OK, maybe I should have talked about the vast majority of us who are not going to be going into combat.
…
Quite frankly, most people that think they need that level of reliability don't need it either as they aren't going to be going into combat anytime soon.
I’ll freely admit that I’m far from the “average shooter”, but just because you’re not going into combat doesn’t mean you don’t need a reliable weapon.
For example, say you’re trying to be a knowledgable gun owner and decide to go to a shooting class. You spend $500 for the 2 day class, but between travel, lodging, time off from work, ammo, food, etc you have say $2,000 - $2,500 into the weekend. If your “not combat reliable” gun craps out on you 2 hours into the first day, you have just wasted a whole bunch of money because you wanted to save a couple hundred dollars. I’ve been there and was very happy that I brought a backup rifle.
Another way to look at it - as a competitive shooter say I have a gun with 99.5% reliability. Seems pretty good, right? That means during the monthly match of 250 rounds I will have between 1-2 failures on average.
Let that sink in. At a 99.5% reliability rate, I will have a gun that FAILS at every match I go to.
Like others have said, the difference between a Glock 19 and a Dagger is the testing - both from the company and from end users. Think about all the little things that major companies have had to fix. Like the Glock Gen 4 brass to face issue, or Sig’s extractor issues on the P220/226 family where they ended up having to do multiple redesigns before they got it right.
Very small things like the heat treat or temper of certain parts like springs, extractors, or ejectors can have significant impacts on the ultimate reliability of the weapon, and those tolerances are usually the first to be loosened when cutting costs.
Now if you want to ask why someone would choose a PDP over a Glock clone, there are a several reasons. As a competitive shooter who actually switched from a Glock to a PDP, the trigger was a big improvement (especially the competition trigger), but having an optic that sits lower on the slide, and better ergonomics were also big points in favor of the Walther.
If you like the Dagger, that’s fine. I like what PSA is doing and will probably buy one eventually. But just because someone wants a gun with a proven track record of reliability doesn’t mean they’re some dirty civilian wannabe operator trying to buy more gun than they actually need.