6061: further thoughts and new information
- Thread starter misanthropist
- Start date
The Norcs, regardless of aluminum grade, are cast. This alone makes them inferior to both billet and forged.
beavis_m305
Regular
- Location
- New Zealand
Thanks, I always had the idea that aluminium was basically corrosion proof, unless dumped in an acidic or basic solution
I just finished reading The Gun by C.J. Chivers. It includes chapters on the development problems with the M-16 and it was a total gong show. Design changes made to the Vietnam Era M-16 were made in a mad scramble and there's a lot of myths about the how's and why's of the so called fixes.
As for the NEA gun I've fired three of them and they all worked great. Also it was one of the least "floppy" guns I've ever used. Super solid feel to it.
As for the NEA gun I've fired three of them and they all worked great. Also it was one of the least "floppy" guns I've ever used. Super solid feel to it.
Bolivar
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
$300 bucks is $300 bucks. But hey, if I didn't already have a Norc I would probably go for the NEA (If I could get my hands on one).
Tell all you NEA over Norc guys what.....when my Norc dies I will replace her with an NEA. Cool?
Last edited:
Clobbersauras
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Waaay out west.
So, how do you compare it to your thread on M4C.net?
Well, it was much better researched.
My thread there asked the question if 6061 is good enough for an AR. I posted it there because the quality of information on that site regarding the AR is much better than here, or almost anywhere for that matter. I posted my question with no bias as I was genuinely interested. I didn't mention the name of the company. You don't have to be a member to go over there and read it, so if anyone wants to be bored to tears have at 'er.
Anyway, that thread ended with me leaning towards Misanthropists conclusion, but i think his research posted here is good enough to answer my original question.
North Eastern Arms
Manufacturer-Business Member
Wowh, wowh, wowh.. wait a minute... so our engineers really DO know what they were talking about?? Thank you sweet baby Jesus.
You actually explained it here better than they did to me.
Most users here won't see very harsh conditions (some will, some of you are animals). However, we do have rifles that'll be spending a lot of time aboard ships, and corrosion resistance is a real concern. This is one of the main reasons we're using the barrel treatment that we are.
We HAVE to be confidant in our products. We don't want them failing both for financial and liability reasons. Not to mention that it'd hurt our feelings.
- Dave
You actually explained it here better than they did to me.
Most users here won't see very harsh conditions (some will, some of you are animals). However, we do have rifles that'll be spending a lot of time aboard ships, and corrosion resistance is a real concern. This is one of the main reasons we're using the barrel treatment that we are.
We HAVE to be confidant in our products. We don't want them failing both for financial and liability reasons. Not to mention that it'd hurt our feelings.
- Dave
My take on this.
It's not so much that people thought your products would fall apart at the first trigger press, it's more about how you have presented your product to the prospective Canadian market. I won't go into the whole issue of cr@ppy cell phone photo's etc., as that has been covered in other threads.
What I am referring to is how you have attempted to "justify" what and, more importantly, why you have done certain things. The whole, "we wanted to be different" doesn't really fly. If you had attempted these same tactics on forums such as M4C and LF, you would have been called out pretty much immediately, and shot down in flames.
You are lucky here on CGN, as it is full of people who will buy it purely because it is Canadian, or who think that Norcs are "just as good as" Colts based on their sample of one, "fit and finish", and the hundred rounds they fired without any "jams". However, having to have prospective customers defend your product is probably not the smartest marketing strategy.
What do I mean by this? Well, if you were a food company, it would be like saying we have made a Canadian pizza, it has green tomatoes and shredded cheddar instead of ripe tomatoes and mozzarella. We did it because our chefs (who have extensive experience in airline food) said that it would be better than regular pizza, and we wanted to have a different product to all those other pizzas out there. When what you should really have said was, we have no way to ripen the tomatoes, and the guys who make mozzarella wouldn't let us have any, so we came up with something that our chefs said would taste almost as good to most people, be cheaper, and if you don't like it, we have a 100% money back guarantee.
