In response to the entire "it's what people want so you can't blame the company for giving them what they want" line of thinking...
The human experience is about EDUCATION: knowing what is worth knowing. Otherwise we are clever apes. Children would probably eat snow-cones exclusively if allowed to, and un-educated adults do the same thing. Someone is educated when they know what is good and worth doing. Eating vegetables is good and worth doing if you want to have good health. Tradition, intellect, and experimentation are the tools we have for knowing things. Tradition indicates that steel is the material of choice for guns, intellect can proves this trough demonstration of what properties of steel make this true, and experimentation shows that steel guns far outlast polymer and offer superior shooting dynamics (accuracy, balance). I for one have never seen a polymer-framed target competition pistol.
Same goes for standard transmissions and rear-drive. Better fuel economy, acceleration, and ability to control the transmission (for engine breaking, etc) are good features and actually cost less than automatics. You may notice that about 50% of Europeans drive standards, while 95% of Americans drive autos. So at least not everybody is ignorant...yet.
Rear drive "feels" better and performs better. All competition grade cars are rear drive (a few 4 wheel drives ones have existed). The best anybody could ever do with handling in a FWD was the Honda Prelude (Car and Driver did an extensive handling test back in the early oughts), which featured a special torque transfer system that attempted to make up for the deficiencies of FWD in cornering. The fact that the car has this system proves that FWD is inferior to RWD. Sort of like the goofy metal slide guide on a Glock. If polymer is so great, then why do you have this little metal thing doing the real work of the frame: guiding the slide? Notice too how Glocks now have steel inserts in the mag wells so a tightly gripped hand wont prevent the magazine from releasing.
People like .380 auto because they are un-educated. It is an underpowered cartridge. It's only respectable feature is that it is so underpowered that it works in straight-blowback pistols, which are inferior designs in terms of longevity. Almost all "experts" agree that a .38 SPL +P or 9mm Para is the MINIMUM power level for social work. 38 Super, .357 Sig, .40 S&W, 45 ACP, and 10mm are all better choices. Remember when .25 ACP was the rage a while back? Finally people woke up to the fact they were shooting grossly overpriced .22 LR!
People like polymer framed pistols because they are either penny wise and dollar foolish or they are un-educated. If they knew the drawbacks, and knew the modest increased expense using steel, they would buy steel. The fact is many people are rather like sheep: "everybody buys a polymer .380 pocket-pistol so I will?" I find the same type of thinking with certain brands of pistols that start with the letter G and end with the letter K.
The educated pistol shooter selects a H&K P7, a 3rd Gen S&W, heck even a 1911! The REALLY uneducated buy things like Hi-Points. The sophomores (wise fools) buy better quality polymer framed pistols and such.
The educated beer drinker drinks Trappist brew, the uneducated drink PBR, and those that think they know what is good drink Sam Adams.
It's easier to stay in business by selling the guns the consumers want. Not just a couple consumers, but the gun-buying masses. There are a lot of strong willed brave entrepreneurs dipping fries in grease at McDonald's.
No company will stay in business long with the strategy of giving people what they want. Competition will assure demise of any company with this idea. Co-operation is far more profitable (that is monopolies form). Great companies only stay in business by creating new markets, taking over existing markets, or changing the market in a way that gives them an advantage if they don't co-operate.
The sad fact is that if the firearms companies spent a dime on broadening the appeal of shooting for every dollar they spend trying to get everybody that already owns a good pistol to go out and buy a plastic one, they would be profitable and we wouldn't have to worry about losing our liberties.
I see people all around me spending lots of money pretending to shoot things (video games), but I am one of the few I know that actually shoots. I am fairly convinced the launching of a projectile is a uniquely human activity (no animals do it with any efficacy) and something we inherently enjoy (almost all our sports involve a projectile of some sort, the most refined sports have the most refined focus on the use of the projectile: golf, bowling, shooting). If the companies could tap into this, they would make the professional sports looks like chump change. In countries where shooting is a major sport (Finland, perhaps second to hockey and Switzerland perhaps second to skiing), people are more educated and shooting is respectable. It is supported by the government to a degree instead of operating under a cloud of suspicion.
downfall of society, kids having kids that our Gov't pays for, Obamacare, lack of education, TV shows promoting bad morals like Maury Povich, excessive drug use, pollution, using up our natural resources, over population, focusing on wrong ideals ( like Tiger W ), but maybe it really is Plastic. ( Yes, I know it was a run-on sentence, hence lack of education )
Couldn't agree more. Preference for plastic is a symptom of the disease in the same way as these other things you mention here.
) They've done it for some customers who were using the SW99's. Why not users of the 3rd gen guns, especially for agencies who are looking to trade out because of an aging inventory, disparate impact considerations (being able to adapt grip dimensions to different shooters) or for reason of armorer support/training, etc?
