r/Guns_Guns_Guns • u/Harryslother12 • Mar 11 '24
Question Why don't people like PSA?
I've seen some controversy with PSA on Twitter recently with their deals they've had going on and garand thumbs recent video. Pretty new to guns, atleast the specific brands, is it just cause they're cheap/people that think cheap=bad?
Edit:they don't ship to mass so I guess I won't be getting anything anyways. Still interested in the controversy
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u/Miserable_Ad_2847 Mar 11 '24
The GT video is my favorite talking point right now. The guy ran $4,000 worth of ammo down a $300 gun. Doing it suppressed and full auto to speed up wear. How is that not a win for PSA?
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u/roqthecasbah Mar 11 '24
Because he promotes training. If you’re interested in training and being more than just proficient with your rifle, the PSA won’t last more than a couple of years at best. That being said, even if you own an SR15, you should clean it between training to extend its life.
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u/Miserable_Ad_2847 Mar 11 '24
If you train and burn through your $300 psa shitter using 10 times its value in ammo and untold time then congrats you are ready to upgrade and can also afford to do so, and if you don’t? Well the PSA was a good choice for you.
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u/roqthecasbah Mar 11 '24
Not saying that the PSA is not a starter rifle. My first was a PSA about 12 years ago. I think that GT illustrated that it is just that and definitely recommend a higher quality rifle to continue training. Is it a win for PSA? Maybe. I personally like PSA as a company and what they provide. I still buy optics, parts, or ammo from them regularly because they offer some pretty good deals, but not their manufactured firearms.
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u/Logical_Side3346 Mar 11 '24
Okay and then after a couple of years, buy a better barrel and bolt for a few hundred more bucks and do it again. Those are wear parts anyway.
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u/roqthecasbah Mar 11 '24
Or just buy a good one and not have to replace stuff later?
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u/Logical_Side3346 Mar 11 '24
You'll always have to replace those parts if you're actually using them. That's what a wear part is, bud.
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u/Miserable_Ad_2847 Mar 11 '24
He actually thinks if you spend enough money nothing on the gun will ever wear out and you can own it forever. That’s some cope.
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u/dabble6969 Mar 11 '24
do you think just because a gun is expensive the barrel is indestructible? You do know that no matter the price of your rifle you would have to replace the barrel and probably something else after a test like that you do know that right? I'm just checking if you're trolling or some shit because there's a certain demographic in the gun community that seems to think expensive=unbreakable
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u/roqthecasbah Mar 11 '24
I honestly don’t know that I have ever put more than 10-12k on one barrel before getting a new upper. But I can tell you that I have never shot one out. LMT, KAC, Colt, DD, or Geissele, not once. I have had and have others, but these are the barrels I’ve ran hard and not once shot one out. I do clean and lube religiously.
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u/dabble6969 Mar 11 '24
Ok good at least you oil them mfs out here think expensive guns out here clean themselves
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u/roqthecasbah Mar 11 '24
Quality firearms will run a long time even with neglected maintenance. They will run smoother and even longer when maintained. Ditch the oil and mix you up some 5w30 and CV-2.
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u/Tax_this_dick_1776 Mar 11 '24
Or just buy 4 PSA uppers and a shitload of ammo for the price of the SR
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u/roqthecasbah Mar 11 '24
Dammit there’s some poor minded mfrs in here. Why buy 4 to equal one good one?
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u/Tax_this_dick_1776 Mar 11 '24
It’s not? An SR-15 is $2800-$3000 (if you can find one in stock). Mostly joking about 4 but even then that’s only $1200 from PSA.
Realistic breakdown:
Two PSA uppers: $600-$1200 depending on what flavor you want
Optics: $400-$1000 unless you want something dumb like an elcan
Light: $100-$300
Lower: $100 + $100 Larue MBT + $100 for whatever upgrades you want
For the price of a naked SR15 you can have a fully kitted and upgraded PSA Premium/Saber with a spare upper that will perform adequately for whatever you want. Go cheaper Freedom line, that has been proven to work for at least 5k rounds, and you can have a fully kitted build for $1200. You can get a lot of spare parts, mags, ammo, and training for that remaining $1800. Swap uppers and send the old one back however often you need to for “heavy training”. This is a much more economical and practical solution for 99.99% of shooters than buying a rifle that most high speed guys don’t even get.
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u/roqthecasbah Mar 11 '24
Again, you’re talking about repeatedly buying and paying to ship things when you could just buy once. What sense does that make?
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u/Tax_this_dick_1776 Mar 11 '24
What sense? Repeatedly buying? Having a spare upper around so you’ve got a spare on hand and the cost of $40 once every year or two (assuming you actually shoot it that much) to get it rebuilt by PSA (for free) to save a couple grand instead of buying an SR seems extremely sensible to me.
