When looking for a new gun, it’s fairly common to come across the advice of “you should spend a little more and buy x instead of y.” Especially if you’re a new shooter or looking to pick up something outside of your normal field (you’re a rifle guy looking to get into pistols, etc). Sometimes it’s because the firearm in question really is a bad choice, sometimes it’s because the person giving the advice, and sometimes it’s somewhere in between. One thing I’ve noticed is that the person giving the advice often has what I would consider a strange notion of what “a little more” is.
One great example is my first pistol purchase. I wasn’t making huge amounts of money, and I wasn’t real sure I was going to like pistol shooting. So, I didn’t want to brake the bank on something that may collect dust in a drawer. I started looking around and saw that I could a HiPoint 9mm or .40cal for under $200 and, via extensive research, shouldn’t explode in my hands.
One thing I kept reading was “don’t buy that, spend a little more on a Glock, 1911, Sig, Beretta, etc. The cheapest on that list? The Glock at roughly 3 times the amount. I kept being told “oh, you can get one super cheap through police a police trade in, etc,” but I never figured out where this mystical land of half priced slightly used firearms were (and still haven’t).
I ended up finally go down to the local gun shop to buy my HiPoint, with the thought of buying one of their carbines down the road to match (and still spending less than for one “brand name” pistol). Got talking to the guy behind the counter and he told me that I’d probably wear out the HiPoint fairly quickly if I was hitting the range on a regular basis, and that he wanted to show me something.
He pulled out a Bersa Thunder .380. I loved the look and feel of it (instantly recognizing the resemblance to the Walther Bond carried), and it wasn’t dramatically more expensive than the HiPoint. (I think $225 at the time) After more research, I came back and bought it.
That was 7 or 8 years and thousands of rounds ago. The slide release recently became worn down to the point that it needs to be replaced. Oh, and I think I’m more accurate with it than I am with my Berettas, XDm or 1911, and it’s just as reliable.
The point of the story is to consider what the person is looking at already before giving recommendations. Chances are it’s going to be difficult to convince them that it’s worth dropping $600 when they could drop $150 (as was my case). It becomes even more so if they’re looking at dropping $600 and you’re recommending they drop a couple grand (as I’ve seen with rifles and shotguns). On the other hand, from $150 to $225 or $600 to $800 is a lot more likely.
Great post!
I’ve battled the same argument out several times. When I first purchased my Taurus PT-145, I heard the “for just X more you could…”
And the people completely ignored the fact that I was keeping price low because I was planning on buying two more firearms (wife and daughter).
One point that I bring out; for the price, I could buy 4 $150 Hi-Points instead of one $600 Brand X. I could shot 3 of them into dust and still have one to carry if needed. Of course, most of the arguments against the lower price (I like to use “entry point” ) firearms are based on experiences that happened a while back. Many people talked about Taurus customer service or manufacturing problems but my researched showed those issues had been resolved (mostly) 3 to 5 years earlier.
The other aspect that I see ignored is operating costs – getting experience isn’t cheap. It takes lots of range time which equals more money out of pocket. Holsters, cleaning supplies, vaults or safe storage, etc — the firearm is the tip of the iceberg. Those factors are lost often.