6061: further thoughts and new information

I used the "chart" to show what information other manufacturers are prepared to divulge to their customers, or prospective customers. I would imagine that it should not be too difficult for someone at NEA to list what components or processes they have chosen under the various headings. You conveniently took the example of upper and lower receivers, which we already know are different, but what about barrel steel, shot peening, HPT and MPI criteria? Where there are differences, tell us why you made the changes, and how it improves the rifle in terms of longevity, rigidity, etc.

Nowhere did I say that NEA was junk. In fact, I stated that I am giving you the benefit of the doubt, never having seen, or touched any of your products, and not wishing to take the word of some faceless guy on an internet forum who says that the widget on his (insert gun of choice here) works just great, and by extension, so will your ARs. I also didn't state that every manufacturer who declined to give out information produced substandard junk, but that it was typical of those who did.

With reference to manufacturers of "just as good as" ARs, the kind of behaviour I am seeing from you and your fanboys, is more the type of behaviour I would expect to see from Oly, DPMS and Robarm on forums like Arfcom, which is why I don't go there.

As for using this forum for my pre-purchase research (not research project), NEA came here and offered information, and I ,and others, are looking for more detailed explanations of some of that information. We don't feel entitled to it, but if you want us to buy your products then answering those questions should not be like extracting teeth. Nowhere did I see anyone asking you to list the formula for dragonskin, but I have seen questions pertaining to cleaning solvent use and wear resistance.

If you act like you have something to hide, then people will assume (yes, I know all the assume jokes) that you actually have something to hide. My advice would be to hire someone with some customer service and marketing experience, and let them handle this stuff, that way you might not alienate your prospective customers. If you are making that much money that you don't care about losing a few, then drive on.

Regards.

Mark
 
North Eastern Arms said:
I hope you also noted that list is Commercial M4's.. All have forged receivers, 2-piece handguards and front sight blocks. We do not build a M4 patterned rifle, but you still want us to compare against that list?



.. I noticed that LWRC and KAC (as well as quite a few others) aren't on the list.. does that mean that they're substandard junk? I thought that they were tier 1 manufacturers.. Or is it because they don't have a rifle in the tabled configuration? Just wondering if we're an apple or an orange. because it looks like you found a list on the internet and want to apply it out of context to prove a point about our substandard junk.
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I think you could certainly use it as a general guide. It definitely covers the general bases most people will be interested in hearing about. Obviously some columns are N/A but many are.

That list is hardly a complete assessment of all the rifles on the market, nor is it the be-all-end-all criteria by which all guns must be judged. Nor does it cover lots of factors on which a gun running properly will depend.

BUT

It does give a general ballpark idea of where the different manufacturers that have participated in the chart line up.

Companies which are not on the chart have to be assessed differently. Yes, there are KACs and so on. There are also Olympics etc. Can you automatically infer that absence from the chart means you built a substandard AR? Clearly not. But most of the applicable information about KAC guns is fairly readily available.

This thread is proof that I don't think that the chart is the bottom line; the entire purpose of this thread is to show that one criteria, the upper and lower material, is too limited in scope to give the full picture.

However, all experiments require a control group. When all the information is available, it will be easier to research the details of why some features might deviate from the standard. Without the information it's very hard.

What would you say to the idea of me writing you an email will all the specific questions that I think most high-level users would want to know, getting as much information from you as you can reveal, and then writing the answers, where available, into a complete FAQ for people?

That way you could point people to the FAQ and say, "if it's not in here, it's because we're contractually bound not to tell people, or it's proprietary information that we can't give away. But we have given all of the detail we can and we haven't hid anything because we think it will hurt sales."

That would resolve the questions of people like MWL who are used to chart-grade access to technical detail, and be an interesting reference for people who are interested in the NEA AR simply because of its price.

I think this would also help to prepare NEA in the longer term, as I think this is a level of detail that will become increasingly common to demand. In the US it is already an accepted benchmark; this is coming here, and in Western Europe, and in New Zealand, and every AR market eventually IMO.

It may seem harsh and I appreciate that this is probably not fun reading for you guys but the long term results of this kind of criticism are going to make NEA a stronger company and the NEA-15 a better rifle.
 
I hope NEA actually realizes what Misanthropist is trying to do for them.

I have seen NEA struggle in their posts with the distractions of this forum and it's users. It's something they need to get a handle on.

It's not 1995 anymore. Forums have changed the game. Unfortunately you have play it or suffer more of this type of distraction.

Best of luck guys.
 
misanthropist said:
I think you could certainly use it as a general guide. It definitely covers the general bases most people will be interested in hearing about. Obviously some columns are N/A but many are.

That list is hardly a complete assessment of all the rifles on the market, nor is it the be-all-end-all criteria by which all guns must be judged. Nor does it cover lots of factors on which a gun running properly will depend.

BUT

It does give a general ballpark idea of where the different manufacturers that have participated in the chart line up.

Companies which are not on the chart have to be assessed differently. Yes, there are KACs and so on. There are also Olympics etc. Can you automatically infer that absence from the chart means you built a substandard AR? Clearly not. But most of the applicable information about KAC guns is fairly readily available.

This thread is proof that I don't think that the chart is the bottom line; the entire purpose of this thread is to show that one criteria, the upper and lower material, is too limited in scope to give the full picture.

However, all experiments require a control group. When all the information is available, it will be easier to research the details of why some features might deviate from the standard. Without the information it's very hard.

What would you say to the idea of me writing you an email will all the specific questions that I think most high-level users would want to know, getting as much information from you as you can reveal, and then writing the answers, where available, into a complete FAQ for people?

That way you could point people to the FAQ and say, "if it's not in here, it's because we're contractually bound not to tell people, or it's proprietary information that we can't give away. But we have given all of the detail we can and we haven't hid anything because we think it will hurt sales."

That would resolve the questions of people like MWL who are used to chart-grade access to technical detail, and be an interesting reference for people who are interested in the NEA AR simply because of its price.

I think this would also help to prepare NEA in the longer term, as I think this is a level of detail that will become increasingly common to demand. In the US it is already an accepted benchmark; this is coming here, and in Western Europe, and in New Zealand, and every AR market eventually IMO.

It may seem harsh and I appreciate that this is probably not fun reading for you guys but the long term results of this kind of criticism are going to make NEA a stronger company and the NEA-15 a better rifle.
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I'm game.. Let's line it up.
 
claven2 said:
i think if you answered the following question, a lot of people would stop griping.

"do your barrel blanks comply with mil-b-11595e, and if so, are they 4150ordnance, ordnance resulferized, or cmv? Also, are they parkerized under the gas block?"
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cmv.

Entire barrel is treated, inside and out. Including the bll extension.
 
North Eastern Arms said:
I'm game.. Let's line it up.
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Awesome...I will get together a list of questions over the next couple of days and email you with that.

I will probably have follow-up questions and I predict this whole process will take a couple of weeks as I get everything dialed.

I will send you guys a draft to look over before I post anything so you should have plenty of opportunity to strike any information that you would be concerned about making public.

I think this will make for a very interesting thread.
 
Most people over here shoot "sub standard" AR's anyway (RRA, Bushy, DPMS etc) - it's really all we can get apart from older Colts, so it will be interesting what the more experienced AR guys think of the NEA products. I don't think Kiwi's run their rifles hard enough to know the difference, though I have heard stories about our cops having problems with their Bushmasters
 
beavis_m305 said:
Most people over here shoot "sub standard" AR's anyway (RRA, Bushy, DPMS etc) - it's really all we can get apart from older Colts, so it will be interesting what the more experienced AR guys think of the NEA products. I don't think Kiwi's run their rifles hard enough to know the difference, though I have heard stories about our cops having problems with their Bushmasters
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A minor point, but RRA is a fair cut above Bushmaster or DPMS in my opinion. And no, I don't own an RRA and am not a fanboi of theirs. Just trying to be honest.
 
My sideburns are like Samson's hair...they are actually the source of my intellect. If I shave them off I become instantly illiterate.

I have the answers and the vast majority of my questions were in fact answered.

There are probably a few answers some people won't like and a few many will; but this is, in my opinion, exactly the disclosure people were looking for.

There is enough information that it will take me some time to go through it all and think about how best to arrange it. I sent about three pages of questions so you can imagine that there is a lot of writing to do now.

But soon I think people will know as much about the NEA rifle as they can realistically expect.
 
The thing I really want to know at this point is WHEN WILL MINE ARRIVE!!! :D

Seriously though, I appreciate all of the time and energy that Misanthropist and NEA are putting into giving us this information. I'm not one who is hanging on this spec or that but if disclosing the details (good or bad) benefits some end users, then I'm all for it.
 
misanthropist said:
My sideburns are like Samson's hair...they are actually the source of my intellect. If I shave them off I become instantly illiterate.

I have the answers and the vast majority of my questions were in fact answered.

There are probably a few answers some people won't like and a few many will; but this is, in my opinion, exactly the disclosure people were looking for.

There is enough information that it will take me some time to go through it all and think about how best to arrange it. I sent about three pages of questions so you can imagine that there is a lot of writing to do now.

But soon I think people will know as much about the NEA rifle as they can realistically expect.
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I am very much looking forward to reading your "report" if I may call it that. I am certain it will be a very interesting and informative document. Thank you for taking the time and making the effort to get this information to the community.

Also, cudos to NEA for getting the questions answered so quickly; well done.
 
I was really surprised how fast the response was; I had expected to get on here today and say, "I would like to ask everyone to be patient and not interpret a bit of a wait as stalling".

I thought it would be a week before I heard back and I thought the answers would be possibly vague enough that I would have a lot of follow-up work to do and that I would have to pry a bit.

But the answers are pretty complete and direct. I may have some follow up stuff but in general the response was better than I had hoped.
 
misanthropist said:
My sideburns are like Samson's hair...they are actually the source of my intellect. If I shave them off I become instantly illiterate.

I have the answers and the vast majority of my questions were in fact answered.

There are probably a few answers some people won't like and a few many will; but this is, in my opinion, exactly the disclosure people were looking for.

But soon I think people will know as much about the NEA rifle as they can realistically expect.
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Good Job and we appreciate the work your doing, you've taken something and run with it better than most professionals, you ever make it to the GTA I'll buy the first beer....

BTW ... waiting............!! Just kidding!!

North Eastern Arms said:
BTw.. you never did come by and pick up that $20 we promised you.
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Your not going to make me dance around again in a g-string are you.... last time Tritium scared me!! :eek:


BTW I would like to apologize to MWL for some things I said and the tone of some posts... I blame working night shift and global warming....
 
mac100 said:
I am not sure if we are going to expierience very harsh enviroments for our AR's considering after all that they are range guns only for us in Canada.
And the fact that NEA has a full lifetime warranty on these makes me think they are very confident in their product.
These rifles are approx. $300 more than a Norc and are made in Canada. What are Norcs made of?, I don't even know but I think they are a great rifle too, but for $300 more for an NEA why would anybody even consider a Norc
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I wholeheartedly agree.
 
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