Its low end stuff that still costs $1000 bucks nowadays.
I can remember paying $500 for a brand new Mini 30 & My dad thought I was insane !! He was use to buying 303 rifles at the army & navy for $8 bucks. LOL
Ya, but these days things cost more.
Today his $8 303 would be $200.
Blame minimum wage going up, blame inflation, blame higher building costs, blame higher energy costs, blame whatever you want but just like your $500 mini 30 years ago that same rifle is now over $1000 new just like all the other entry level rifles out there these days.
What do you think of the prices of vehicles these days? Is it crazy that a pick-up truck costs up to $80K when only 20-30 years ago you could buy a new truck for $10K? It's called inflation and it happens in every industry and unfortunately there's nothing we can do about it besides stop buying things we think are too expensive.
I do agree 100% though that a new rifle should function properly. The good is that because Wolverine is behind this product you can be sure that if you do get one that doesn't function correctly they will make sure you end up with one that works as it should.
Don't forget that we're not buying a Norinco here, these actually have a warranty and the manufacturer is close enough to support anyone in Canada with no more than shipping it back for service. Yes, it sucks when they make you pay postage to ship it back but what industry doesn't leave it up to you to bring it in for repairs. You are responsible for towing your car to the shop if it breaks down, even if it's a week old it's still the consumers responsibility to get it to the dealer and I'm pretty sure a tow half way across the city is going to cost you more than shipping a rifle within Canada.
I agree lone ranger. If you pay a $1,000 for a firearm, the darn thing should work right out of the box without any issues. It's called quality control.
I too have had problems with keltecs and would never buy another. Took me two sub2000's before I came to that conclusion. Both the Gen1 and Gen2 were problematic. Sight fell off the first and the 2nd was a jam-o-matic. I applaud their innovative designs but their just plastic junk waiting to fall apart.
My Sub2000 was fine after about 500 rounds, after that it was near 100% reliable and other than being crappy I never had any issues with the sights. A cheap POS that was fun and did what it was supposed to even if it did feel like a plastic toy.
I've also owned a gen 2 RFB and a gen 2 KSG, both were light years ahead of the Sub2000 for quality and finish. Both were 100% reliable from day one and both were great guns that I only sold because I got bored and wanted something else. I would buy an RFB again if the right deal came up.
I agree that a new firearm should function but I think people have way too high of expectations for their entry level stuff. The 180C is an entry level gun regardless of what guys think they should get for $1000. I would have liked to see them take a little more time to work out the little bugs and fine tune it a little better so fewer guys had issues but as always as soon as a company announces they are working on something like this they are immediately under pressure from every guy thinking this is going to be the new non restricted wonder rifle that is going to solve all their problems. In the end and especially with a new and/or small company the customer eventually becomes the Beta tester, this sucks if there are problems but it's not till they go to full production that they find some of the manufacturing deficiencies.
If the company acknowledges the problem and stands behind the product supporting the customers who bought early and also makes changes to correct production point forward that's all we can really expect or hope for.
If that's not good enough for people then they need to put on their big boy pants and buy a proven platform like an XCR or ACR and accept the deficiencies those rifles have like higher cost and weight. I've owned or still own a couple ACR's, an XCR, a Swiss Arms Classic Green flat top, a Mini-14, more AR's than I can count, an AR180B-2, and a bunch of others I'm sure I'm forgetting, they all have their strengths and their weaknesses.
This is why I applaud ATRS for trying to keep the MS receiver sets quiet until they were closer to being ready to release it. Of course they told some customers who spilled the beans but at least they were trying to avoid issues like this by having a product ready to go before they got bombarded with questions.