you get a lot of very high quality product, very repeatably, out of the machines.

Tell ya' a story...

A while back I was contacted by a member concerning excessive play in the trigger on his new 1911 platform pistol from a very well known manufacturer (not Colt by the way). This company used in-house frames made from forgings that were then CNC machined.

Using USGI blueprints for a standard, I discovered that the slot for the trigger's fingerpiece was way out of tolerance going toward the plus side. The trigger piece itself (which I understand was bought from an outside vendor) was under tolerance. So the result was excessive slop and play.

We are told that CNC machines will repeatedly produce perfect parts, but it is also true that if something's gone wrong they will repeatedly make bad ones.

Back in the "old days" machine operators checked parts as they made them, and usually caught mistakes before they got out of hand. In addition floor inspectors made sure the machine operators weren't goofing off.

Of course that kind of inspection was expensive, and is now long gone. In place of it parts (and fully assembled guns) are spot checked at random.

Occasionally we see a thread where someone has bought a new, supposedly high-quality gun and discovered that something is seriously wrong. Most of those that post recommend that the gun be sent back to the factory's world-class service department to be fixed on their dime. One might wonder how the gun could be defective when it was made out of "perfect" CNC machined parts...

Now of course during the old days some defective guns got shipped to, but the makers usually fixed them whithout bragging about how automated tooling was so great that constant inspection wasn't necessary.

Lemons are most likely to be discovered when the product is frequently examined by human beings with trained and experienced eyes. Unfortunately today's economic realities demand that those eyes be as few as possible.

 

[CraigC]

Actually the interesting thing is that USFA's don't go through a lot of hand-fitting. Most of their precision is due to precise machining on modern CNC equipment. Although they do go to a lot more trouble in their polishing processes. There ain't just a ham-handed gorilla standing there putting guns to the buffing wheel until they're shiny. Like, ahem, Colt has done for 90% of their 3rd generation guns.

STI produces their SAA replica solely through machining. There is no polishing. The final finish is just how it comes off the EDM.

 

[SuperNaut]

Never before in history have there been so many choices for inexpensive yet high-quality firearms.

 

[sansone]

OP: yes high polish blue is getting too costly. Labor intensive I believe. I very painfully bought this: