Cognitive Bias in Shooting Community

[adamg]

Wow... Seems a little harsh... Just wondering if KT is in the bipod business.

The number one rule of quality is that anything spent to make something better than it needs to be is a form of waste.

I hope I don't get banned for this, but I have a bunch of bipods from Chinese Harris style to Chinese Atlas and I have the real ones as well.

I can agree the "real ones" are "better" but at the same time I have never had one of the Chinese bipods fail me, so both work just fine.

If a guy cannot justify or afford $300-$500 for a bipod, he is nobody's fool if he goes with a knock off that's for sure.

In fact I would say the last place... the very last place a guy should spend big money on his PRS rifle is the bipod. Nobody wins a PRS match because he has an expensive bipod.

Just think about how many PRS stages even let you use one.

I agree with Maple57 here. We are talking about basically a commodity product with slight differences.

If we take a look at the barrel market, where's the outrage that IBI seems to be putting out a product that is similar to other barrels from shops that existed long before them? In this case there are no qualms or protest about recommending a Canadian company.

If we take a look at the drop-in trigger market, either AR15 or Rem700 patterns, where's the outrage that TriggerTech seems to be putting out a product that is similar to other triggers from shops that existed long before them? In this case there are no qualms or protest about recommending a Canadian company.

What's the real difference here? The only significant difference I see is that we are talking about Chinese product versus Canadian production. Isn't that bordering on xenophobic and hypocritical?

 

[kthomas]

I agree with Maple57 here. We are talking about basically a commodity product with slight differences.

If we take a look at the barrel market, where's the outrage that IBI seems to be putting out a product that is similar to other barrels from shops that existed long before them? In this case there are no qualms or protest about recommending a Canadian company.

If we take a look at the drop-in trigger market, either AR15 or Rem700 patterns, where's the outrage that TriggerTech seems to be putting out a product that is similar to other triggers from shops that existed long before them? In this case there are no qualms or protest about recommending a Canadian company.

What's the real difference here? The only significant difference I see is that we are talking about Chinese product versus Canadian production. Isn't that bordering on xenophobic and hypocritical?

Is barrel technology patented? Does Krieger or Bartlein have intellectual property on barrels? Trigger Tech is also not stealing anyones IP's (though they do have their own patents).

The outrage isn't because it's a Chinese company per say. The outrage is that these companies, almost all of which located in China, are blatantly ripping off patented designs from companies like Atlas.

If IBI or Trigger Tech or any other company was blatantly ripping off a patented product from another manufacturer, you can believe myself and others would be vocal about it. I could care less if the theft is happening by Chinese or Canadians, theft is theft. If a Chinese company wants to come up with a bipod that is original and isn't patented IP protected design, then they can have at it.

 

[rugbydave]

I agree with Maple57 here. We are talking about basically a commodity product with slight differences.

If we take a look at the barrel market, where's the outrage that IBI seems to be putting out a product that is similar to other barrels from shops that existed long before them? In this case there are no qualms or protest about recommending a Canadian company.

If we take a look at the drop-in trigger market, either AR15 or Rem700 patterns, where's the outrage that TriggerTech seems to be putting out a product that is similar to other triggers from shops that existed long before them? In this case there are no qualms or protest about recommending a Canadian company.

What's the real difference here? The only significant difference I see is that we are talking about Chinese product versus Canadian production. Isn't that bordering on xenophobic and hypocritical?

That's a pretty disingenuous argument. If you actually understood what you were talking about, you would understand that IBI (for instance) isn't violating any other barrel manufacturer's patent. Nor is a Trigger Tech a blatant copy of a Timney (they both have their own patents). They make competing iterations of a same base product (barrel, trigger, etc), just like Ford, Chevy and Mercedes-Benz all manufacture their own takes on vehicles.

No one is ragging on companies (Chinese or otherwise) for making their own bipod designs. We're talking about companies that blatantly rip-off other companies' (patented) designs going so far as to even use the other company's name. It's actual IP theft, pure and simple. That all these knockoffs come from China is just because that specific (autocratic, repressive and civil liberty-lacking) country has zero issues with IP theft and doesn't enforce international laws dealing with IP rights, specifically because the country itself partakes in it wholeheartedly. How's that for xenophobic and hypocritical?

 

[adamg]

I now see what you guys are saying about this situation being different. I found this list of patents on a website (Click on the Patents bar, then Issued Patents bar):
https://www.accu-shot.com/faq.php

 

[Maple57]

It astounds me that this thread still has legs...

You do realize that advocating for knockoffs is essentially advocating for theft, right? Company A invests the time and money to develop, manufacture and market a product only to then have their product ripped off and manufactured in an inferior manner by offshore companies not affected by patents or IP legislation (read chicoms). It must take some very serious "cognitive bias" to see that as even remotely ethical. Not to mention that their theft is economically driven in that if no one bought them, they would cease to copy them. Would you advocate buying offshore knockoffs of say, a chassis designed and manufactured in Canada? The chicoms have CNC machines too, I'm sure.

