Stats
I love your publication; it always impresses me with the thoroughness of your tests. However, when you test a gun, you always downgrade it if you have malfunctions (failure to feed, failure to eject, etc.) I have owned many S&W M&P pistols in 9mm and 45 ACP. I have found them to be reliable and easy to take down. However, when I bought my first 9mm Shield, it always failed to eject a round in every magazine I loaded. Different ammunition made no difference. It was certain to fail to eject at least one round in every magazine. I sent it back to S&W, and they replaced the barrel. The gun has been flawless since the repair. This has got me thinking that by downgrading a gun in your tests, it gives the impression that all guns of that model might be subject to malfunctions. Are there any stats on the overall quality of a manufacturer? For example, does S&W manufacture guns with a certain quality standard in mind, like 99.99% good? No matter how good the manufacturing process is, there are bound to be flawed examples that make it to the public. This doesn’t mean that their quality is poor. — George