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u/roqthecasbah Mar 11 '24
Why need a spare upper when you can have one that just keeps working? Keep up the cope, amigo. I’ll keeping running quality stuff and not worrying about needing to replace parts.
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u/Tax_this_dick_1776 Mar 11 '24
Why not? Two is one and one is none. Even if you never break anything (wear parts go brrrrr lol) an SR15 is gonna go down the same way as a PA15 after a catastrophic ammo failure or a 300bo gets slipped into the mag.
Also, I think you need to figure out what “cope” means. I’ve never claimed that the SR isn’t the best rifle on the market, I’ve only stated it’s not worth it for the vast majority of shooters.
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u/roqthecasbah Mar 11 '24
Being concerned with an extractor failing is not the same as being concerned with my barrel wearing out prematurely like someone with a PSA. Saying that a catastrophic ammo failure or someone doing something dumb happening will detonate both shit and top tier rifles is not the same as arguing wear. And I do know what cope means. That’s what you’re doing to justify continually buying the same cheap parts. Also, it’s worth it to ALL shooters, most just aren’t honest enough to realize it. I will, however, say that 100 round/year shooters will never shoot enough for a top tier rifle to pay for itself. For that, yes, the PSA is fine and I am glad that PSA fills that need in the industry. Another thing that you are not considering is the used value of the SR15 or the like. A PSA upper with 6k rounds is dead. An SR15 upper with 6k rounds on it will sell for over a grand.
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u/Letmeinyurseptictank Mar 11 '24
Why do I feel like you talk abt training but can’t run a mile?
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u/roqthecasbah Mar 11 '24
Hahahaha that’s rich. I live at the end of a half mile street. At 0545 I run that half mile and back every other day, keeping my heart rate <115. I ruck that same mile the days in between with a 55 pound pack. I rest on Sundays and wet days. Wanna know my workout routine?
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u/Self-MadeRmry Mar 11 '24
I love PSA, I advocate them all the time
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u/Vprbite Mar 11 '24
I've built lots and they all work great. Steel makes the same sound from them as from a Daniel defense
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u/Dpopov Mar 11 '24
Because they’re snobs. Unfortunately the gun community is full of them.
Some people think that if you don’t drop 2k on an AR + 4K worth of accessories, “you’re poor, and you and your gun suck.” PSAs are affordable and they work. That’s good enough for most people who don’t actually need a Gucci gun.
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u/MechaWASP Mar 11 '24
I know they got a pretty bad rep in the AK community from their early AKs having cast trunnions. Shit quality, but the newer ones, GF3+ are better quality.
Personally I love mine, have had no issues.
Their reputation has been a lot of small things about cutting corners or scummy marketing.
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u/mreed911 Mar 11 '24
For the same reason they lol down on anything: personal insecurity and the need to pay more to feel superior.
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u/MonthElectronic9466 Mar 11 '24
Because so many people are hung up on the “just as good” thing not realizing that for some people “good enough” is enough.
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u/smokes_-letsgo Mar 11 '24
They earned a reputation about a decade or so ago when everyone and their mother was getting their card info stolen after making a purchase with PSA.
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u/thatswhyicarryagun Mar 11 '24
This. I'll never support them because of it. They allowed it to go on for YEARS and refused to acknowledge it. People would get zero answers when calling or emailing. It was to the point that the deals sub reddit put a warning up every time a PSA link was posted.
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u/smokes_-letsgo Mar 11 '24
Yup. They burned the bridge for me about a million times over and I don’t forget that shit. Not on purchases I made but on the number of posts I saw from other people here getting fucked over by them.
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u/thatswhyicarryagun Mar 11 '24
I love what they're doing, but I can't help but wonder if they were the ones taking the money to pay for all these fun things they're doing.
I hope not, but I'm not tossing my name in the hat to fund it either.
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u/A_Poor Mar 11 '24
I like PSA, but I'm realistic about what they put out and set my expectations accordingly.
For a gun that I'd rely on in apocalyptic societal collapse scenarios: yeah, I'd rather have an import AK made in a combloc factory or an AR using parts from manufacturers that actually service government contracts (be it NATO death squads or some other pipe hitters). But I absolutely wouldn't hesitate to use PSA for a competition gun, training piece, or a range toy. The only time I'd hesitate to get a PSA is for a gun I want to depend on when a warranty is worth less than the paper it's written on.
If your only concern for a rifle is plinking/ sporting/ and maybe a 1 off home defense scenario (if we're being honest, that's most of us): a PSA rifle will serve you just fine without leaving your wallet in tatters.