I really don't care how other people spend their money,and I benefit, because suddenly all those US made rifles and parts that we were told for years were very expensive to bring in have mysteriously gotten cheaper recently, but I don't like to see BS peddled as fact.
An example of this would be the statements you have made regarding your barrel making process, and your statements regarding how your rifling process is better than having them cold hammer forged. Why not just come out and say we can't get any CHF barrels, so we went with this process instead, and we're confident enough in them that we offer a lifetime warranty (except for .mil use). That would make you more credible than coming out with something that is plainly not correct.
Also, alluding to special coating processes and thousands of sales to overseas military and LE without any corroboration does not add to your credibility. You don't have to list any proprietary information, but if there are any available test results, you could link them; or if there are troops carrying your rifles in harms way, there must be one or two photo's out there.
Of course, I expect that I am about to get dogpiled by some of your customers, but I every time I log on here, I keep seeing the same old stuff, so I sat down and wrote this anyway. These types of threads always remind me of this:
[/IMG]
Regards.
Mark
It's not so much that people thought your products would fall apart at the first trigger press, it's more about how you have presented your product to the prospective Canadian market. I won't go into the whole issue of cr@ppy cell phone photo's etc., as that has been covered in other threads.
What I am referring to is how you have attempted to "justify" what and, more importantly, why you have done certain things. The whole, "we wanted to be different" doesn't really fly. If you had attempted these same tactics on forums such as M4C and LF, you would have been called out pretty much immediately, and shot down in flames.
You are lucky here on CGN, as it is full of people who will buy it purely because it is Canadian, or who think that Norcs are "just as good as" Colts based on their sample of one, "fit and finish", and the hundred rounds they fired without any "jams". However, having to have prospective customers defend your product is probably not the smartest marketing strategy.
What do I mean by this? Well, if you were a food company, it would be like saying we have made a Canadian pizza, it has green tomatoes and shredded cheddar instead of ripe tomatoes and mozzarella. We did it because our chefs (who have extensive experience in airline food) said that it would be better than regular pizza, and we wanted to have a different product to all those other pizzas out there. When what you should really have said was, we have no way to ripen the tomatoes, and the guys who make mozzarella wouldn't let us have any, so we came up with something that our chefs said would taste almost as good to most people, be cheaper, and if you don't like it, we have a 100% money back guarantee.
I really don't care how other people spend their money,and I benefit, because suddenly all those US made rifles and parts that we were told for years were very expensive to bring in have mysteriously gotten cheaper recently, but I don't like to see BS peddled as fact.
An example of this would be the statements you have made regarding your barrel making process, and your statements regarding how your rifling process is better than having them cold hammer forged. Why not just come out and say we can't get any CHF barrels, so we went with this process instead, and we're confident enough in them that we offer a lifetime warranty (except for .mil use). That would make you more credible than coming out with something that is plainly not correct.
Also, alluding to special coating processes and thousands of sales to overseas military and LE without any corroboration does not add to your credibility. You don't have to list any proprietary information, but if there are any available test results, you could link them; or if there are troops carrying your rifles in harms way, there must be one or two photo's out there.
Of course, I expect that I am about to get dogpiled by some of your customers, but I every time I log on here, I keep seeing the same old stuff, so I sat down and wrote this anyway. These types of threads always remind me of this:
Regards.
Mark
North Eastern Arms
Manufacturer-Business Member
Fortunate for us our chefs didn't start on airline food I guess.
Unfortunately we don't have a person on payroll that just sits around and translates data from the engineers to the customers.. We're a small company with a big task, and a lot on our plate. We can explain what and why, but don't have the time or the means to break down every decicision to minutia. All we can do is make the best product within our means, rely on the experience that our staff has and trust them and the product. We're not going to spend the little time we do have to interact with the public to give a line of BS.
All we can do is lay it out on the table and let people make their own decisions.
.. Our barrels.. We can get whatever blanks we wish. We chose this. We have explained the reasoning and stand by our statements. Who else offers a lifetime on barrels??
Overseas sales; drop by our website and look at our dealer section. As for MIL/security forces using our products, we have posted pics of product in use in the past when given then and given approval. Do we have any pics of our rifles in the field for you? Nope. Strangely most of the professionals we have sold products over the years have never bothered to send us glamour pics.
I don't think that there's any reason for you to be "dogpiled" in here. You have some valid concerns. However I believe that they have all been addressed many times. Perhaps just not to your satisfaction. That's to be expected. Some people have a certain expectation of service and we're not there yet. We have to focus on the items that we feel are most important. I'm sure that most here would say that we've come a long way even in the last year in terms of service and satisfaction.
We're trying to concentrate on the product, standing by it, and letting it speak for itself.
Unfortunately we don't have a person on payroll that just sits around and translates data from the engineers to the customers.. We're a small company with a big task, and a lot on our plate. We can explain what and why, but don't have the time or the means to break down every decicision to minutia. All we can do is make the best product within our means, rely on the experience that our staff has and trust them and the product. We're not going to spend the little time we do have to interact with the public to give a line of BS.
All we can do is lay it out on the table and let people make their own decisions.
.. Our barrels.. We can get whatever blanks we wish. We chose this. We have explained the reasoning and stand by our statements. Who else offers a lifetime on barrels??
Overseas sales; drop by our website and look at our dealer section. As for MIL/security forces using our products, we have posted pics of product in use in the past when given then and given approval. Do we have any pics of our rifles in the field for you? Nope. Strangely most of the professionals we have sold products over the years have never bothered to send us glamour pics.
I don't think that there's any reason for you to be "dogpiled" in here. You have some valid concerns. However I believe that they have all been addressed many times. Perhaps just not to your satisfaction. That's to be expected. Some people have a certain expectation of service and we're not there yet. We have to focus on the items that we feel are most important. I'm sure that most here would say that we've come a long way even in the last year in terms of service and satisfaction.
We're trying to concentrate on the product, standing by it, and letting it speak for itself.
North Eastern Arms
Manufacturer-Business Member
It's funny, we wouldn't get asked to give up the names of our commercial customers yet people think we will name our professional ones. Funny because some of the 'civis' I have dealt would be far more entertaining to see sporting our wares in public.
Barrels etc.
Thank you for responding to my post.
With regard to barrels, I would very much like to see what information led you to choose something other than CHF barrels as the best choice for AR15's, when all the available evidence points to CHF barrels as being the best choice with regard to longevity etc. I have read through many of your posts, but have not seen any evidence used to back up your choice.
Constantly repeating that you could have chosen anything for (insert chosen part here) and stating that you have a lifetime warranty doesn't really answer the question. If you have posted actual test results, etc., please point me to that thread, as I have definitely missed it.
On a related note, I have not been able to find any information on barrel steel either. If it has already been discussed, please point me to that thread too.
With regard to photo's, I find it hard to believe that the "operators" you sell to are so super secret that no one has ever taken a photo of one of them holding/using one of your rifles, when there are plenty of photo's freely available online of Secret Service, Delta, SEAL, SAS, etc. personnel in operational environments with their weapons. When LMT sold rifles to the UK MOD, it made the front page in a number of places, and gave them a lot more credibility than you will get from hinting at overseas sales to 'civis' wink, wink.
Again, this may seem as if I am trying to find something to complain about, but I am interested in what data you used to come to different conclusions than the rest of the industry.
Regards.
Mark
Thank you for responding to my post.
With regard to barrels, I would very much like to see what information led you to choose something other than CHF barrels as the best choice for AR15's, when all the available evidence points to CHF barrels as being the best choice with regard to longevity etc. I have read through many of your posts, but have not seen any evidence used to back up your choice.
Constantly repeating that you could have chosen anything for (insert chosen part here) and stating that you have a lifetime warranty doesn't really answer the question. If you have posted actual test results, etc., please point me to that thread, as I have definitely missed it.
On a related note, I have not been able to find any information on barrel steel either. If it has already been discussed, please point me to that thread too.
With regard to photo's, I find it hard to believe that the "operators" you sell to are so super secret that no one has ever taken a photo of one of them holding/using one of your rifles, when there are plenty of photo's freely available online of Secret Service, Delta, SEAL, SAS, etc. personnel in operational environments with their weapons. When LMT sold rifles to the UK MOD, it made the front page in a number of places, and gave them a lot more credibility than you will get from hinting at overseas sales to 'civis' wink, wink.
Again, this may seem as if I am trying to find something to complain about, but I am interested in what data you used to come to different conclusions than the rest of the industry.
Regards.
Mark
Interesting posts all around. I am not unsympathetic to either MWL's position, or to NEA's.
People who spend a lot of time on sites like M4C and LF have gotten used to having a very high degree of technical information available, and have developed a very discriminating eye for guns and become very sensitive to the claims of different manufacturers.
This is a new paradigm in the gun industry and it will take some time for everyone to adapt to it.
Traditionally, lots of guys relied on the insipid claims of gun magazines and the un-researched, groundless and exaggerated claims of various gun store employees and customers who stood around chatting about Bushmasters. This culture still exists, of course, but it is slowly being replaced by a more technically informed consumer base.
The person who really made this shift begin on a mass scale is Rob Sloyer, author of the controversial M4 Chart. His attempt to quantify data on M4s has led to a real revolution in the understanding of the platform by consumers.
Canada is a little behind the times, as always. We don't get to do as much with our ARs and proportionally, fewer Canadians probably own ARs than in the US by a fairly wide margin. We can only shoot them at the range and so on...it's led to an environment that is fairly tolerant of second-rate guns. The whole "WTF why is this BCG not MPI'd? You bought garbage" thing just hasn't really hit here yet.
But it will.
Very few manufacturers have truly adapted to this new paradigm, not just in Canada but in the US as well. There are still companies refusing to give proper technical data, still companies making unverifiable claims about who's using their guns, still companies who are living in the days when you could include a bunch of parts that were "good enough".
Those days aren't gone, but they're going. "Good enough" was good enough ten years ago. It was good enough five years ago. It's not good enough any more. We've been involved in a shooting war for a decade. The M4 has evolved and more importantly, public awareness of the M4 has evolved.
Further to that, public appetite for information itself has evolved. Research used to be complicated. Can you imagine how long it would have taken me to learn everything I posted in the OP here if I did this ten years ago? I would have been pulling out textbooks and journal articles and sending away for copies of things...it would have taken months.
It took a few days, and I have a full-time job, and I play in a rock band, and I threw a party during that time. You are looking at the results of maybe 8-10 hours of actual hard research time.
Today there is the expectation that an extremely high degree of very accurate, very technical information will be available, at all times, the form of 1,896,500 hits which took Google 0.12 seconds to get for you.
So that is the environment manufacturers find themselves in today. Adapting to this is not easy. In particular with the AR-15, this is new. I would say the revolution in public understanding of the AR began no more than two years ago.
Given the suddenness of these developments, I am prepared to cut a manufacturer some slack IF they meet at least two of the following criteria:
a) I like other stuff they've built, or they have a bulletproof reputation among other highly informed consumers;
b) they're doing something good for my scene;
c) I believe their hearts are in the right place and they will get to where I want them to be sooner rather than later.
Well, I have a bunch of NEA stuff that I like. I have pushed their VZ stuff for quite a while...I get asked a lot of VZ questions at M4C as I'm probably the only guy there with a moderized 58-pattern gun who's put it through carbine classes, the M4C fetish. The parts I recommend are consistently NEA, because that's what I have used and found to work.
And I think what NEA is doing for the Canadian black rifle consumer is huge. As I said a few days ago, the whole market is being affected by the sudden price drop. This is probably as big as the "Norinco effect". That's major...it's driving AR prices down across the country.
