Originally Posted by
AlongCameJones
Of course, everybody on the Web is going to bad-mouth a product that is not their favorite. I do think for the most part, I'm better off finding vintage guns. A person doesn't have to be an AR pundit to own an AR and fire one safely and effectively.
In sales industry, this is known as a close minded, self-justifying buyer. This is the kind of buyer who ignores market and product realities to convince themselves of an unrealistic illusion. The question posed was whether the Diamondback AR’s are “great rifles,” and among the fleet of AR’s on the market the answer is “no.” They make decent AR’s at decent prices; nothing about them is a bargain and you’re not getting more than your money’s worth from them, but you’re also not paying for hyper elite quality or performance, nor paying reputation premiums, and not paying for non-functional, non-performance enhancing tacticool aesthetic attributes common to some brands. DB’s are just AR’s.
Originally Posted by
AlongCameJones
I do know the AR market now is much more complicated than it used to be. There's more brands out there now than I count all both hands and feet. Before Bushmaster came on the scene (late 1990's????) you just had to know COLT, one brand, and that was it.
This further exposes your naïveté of the AR market. Bushmaster started making AR’s in the early 1970’s, and were already civilian market leaders before the federal AWB in 1994. Before the “late 1990’s,” DPMS was already cranking out parts and rifles, fully established as the “every man’s AR” at the time. Armalite weren’t as popular because they were harder to find, more expensive, but they were around to be had even on box store shelves. Remember - AR’s were popular enough by the EARLY 1990’s that Democrats drafted the federal AWB to ban them, so it’s silly to pretend there was only one maker in the game, trickling rifles out into the market.
But what we were doing 20-30 years ago has zero bearing on what’s going on today.