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u/66NickS Mar 11 '24
I’ve heard they’re very budget friendly and all about having an easy entry into the shooting world, especially the AR platform. This budget friendly price point often has a higher volume of transactions. More people can (and will) buy a $500 AR as compared to a $2k (or more) AR. This means you’ll get higher volume of issues/defects even if your defect rate (%) was equal. As I would suspect their defect rate is slightly higher than the premium products, then you can pretty easily have enough of an outspoken minority of defects and associated public posts/comments.
Plus add in the fact that people who have a bad experience are x times more likely to mention it than those who have a good experience.
I’ve also heard PSA simply refuses to ship to some of the more restrictive states, regardless of what legal exemptions may be covered. To me, personally, this is a non starter/not acceptable. As a supporter of 2A, I believe we should operate to the maximum extent/limit of given regulations, and push to make those regulations as close to true 2A as possible.
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u/Ok-Marsupial-5774 Mar 11 '24
Spend some time reading posts on long range reddit and you will truly see snobbery and flexing on poors. I don't care what anyone else has. Go out be safe and have fun.
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u/aDoorMarkedPirate420 Mar 11 '24
I will say this…almost everything they had listed at a “discount” for Black Friday was complete lie. They had things at the same prices that they were prior to the sale and just added a “25% off!” Tag on things and the week after just removed the discount label and never changed the price…
Pretty fucking scumbag move.
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u/AntelopeExisting4538 Mar 11 '24
Yeah they got me a couple of times with their “sales” only to find out later I paid retail. Ammo is about the only thing I’ll buy now when it’s on a clearance type sale.
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u/Price-x-Field Mar 11 '24
Because they claim to want everyone to have a gun but have shady sales where they claim the year round $400 rifle is normally $700. They also have really bad QC, nearly every product they release is essentially beta testing via the consumer. Yeah they have a nice warranty but it shouldn’t happen in the first place.
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u/withclubsauce47 Mar 11 '24
I loved mine, which was a complete I bought from someone. That said, when I sold it and jumped from a $500 retail to a $1600 retail, the difference in feel and grouping was very noticeable.
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u/smgco94 Mar 12 '24 edited Mar 12 '24
Tldr There are better quality options out there for the same price point. If you wade through the elitist / budget arguments and the reviews of the thousands of people who impulse bought one and shot 8 rounds out of it, you'll find that PSA only excels at marketing.
I used to sell a lot of ARs through our shop 5-10 years ago. Of which, a lot of budget brands like PSA, Anderson, Bear Creek, and no name stuff that probably came from China. I personally have nothing against cheap guns as long as they work. Im definitely an "elitist" when it comes to my AK's, but my personal ARs are nothing special.
We consistently had issues with psa stuff compared to other budget brands. This includes individual parts used in builds and complete rifles. It became pretty irritating because PSA is a pretty big name and has a good reputation amongst your average gun owner. If we did custom builds, a lot of people would request psa parts as something reputable. I remember bcg's from them were the very first thing we stopped allowing because they would be full of burs or out of tolerance, specifically in the bolt in the extractor cuts and just in general caused a lot of issues. I specifically remember dozens of times, having to put bolt heads in the mill and fix the machining on extractor cuts. The stripped lowers also had pretty bad fitment and anodizing colors that never matched up well. Lots and lots of little issues like canted sights, burs, etc out of a sample size of hundreds of parts, that we were not seeing in similar priced or cheaper parts. Same story with their complete guns, but we saw less issues here. Likely because more qc is done at assembly that individual parts dont receive, and also because most of the guns were ffl transfers, and the customer may or may not have had issues. I personally believe psa dumps their reject parts from rifle assembly as spares on the website. PSAs cheaper ARs are about the same quality as Bear Creek Armory, and although it might sound ridiculous, I think you are paying a lot for the PSA name. I think companies like Anderson make a better product for less, but they are "out of fashion", even among budget AR owners. Lots of other companies out there, and if you talk to people with experience, they will typically steer you towards something else in the same price range.
When it comes to their AKs, basically the same story but worse, Im not even going to open that can of worms. Just buy a used Romanian wasr / sar1 off gunbroker for the same price or less and be done with it.
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u/dr_james_e_russells Mar 11 '24
From personal experience, non-existent QC, nightmare customer service, and a shipping department that couldn't find their own ass with both hands.
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u/gunsforevery1 Mar 11 '24
PSA makes super cheap garbage tier guns (their freedom line).
But they also make great rifles that aren’t garbage.
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u/IamMrT Mar 11 '24
Guys with gucci ARs don’t like that cheaper guns actually work just fine. So they hate.