Pontificating the difference bewtween QA and QC isn’t really pertinent to the conversation, but since we’re apparently doing so - inspectors are QA, which stimulate feedback to QC. Lag vs. Lead measures of the same over-arching industrial and manufacturing Quality Management Systems.
It’s actually VERY common for QA efforts to go unresolved without QC corrections for MANY companies, regardless of industry. If the produced parts/products are inexpensive or otherwise low margin, the payback on investing in QC enhancement measures like new tooling, controls/instrumentation, equipment, personnel training, etc can and very often DOES outweigh potential payback, so companies simply choose to reject or rework a greater-than-zero volume of QA captured defect/defective events. Equally, it’s very common for companies to find a responsible financial solution letting some Quality defect or defective events pass through to the customer, taken as customer service warranty events, rather than implementing an airtight QA program. Many companies have built incredibly robust customer reputations and loyalties, despite a relatively high defect/defective rate hitting the consumer market, simply because their warranty and customer service support is so great - some of these have market leading revenue volumes and operating margins (Ruger, as a direct example).
Not even pharmaceutical companies live in a zero defect/defective, or even zero defective release world - even if they DO live in a world where 6 Sigma, 3.4 defects per million opportunities, is far too many. By production standards, even mil-spec Colts and FN’s have a much higher defect/defective tolerance than many products in other industries, just by their nature.
Not arguing at all with
@Skylerbone here, but I’d make a clarification on the following:
“Mil-spec” often actually means as much or more about testing protocols and minimum acceptable expectations than it means about design, manufacturing method, or materials. What that means in terms of the actual product performance might mean a lot, or it might be meaningless. For example - many bolts can be bought which are sample tested instead of individually tested, some of higher alloys than mil-spec. Most of these are undeniably better than mil-spec, but they are not mil-spec. Equally, there are some items which really don’t seem to have much of a mil-spec categorization, and are likely the exact same item, for example hammer springs, but one branded product might have a Prancing Pony on the box, and the same spring in a different box might get disregarded for being “not mil-spec,” or “not colt.” Hammer and trigger pivot pins - how do you screw up a length of pin stock? Can you tell me with a straight face a Colt LPK with mil-spec pins are actually a better product than any of a hundred equivalent pins from other brands? Better than non-mil-spec KNS anti-walk pins? Is a Geissele Hi-speed NM trigger a lesser trigger than their SSA-E or SSF triggers? Do we know these military issued triggers were tested in the same manner as the conventional mil-spec M16/M4 triggers? Hundreds if not thousands of non-lined AR barrels are used in competition every year, under high cyclic rates (for semi-autos) and very high volumes of fire - is stainless really inferior to chrome lined in this application? Would chrome lined chambers and barrels really be superior? If yes, how have professional competitors NOT realized and witnessed it? Are billet lowers really inferior to forged mil-spec lowers?
I have Colts, have two FN’s currently (one a year the last two years), a couple DD’s, and have had an LMT. I have had to service just as many hiccups and make the same tuning refinements to any of them as I have any other AR I have built or bought. They’re less likely to have particular failures Jim Bob’s basement build might have if Jim Bob uses, for example, a $20 free float handguard and then dives every weekend into barricades like some Tactical Timmy, and the fact they were test fired at a factory is greater assurance they won’t have feeding issues which might befall a greater percentage of frankenbuilds, but once the kinks are straightened, there’s really not so much different about equally spec’d AR’s.
I certainly would take any of a dozen of my personal AR’s to battle before I took my Colt’s or FN’s. The upgrades made to mine are better suited for me than my Colt’s and FN’s, and don’t detract from the reliability of the action, so I put greater trust in my performance with them than the “mil-spec monsters” in my safe.
