It's often said some don't get the black plastic rifle. Ok. At one time there was very few on the market, and most didn't care at all for them.
What sold the buyers of "black plastic" was the same kind of research and understanding that goes into the bolt gun. don't all have wood stocks, nope, they have stained white walnut at the lower end, then work thru the better grades of figured wood that is chosen to get the grain to work with the shape of the stock, right on up to the finest species cut from exotic woods from overseas.
Not hedge - but call it Osage Orange and then it becomes something else.
So, call it "black plastic" and it's like calling a wood stocked gun something with a cheap species. Which a lot of cheaper guns do use, like birch. Funny, tho, laminate it in multiple thin layers and it becomes something desireable.
Well, it's not just "black plastic" which is a phrase mostly meant to demean the substance. And we all do know there are a lot of different polymers on the market. Do they use cheap "black plastic" on the intake manifold under the hood of your car? Go look - surprise - it's polymer, not cast iron.
Take another look at those modern firearms - they minimize the stocks. That gun isn't "black plastic" they way they built the Nylon 66 - which has an exemplary reputation and is achieving collector status.
Modern firearms based on military patterns don't depend on the stocks to do much covering the action. They are built differently, the action is exposed where you can see it and it has it's own value in making the gun look what it is.
Take a glance at the rack of bolt guns and distinguishing features at 20 feet are hard to come by. They pretty much look all the same. Cookie cutter looks. But take a look at the milsurp or sporting rifles, you get a quick idea which is an AK, AR, HK, FN, etc. You can't do that with a bolt Winchester, Remington, Savage, Mossberg, or the higher end customs. Maybe a 1950's Weatherby.
Bolt guns have the same looks, same handles on one side, same trigger guard underneath, not many distinguishing features at all. If anything, the sense of what is trying to be said about "black plastic" is ironically much more their actual issue, some kind of wood covering up very little action with a barrel sticking out just long enough to convey an artistic sense.
In comparison, lets not forget the lever action outsold bolt guns until after WWII. No, bolt guns weren't all that in the early part of the 20th century.
And what do lever guns have? An exposed action with it's distinct style. You can make sense of a rack of Winchesters, Remingtons, Marlins, and Brownings, etc and pick out the different models they made over the years. Read the articles in the day and there were more lever gun fans faithfully defending their choice than bolt gunners.
I guess to some they all look the same, tho.
Bolt guns were a bubble in the American market during the 1950's - 1970's and they influenced a lot of people. But when it came right down to it, I chose to buy a different gun as my first, and the later purchase of a bolt gun just proved to me they were a niche product for a particular socio economic genre.
Both stylistically and functionally, they leave a lot to be desired. And that is why the lever and now the AR has become the dominant choice.
