I try to keep up with the comments made on videos I post to the Military Arms Channel. I read as many as I can, comment on those that makes sense, and try to file the repetitive ones in my noggin for future reference or comment. Here’s one of the reoccurring comments that I feel it’s time to address.
How many AR15’s can I buy for X? X is a variable for any firearm I review on the channel that costs over $1000. Sometimes the comment is made on firearms costing less than $1k, but let’s go with a single G for the time being.
Recently I posted a video about the new Sig MCX rifle. The rifle is an interesting new design that was born swimming in a sea of AR15’s available from literally hundreds of manufacturers. I find it quite refreshing. The MCX will set you back roughly $1600.
Even though I mention in the video not everyone wants a safe full of budget AR15’s and some of us are looking for new and unique approaches to firearms design, I still get a good number of comments to the affect of “I could buy two AR15’s for $1600!”
<scratching head>
Yes, you could in fact buy two budget AR15’s for the price of Sig’s latest offering. You could also build a Frankenstein gun using dirt cheap components of dubious quality sourced from every corner of the ‘net and possibly get three of them for the same price as the Sig MCX. However, this begs the question, “why?” Why would you want two or three budget AR15’s? Are AR15’s so interesting to some folks that all they desire in their gun collecting endeavors is to see how many nearly identical budget rifles they can stack into a safe?
It seems that cost is sole motivating factor with some buyers. Because of this, companies such as Hesse Firearms sold gaggles of extremely poor quality knock-offs of rifles like the FAL, HK91, AK47 and AR15. Many of these guns were universally chided by their owners as being “junk” and “wastes of money” yet, despite the warnings posted far and wide, there were always people willing to buy one simply because the price was too good to pass up.
Then there are folks like me who would rather have one good rifle I purchased based on the quality, form, function, features and it being the absolute least expensive gun I could find doesn’t factor into the equation. If that means I have to save my pennies for a few extra months to get it, so be it. I read somewhere that patience was a virtue and that good things come to those that wait.
Most of the “I could buy X number of AR15’s for that price” commenters are apparently existing gun owners, which I find to be even more dumbfounding. If the commenters were a first time rifle buyers that had a limited budget to work with I could somewhat understand the comment… somewhat. It still doesn’t explain why they would want two or more budget guns of the exact same design though.
Perhaps what these folks are trying to say is, “I would buy a single budget AR15 over any other rifle because I refuse to pay more than $500 for a gun.” I may not agree with their priorities, however that would make sense to me.
For the record, I am a fan of the AR15 and own several however there’s a reason you don’t see me regularly featuring them on my channel. It’s because they’re rather boring to me. There are countless AR15 makers out there these days with the only real difference between many of them being the company name stamped on the magazine well. A totally new design like the MCX will always draw my attention over another AR15 entering the market.