I'm glad your cheap stuff works great for you, but I'm not going to stop making fun of flinting, not now, not ever. Doesn't matter what it is, either. Whether it's a gun or a chinese spoon at
walmart. It may surprise you but some of my best friends are the biggest f***ing skinflints on the planet. The thing is though, most of the time when they flint, it's on something that
doesn't matter. Like when I go to HF and buy a battery charger, I'm under no illusion that it's "just as good" as a commercial grade unit, or that I somehow "beat the system" by paying
less. If you want to believe you can do that, then more power to you. It's your right to do so! Then again I also don't ascribe ego to guns or whatever, or stuff I own. Like I have an 800 dollar AR. I'm under no illusion that its anywhere near as good as the old Colt I had, or even the cheapest BCM you can buy today. It works perfectly well and I trust it enough to work if I
needed it to. However, you won't ever catch me calling it "really good" or "you should buy one of these" because I know better about what it actually is and it's place in the
hierarchy of ARs and various build features that are considered important by people who shoot Hajis in the face for a living, and the people who train them to do that. It's possible for me to
own a rifle that is adequate for my needs while still being considered marginal or "average" by anyone else that knows better. I won't lose sleep over it.
I am a bit biased because my entire career I've watched people kick their own ass by flinting on stuff. So the bias runs pretty strong here. It's unavoidable, when you see it validated over and over and over again. To summarize- no, it's not necessary to buy a Rolex if you need a new watch, but please, let's not try to blow smoke up people's asses by insisting that a BOLEX from the dude on the street in NYC is just as good..
I mean PSA obviously isn't that bad, but the idea is the same. PSA might actually get to "Timex" level but not sure. Years ago a friend of mine on here and myself were going to destructively test one of their uppers but unfortunately he ended up selling the thing before we had a chance to do it.
-Mike