And I believe NEA will ultimately iron out the production kinks. As everyone can probably imagine, as a result of this thread and maybe a couple of other posts, I have suddenly begun receiving PMs with technical questions or comments on the NEA AR. Thee guns have also started arriving in the hands of consumers, so the demand for information is beginning to build and I have set myself up to get a lot of questions both here and elsewhere. I don't mind this at all (in fact it's kind of stroking my ego, until I have to admit that I don't really know very much about the exact nature of the anodizing process NEA are using, because I don't really know much about anodizing, period).
But what has been interesting is that the complexity of the questions and comments that I have gotten indicate that there are a lot of people with a lot of technical knowledge and who are clearly immersed in the "new paradigm" of informed and demanding AR buyers...more so than I would have guessed.
These people will be much more sensitive to manufacturing hiccups than most, so their discriminating tastes are really a double-edged sword for the manufacturer...on one hand, these people tend to be very demanding. On the other, they tend to be very influential on the market. Not knowing NEA's numbers, I can't speculate, so they may be insulated from this effect through a large volume of agency sales...but for the retail market, manufacturers are made, and murdered, in forums like this.
So it is now very dangerous to go in to this line of work without all your ducks in a row. It's a tough business nowadays and NEA has taken a chance going in to the retail AR market. My preference would be to support them.
At the same time, it is my belief that NEA's communications department needs a bit of tweaking. No doubt this is simply part of the new business for NEA; I don't fault them for hitting some speed bumps and I think they've been pretty open about acknowledging their mistakes in this area.
Of course the obvious thing to do would be to pick some guy, preferably a guy in Vancouver with a new mortgage and a history of writing technical stuff about guns, and pay him a lot of money to run the retail sales and communications department, while freeing up Dave to do agency sales. I can't think of anyone offhand but they would probably be worth a lot of money so if any names come up, be sure to offer them at least seventy. Although they could probably be had a little cheaper if it includes free ammo.
Back here in the real world, though, I think we can simply wait for more guns to hit the market, run them, and see how they do. I think they will run fine, and as long as NEA are doing their part on the machining end we'll have some good, Canadian guns. I would guess that as they grow, their communications department will become more experienced and effective, and will be more satisfying for the consumer to deal with.
In the meantime, my intention is just to get an NEA gun, spec it out, evaluate it as factually and as ruthlessly as I can, and see how it compares to other brands.
People who spend a lot of time on sites like M4C and LF have gotten used to having a very high degree of technical information available, and have developed a very discriminating eye for guns and become very sensitive to the claims of different manufacturers.
This is a new paradigm in the gun industry and it will take some time for everyone to adapt to it.
Traditionally, lots of guys relied on the insipid claims of gun magazines and the un-researched, groundless and exaggerated claims of various gun store employees and customers who stood around chatting about Bushmasters. This culture still exists, of course, but it is slowly being replaced by a more technically informed consumer base.
The person who really made this shift begin on a mass scale is Rob Sloyer, author of the controversial M4 Chart. His attempt to quantify data on M4s has led to a real revolution in the understanding of the platform by consumers.
Canada is a little behind the times, as always. We don't get to do as much with our ARs and proportionally, fewer Canadians probably own ARs than in the US by a fairly wide margin. We can only shoot them at the range and so on...it's led to an environment that is fairly tolerant of second-rate guns. The whole "WTF why is this BCG not MPI'd? You bought garbage" thing just hasn't really hit here yet.
But it will.
Very few manufacturers have truly adapted to this new paradigm, not just in Canada but in the US as well. There are still companies refusing to give proper technical data, still companies making unverifiable claims about who's using their guns, still companies who are living in the days when you could include a bunch of parts that were "good enough".
Those days aren't gone, but they're going. "Good enough" was good enough ten years ago. It was good enough five years ago. It's not good enough any more. We've been involved in a shooting war for a decade. The M4 has evolved and more importantly, public awareness of the M4 has evolved.