A Harris bipod costs about $150, that's what, 3-4 boxes of factory match ammo?

Do you understand that patents have a limited life span?

If the original manufacturer had a CURRENT legal basis they would be stopped at the border and would not be sold at every store from Canadian Tire to your local gun shop.

Nobody has any ethical or moral obligation to pay ridiculously inflated prices to opportunistic companies who are capitalizing on patriotism.

Bipods are one of those areas where companies all too frequently take advantage. Slings are another.

 

[Cameron SS]

I thought I'd present an observation regarding what I see as Cognitive Bias in the Shooting Community

A cognitive bias is a systematic error in thinking that affects the decisions and judgments that people make.

I see this all the time... recently in guys challenging me on my 223 load development but I see it in so many other ways.

A friend (very experienced long range shooter) was recently telling me that he found a certain primer to be more accurate than another... He was testing groups on target at 100 yards to make this determination.... the problem with that is that the primer does not cause accuracy... it causes ignition, which affects speed... so measuring bullet dispersion at 100 yards does not confirm how consistent the velocity was. He should have been measuring how consistent the velocity was if he was evaluating primers.

There are lots of examples of this.... What's better for hunting moose... 308 or 30-06?

Any thoughts?

Yes, there are many cognitive biases that come into play in this. There is a lot of false attribution in the handloading world, and the shooting community in general. Good science is hard. Good thing we love it!

There are a lot of variables in play in putting a bullet in flight that most people don't even understand let alone bothering to track or control. There is also a lot of things that used to be well known and understood that have long since been forgotten. I've conducted lots of testing to explore the impact of certain variables, thinking i've discovered something new, only to realize that it is one more lesson that was published decades ago in hatcher's notebook.

One example being the orientation of powder in the case at the time of primer ignition. One of the benefits to a full or slightly compressed powder load in a case is that the orientation is constant. If you have a case that is 70% full, then variations in the rate of powder burn between a case with all the powder loaded against the primer vs loaded towards the bullet can be dozens of feet per second, far more significant than variations between different manufacturers of primer, let alone each primer in a lot.

 

[Cameron SS]

It astounds me that this thread still has legs...

You do realize that advocating for knockoffs is essentially advocating for theft, right? Company A invests the time and money to develop, manufacture and market a product only to then have their product ripped off and manufactured in an inferior manner by offshore companies not affected by patents or IP legislation (read chicoms). It must take some very serious "cognitive bias" to see that as even remotely ethical. Not to mention that their theft is economically driven in that if no one bought them, they would cease to copy them. Would you advocate buying offshore knockoffs of say, a chassis designed and manufactured in Canada? The chicoms have CNC machines too, I'm sure.

A Harris bipod costs about $150, that's what, 3-4 boxes of factory match ammo?

That is not cognitive bias, it is simply a difference in values.

You know that there are a lot of people who object to intellectual property laws on the basis that stifling the entire species from being able to benefit from one persons idea, or letting one person or company maintain a monopoly on a particular product or process is unethical?

Can you imagine if the first caveman that discovered how to make fire patented it, and the rest of humanity was denied its use without paying whatever price that was dictated?

Pharmaceutical patents literally kill tens of thousands of people every year. Yes, there is effort and risk required to invent something new. Being able to bring that product to market and realizing a return on that investment and fending off the sharks who want to copy you is part of the business. That doesn't entitle you to a state enforced monopoly which is enforced on the back of the state's threat of violence.

IF the OEM is a better product, then people will still buy it, even at the higher price. If the knock offs are good enough, then people will buy them. This is not unethical. This is business in a free market.

This is not cognitive bias, just a difference in values. I value freedom and autonomy. To the victor go the spoils.

 

[kthomas]

Do you understand that patents have a limited life span?

If the original manufacturer had a CURRENT legal basis they would be stopped at the border and would not be sold at every store from Canadian Tire to your local gun shop.

Nobody has any ethical or moral obligation to pay ridiculously inflated prices to opportunistic companies who are capitalizing on patriotism.

Bipods are one of those areas where companies all too frequently take advantage. Slings are another.

A lot of the patents are current. Atlas has their stuff ripped off all of the time, it's frequent and blatant. There's been sting operations setup during Shot Show's because that's how frequent and blatant it is. It's so bad, that somehow some US Special Warfare groups have gotten knock-off Atlas bipods unknowingly through their suppliers, and they broke every single one of them. I think we can all understand how dangerous it is for our top level .gov agencies to have bipods that are prone to breaking when they are in the middle of nowhere on a mission.

