Lately I’ve been on a bit of a rant for when I see a questionable forum topic. This time around, the culprit is when I see someone buying a gun or piece of gear, only to go ask if said item is good after the purchase.
This happens a lot, and I’m not sure why people think it’s a good idea to buy something before researching it.
For anything in life, it’s always a good idea to know what you’re buying, before you actually buy. That way, you don’t end up with regret later on.
I, personally, heavily research anything I buy, in any category. I don’t necessarily need to research guns anymore because I’ve worked for the industry as a gun reviewer now for so long that I know what is good vs what isn’t.
But for everything else, I read customer reviews, focusing heavily on the bad ones, to see what people are saying.
I also will move on to YouTube to watch the product being used if there are any videos on it. There usually are videos on just about everything you can think of.
For those rare times when I do need someone’s opinion on firearms, ammo, and gear, I will often go to one of the few trusted sources I have to see if any of the few content creators I actually trust have any info on it.
Yes, I only trust a handful of gun people. No, I won’t tell you who they are. At least, not right now.
Maybe I’ll dedicate a future blog post to that topic.
But for now, let’s go a bit deeper on why it’s important to know if what you’re buying is good or not because we clearly need to.
Why do your research beforehand —
For one, it helps if you do your research before you ever buy because it’ll save you the headache of buying something that isn’t good or jams all the time.
Most people buy firearms to serve a purpose, usually self-defense. Sometimes they’re collector’s items, and it won’t matter as much if they work, and yes I have a couple of guns that are only collector’s items that I would never dream of using for anything but conversation.
But if you want a gun for self-defense, you need it to work, and you need to do a proper amount of research before you buy to make sure you don’t get taken for a ride.
Indirectly, if you buy something that is a turd, you’ll have a harder time selling it later on to anyone who was smart enough to do research on it.
If that hurts your feelings, good. Take this as a learning experience.
Second, it helps you save money because there are a lot of turds out there. When Taurus was in the process of releasing the Spectrum a few years ago, we were heavily documenting everything they said about it.
Why? Because I suspected that it was a turd. And, for the most part, I was right. The Taurus Spectrum is, at best, a last ditch defense tool that will jam up after it gets some gunpowder residue built up on the internals after firing only a magazine or two.
I bought one when they finally made it to the gun store shelves, only to find that it was, in fact, a piece of crap.
I tested it so you didn’t have to.
It also saves you the heartache of looking stupid to your peers because you didn’t research before buying.
I went to an advanced pistol class once that was nearly derailed because one of the students showed up with a junk pistol that did not work right. We got to the point where he had to use someone else’s backup gun for the remainder of the class.
If he had done a proper amount of research, along with actually test firing the gun himself before the class started, we all would have been much better off.
Conclusion:
It’s a good idea to research anything you buy before you actually buy it, and this is especially true with guns, ammo, and gear. Why would you risk buying something that doesn’t work right, that you may need to bet your life on?
Next, read up about the different kinds of ammunition.
