products that go from betterer to worserer

[taliv]

i think i've bought about 4 of these pic rail mount bubble levels over the years


never had any trouble out of them. gave a couple away, but still use two of them daily. always thought they were a heckuva value

told some friends about them and they bought 4 of them. none of them worked! the bubble even fell out of one of them while we were shooting yesterday! unbelievable. how you can screw up a bubble level i can't even fathom?? (although they are both Marines, who are notorious for breaking things you would normally consider indestructible...)

nevertheless, just one example of dozens of products that i used to recommend but that seem like crap today.

on the other hand, some brands seem to be improving. things i wouldn't have touched 7-9 years ago, are go-to product lines now.

i guess it just goes to show, if you haven't used a product lately, be careful what you recommend

 

[pharmer]

I had a Remington Wingmaster awhile back that I traded off. Recently I got an 870 "Express" which I figured was the same gun with a dull finish. When I opened it up the trigger group is plastic as is the trigger guard. Sold it off already. Joe

 

[phonejack]

I've had one of those for 20 yrs now, I guess. Still works.

 

[Cee Zee]

I had a Remington Wingmaster awhile back that I traded off. Recently I got an 870 "Express" which I figured was the same gun with a dull finish. When I opened it up the trigger group is plastic as is the trigger guard. Sold it off already. Joe

That's hardly a fair comparison. The Express has had a plastic trigger guard for a long time. You can't expect a $350 shotgun to be exactly the same as a $850 shotgun. Even so there are only a few parts on the Express that are different from the Police model which isn't that much different from the Wingmaster (if at all). They include,

"A compressed, powdered aluminum trigger group.
The Express is plastic, which is really just as good, and just as tough.

A heavy duty magazine spring in the FOUR shot magazine. The extended mags use the same spring.

A heavy duty trigger-sear spring. This gives a heavier trigger pull to prevent accidents.

A heavy duty carrier dog spring.

A milled extractor..."

I put the list in quotes because I got it from a police armorer that takes Express shotguns and makes them as reliable as the WM. He is actually pretty well known because of this list and because of the list of parts it takes to change an Express to be as good as a WM (except for the finish of course). It's the stocks and the finish that makes the WM a lot more expensive shotgun. I have an Express that I bought 6-7 years ago and I went through all this before buying it. People who should know what they're doing told me how to improve the Express by swapping $35 worth of parts.

BTW the person who gave me this info years ago still posts on this board. I actually got the info on a shotgun board way back when but the guy who gave me the info is still posting here. I'll give you his name in a PM if you want to ask him about this stuff yourself. I don't know if he would want me posting his name in a thread or not so I'm going to stay on the safe side and not do it.

My Express has been totally free of problems since I polished the chamber to keep it from sticking with one particular brand of shells. I don't even remember which brand of shells it was but it was a common problem for the Express to have a problem with one brand of ammo. But that isn't unusual. What was unusual was how easy it was to fix that problem. 10 seconds of polishing the chamber has kept that problem from ever happening again. I don't shoot my shotguns as much as I once did but I keep them around for obvious reasons. They are excellent for varmint control and they are as versatile as any gun.

 

[Walkalong]

I bought one of those recently. Pure junk. Unbelievable. Oh well.

I have a magnetic level that works well for making sure the action is level when mounting a scope. You can also use it when shooting if the recoil isn't too bad. It tends to stay put on my FN SPR .308 shooting prone. The magnet is quite strong.

http://www.larrywillis.com/

 

[19-3Ben]

I had a Remington Wingmaster awhile back that I traded off. Recently I got an 870 "Express" which I figured was the same gun with a dull finish. When I opened it up the trigger group is plastic as is the trigger guard. Sold it off already. Joe

The differences between the Wingmaster and the Express are very well established and documented. I agree completely with Cee Zee that expecting the Express to be identical to a Wingmaster in all but the finish is not only unrealistic, but is an indictment of the purchaser's poor product research prior to purchase rather than an indictment of the product.

One thing I'm very happy to see improving is the selection of high quality holsters. It seems there was a time about 10-11 years ago when i was first getting into guns that there were not nearly as many smaller holster makers who had a real market presence. Nobody ever heard of Simply Rugged, Lobo, AKJ Concealco, etc... These days, thanks to the internet, you have many choices beyond Desantis, Safariland, and Galco.