Further to that, public appetite for information itself has evolved. Research used to be complicated. Can you imagine how long it would have taken me to learn everything I posted in the OP here if I did this ten years ago? I would have been pulling out textbooks and journal articles and sending away for copies of things...it would have taken months.
It took a few days, and I have a full-time job, and I play in a rock band, and I threw a party during that time. You are looking at the results of maybe 8-10 hours of actual hard research time.
Today there is the expectation that an extremely high degree of very accurate, very technical information will be available, at all times, the form of 1,896,500 hits which took Google 0.12 seconds to get for you.
So that is the environment manufacturers find themselves in today. Adapting to this is not easy. In particular with the AR-15, this is new. I would say the revolution in public understanding of the AR began no more than two years ago.
Given the suddenness of these developments, I am prepared to cut a manufacturer some slack IF they meet at least two of the following criteria:
a) I like other stuff they've built, or they have a bulletproof reputation among other highly informed consumers;
b) they're doing something good for my scene;
c) I believe their hearts are in the right place and they will get to where I want them to be sooner rather than later.
Well, I have a bunch of NEA stuff that I like. I have pushed their VZ stuff for quite a while...I get asked a lot of VZ questions at M4C as I'm probably the only guy there with a moderized 58-pattern gun who's put it through carbine classes, the M4C fetish. The parts I recommend are consistently NEA, because that's what I have used and found to work.
And I think what NEA is doing for the Canadian black rifle consumer is huge. As I said a few days ago, the whole market is being affected by the sudden price drop. This is probably as big as the "Norinco effect". That's major...it's driving AR prices down across the country.
And I believe NEA will ultimately iron out the production kinks. As everyone can probably imagine, as a result of this thread and maybe a couple of other posts, I have suddenly begun receiving PMs with technical questions or comments on the NEA AR. Thee guns have also started arriving in the hands of consumers, so the demand for information is beginning to build and I have set myself up to get a lot of questions both here and elsewhere. I don't mind this at all (in fact it's kind of stroking my ego, until I have to admit that I don't really know very much about the exact nature of the anodizing process NEA are using, because I don't really know much about anodizing, period).
But what has been interesting is that the complexity of the questions and comments that I have gotten indicate that there are a lot of people with a lot of technical knowledge and who are clearly immersed in the "new paradigm" of informed and demanding AR buyers...more so than I would have guessed.
These people will be much more sensitive to manufacturing hiccups than most, so their discriminating tastes are really a double-edged sword for the manufacturer...on one hand, these people tend to be very demanding. On the other, they tend to be very influential on the market. Not knowing NEA's numbers, I can't speculate, so they may be insulated from this effect through a large volume of agency sales...but for the retail market, manufacturers are made, and murdered, in forums like this.
So it is now very dangerous to go in to this line of work without all your ducks in a row. It's a tough business nowadays and NEA has taken a chance going in to the retail AR market. My preference would be to support them.
At the same time, it is my belief that NEA's communications department needs a bit of tweaking. No doubt this is simply part of the new business for NEA; I don't fault them for hitting some speed bumps and I think they've been pretty open about acknowledging their mistakes in this area.
Of course the obvious thing to do would be to pick some guy, preferably a guy in Vancouver with a new mortgage and a history of writing technical stuff about guns, and pay him a lot of money to run the retail sales and communications department, while freeing up Dave to do agency sales. I can't think of anyone offhand but they would probably be worth a lot of money so if any names come up, be sure to offer them at least seventy. Although they could probably be had a little cheaper if it includes free ammo.
Back here in the real world, though, I think we can simply wait for more guns to hit the market, run them, and see how they do. I think they will run fine, and as long as NEA are doing their part on the machining end we'll have some good, Canadian guns. I would guess that as they grow, their communications department will become more experienced and effective, and will be more satisfying for the consumer to deal with.
In the meantime, my intention is just to get an NEA gun, spec it out, evaluate it as factually and as ruthlessly as I can, and see how it compares to other brands.
If that happens, I will definitely hide in a Holiday Inn Express instead of answering them.
