Here’s to a gun company having balls!

Someone’s never futzed around with a glock with the slide off before. So easy to check too, sometimes I’m shocked stuff like that makes it to print.

When I want honest, non-biased, and accurate reporting on guns, I pick up a copy of Gun Tests magazine. They don’t accept ads from gun makers, so they owe them nothing, which is clearly reflected in their reviews.

I’ve seen them rip into poor design features like no other magazine can or will.”

I’ve read several Gun Tests magazines and canceled my subscription. The writing is poor, many of the “tests” are pure assumption and are not repeatable. I love the article on “affordable side-by-sides” only to see that they are talking about shotguns in the $2-3K arena. Much more science and repeatability in testing is needed in gun reviews. Theboxotruth.com ammo testing at least uses the same setup at the same distances for testing. It’s not white glove science, but it gives you needed usable info., unlike most glowing Gun mags.

That, and they frequently confuse “Cheaper” and “Better”.

I’ve seen them rip into poor design features like no other magazine can or will.

If you think about it, where do most semi-functional people go for actual information these days? The Internet, and usual to The Googles. If you do a google search for Para LTC 9mm, my review of it at Gun Nuts Radio Blog and Tam’s review are both near the top on the second page of results. If you do a different google search for International Cartridge Corporation, Sebastian’s review is the 4 result on the front page.

In addition to the above, Para is now presenting their product to the shooting community equivalent of “super-users”, people who don’t just buy a gun and leave in the sock drawer, but people who buy lots of guns, lots of BBs (thanks Todd), load their own ammo, buy lots of gear, etc.

And finally, there’s the “street cred” issue – which Para now has in spades. They took 11 people from a demographic that is notorious for doing whatever the hell it wants, and said “here are our guns, do your worst”. Para does have balls to do something like this, and I think that long term payoff for them, Blackhawk, and ICC will actually be pretty impressive.

This day and age, honesty and freshness stands out. Easiest way to do this is precisely what Para did.

And from a purely marketing-focused view, it really focused the budget on a well-qualified demographic. This should be a Harvard Business Review case study.