The rip-offs are IP theft. And they are built so poorly that they break. It's very difficult to enforce the patent laws, a lot of knock-off's make it into the country when they shouldn't.

If you want to take money away from the companies that are bringing out the innovative products that help progress the sport, and give it to the thieves, then yes, I think you should be banned. If you think you are getting a quality and reliable product with these knock-offs, then I don't think you understand what quality is. These knock-off's are nowhere near the quality of the product they are ripping off, and there are LOT's of reports of them breaking.

These are not ridiculously inflated prices. The owner of the Atlas bipod or the Ckye-pod aren't driving around in super cars. It costs a lot of money to manufacture a quality product from quality materials. Customer service staff cost money. R&D costs money. There's a reason why some products are cheaper then others - compromises are being made somewhere. And it's a good idea as a consumer to understand what your money gets you, and where the compromises are being made on products that are cheaper then their counterparts.

 

[kthomas]

Maple, as an owner of a Cadex rifle you should certainly understand quality and why certain things cost more. You obviously saw the value of a Cadex, while being a very expensive rifle, and the benefits it provides over say a Remington rifle. If you didn't, you obviously wouldn't have bought a Cadex.

Here's an analogy that you should understand as a Cadex owner:

Atlas/TBAC/Ckye-pod = Cadex rifle
Harris bipod = Remington
Chi-com knock-off = Norinco

As you go down the list, the bipods (and rifles) get cheaper but they compromise on a combination of the following things: quality of manufacturing and raw materials used, QA/QC, customer service, R&D, etc. The Cadex is a rifle of obviously high quality. It costs a lot of money, much more then a Remington. Not a huge gap in price between a Remington and a Norinco, but the difference in quality is obvious.

You obviously understand this concept with rifles, so I'm not sure why you can't apply the same thought process to bipods.

The bipod is a big part of the foundation between the rifle and terra firma. Pretty damn important part on a precision rifle, not sure why anyone would want to compromise on their foundation when they are trying to be as precise as possible at distance.

 

[Maple57]

KT, you know better than most how I obsess about bipods... LOL. There is not a bipod in the world that actually meets all my expectations. (Not even my own.)

I appreciate quality for sure. But not every rifle deserves the very best gear. I put the good gear on the competition rifles and cheap stuff on the others. It's just too expensive to always buy the best for everything.

Like most of us on this forum... if not all.. we are not going to war... just shooting at the range, on a farm or at a match so nobody's life is on the line.

Shooting is just a hobby (aka addiction) but once the cost out weighs the fun, it's no longer fun.

Besides, it's not like the Chinese knock offs are actually competing with real Atlas. A guy who buys a $30 Atlas knock off did not think he was buying a real Atlas for cheap... If he wanted a real Atlas for ten times the cost he'd have bought the real Atlas. It's just not the same market.

 

[rugbydave]

That is not cognitive bias, it is simply a difference in values.

You know that there are a lot of people who object to intellectual property laws on the basis that stifling the entire species from being able to benefit from one persons idea, or letting one person or company maintain a monopoly on a particular product or process is unethical?

Can you imagine if the first caveman that discovered how to make fire patented it, and the rest of humanity was denied its use without paying whatever price that was dictated?

Pharmaceutical patents literally kill tens of thousands of people every year. Yes, there is effort and risk required to invent something new. Being able to bring that product to market and realizing a return on that investment and fending off the sharks who want to copy you is part of the business. That doesn't entitle you to a state enforced monopoly which is enforced on the back of the state's threat of violence.

IF the OEM is a better product, then people will still buy it, even at the higher price. If the knock offs are good enough, then people will buy them. This is not unethical. This is business in a free market.

This is not cognitive bias, just a difference in values. I value freedom and autonomy. To the victor go the spoils.

I wasn't actually implying that it was cognitive bias, hence the quotation marks... I was being sarcastic.

You're correct in that it's a difference in values but your caveman/fire analogy is nonsense. The same caveman would've had to also invent patent law and an entire socio-economic system with the means to enforce it.

I also value freedom and autonomy, two of the many things that the PRC heavily represses. So I use my freedom and autonomy and choose not to support state run enterprises (as they all are, to one extent or another) that benefit a ####ty, repressive country. Instead, I choose to spend my money with domestic (US and Canadian) companies that also invest their time and money in supporting/growing the sport of precision rifle.

Clearly we won't agree on this but thankfully we live in a country where we are free to have diverging opinions. Some aren't so lucky

 

[mikeelliot]

Interesting read with alot of info to digest. To the OP I agree with what you were saying, but as said above somewhere that's just how people are. One good skill with being a gun nut is reading everything and deciding for yourself what is good info and what is bull sh*t.

And the 6.5x47L is one of if not the easiest cartridge to tune a load for lol.