Linoge seems to be quite upset on my opinions about gun modifications and accessories. A ranty bit of flamewar follows.
…what irked me initially, and what, unfortunately, continues to irk me in reference to Mostly Genius’ post, is the condescending, holier-than-thou attitude of those who choose, for whatever reason, to leave their firearm stock.
I don’t have to respect someone’s bad choices. If you believe that adding some gadget is going to make all the difference then knock yourself out, it’s your gun, your money, and your life. I am not attacking a particular modification, and I did say in my opening paragraph: The general rule regarding firearm modifications is: “Don’t” … Yes, there are exceptions and yes there are things that guns really need to have that don’t come stock.
Let me explain how I have arrived at my “condescending, holier-than-thou attitude… with a healthy dose of saccharin condescension.” I have worked for a training company for a number of years. Other instructors have worked for this company for many years as well. In this time we have seen thousands of students and thousands of firearms in classes. These classes provide a roughly uniform set of stresses on all of the guns that students bring to class. So based upon the observations of thousands of data points I can safely say that in general, most firearm modifications don’t improve the function, performance, or reliability of the gun in question. I did not say never.
On to the liabilities of making a modification. There were no systemic reliability issues with the original 1911, yet all sorts of gunsmithing had to happen back in the 1970’s and 1980’s to get reliable guns. Why? Because the original 1911 wasn’t designed to feed anything other than ball ammunition. The first modification was changing the ammo the gun was going to shoot, and that required further modifications to get it to reliably feed that ammo. Originally, this was very hit or miss depending upon the gun and the gunsmith making the modifications, but now many of those changes have become factory standard – with all of the engineering and testing necessary to change the operating tolerances.
The reliability of any gun is ultimately a guess. We can estimate based upon other guns of the same make an model and come up with a pretty good guess as to how well it is going to function and hold up, but it’s not a guarantee. Once you have built a unique snowflake of a gun we have no basis for assuming how reliable it is going to be. If you think yours works, more power to you.
On to what the pros are using. If you want to build a race gun for competition then you would be wise to pattern your purchasing decisions based upon what the top competition shooters are using. If you want a defensive gun then it would probably be wise to base your decisions on what the “experts” in that field are carrying. The optimizations for a sport or for a defensive gun are not always the same. How come national match high power shooters don’t use the same gear as the 3 gun guys? Or soldiers? Because these aren’t all the same application. As an aside, most of the top people in the field that are teaching shotgun for home defense are doing so not because the shotgun is the “best” choice (not to say they aren’t serviceable), but because they are inexpensive and a lot of people have them.
I find this quote telling:
…but taking their choices and decisions as our own, simply because they chose them… well, that is just about as bad as using some gadget simply because it looks cool.
No that is not the same at all. Theoretically if the ‘expert’ has made a choice it is probably for a reason, and generally for a very well founded reason. When you find multiple experts making the same choices despite different origins and training that bears some further consideration. It does not make something THE WAY or THE CHOICE but it is certainly worth more than a random opinion. All opinions are not equal, because they are not based upon the same level of knowledge.
On to ammunition capacity. More is probably better than less, but realistically it probably won’t matter. Short of the zombie apocalypse I have a hard time believing that wave after wave of home invaders are going to be stepping over the corpses of their fallen comrades to come steal my TV, or attack my family. I am betting that after one shoots the first couple of them the rest aren’t going to want to continue, but there are no guarantees. If ammunition capacity is the primary concern then the shotgun is the wrong weapon system.
On to ergonomics and general shooter warm fuzziness. Linoge argues that some level of gadgetry is going to make the shooter “feel” more comfortable and thus improve shooter performance. Maybe this is true. Actual training, practice, and familiarity are guaranteed to improve shooter performance. And here is the crux of the issue. Is the reason that the shooter isn’t getting hits because he doesn’t know how to shoot or because he doesn’t have the right accessories on his gun?
Linoge wants to pretend that my position is a boolean argument where all modifications are bad, all accessories are worthless, and all individuals don’t know what is going to be the best for them. And I never said any such thing. Equipment should expand our capabilities and better enable us to accomplish what we are trying to do. If you want to shoot at long range you are going to need an optic, if you want to shoot in the dark you are probably going to need a light.
…I do not exactly recall asking for or expecting your approval or support. What I do expect is your consideration for people doing as they damned well please with their own firearms.
I could really care less what modifications people want to make to their firearms, or their reasons for doing so. Either my opinion has value to somebody or it doesn’t. Maybe the reason I am “narrow minded” is because I have narrowed things down to a framework for evaluating my equipment choices and have enough data points to determine what does and does not work.
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