Trade reviews

[ovenpaa]

I have come across a couple of equipment reviews by people within the UK trade recently and was quite impressed, until it dawned on me that they had written the reviews either for money or more usually for the actual bit of kit they have reviewed. For me the whole review in question and the process suddenly becomes tainted.

So now I begin to question reviews and the motives for reviews, especially if they are gushing praise and all sorts of niceties about something I would not associate with the reviewer in question and my questions is this, just how much as a percentage are the equipment reviews we read fake or financially motivated and more to the point what can we trust as an unbiased source of review.

[dromia]

The whole "review" thing is a pile of sh!te.

There is no one writing today professionally that I have read that has the experience, objectivity and integrity to write anything I would consider of value, they will say anything to get the dosh and are not to be trusted. The last decent reviews I read were in the late Colin Greenwoods Guns Review.

[MistAgain]

The whole "review" thing is a pile of sh!te.

There is no one writing today professionally that I have read that has the experience, objectivity and integrity to write anything I would consider of value, they will say anything to get the dosh and are not to be trusted. The last decent reviews I read were in the late Colin Greenwoods Guns Review.

Colin's reviews very good , if he said he was going to test a product , he really did test it .

Jan Stevenson was another honest reviewer , he lost a fair bit of advertising due to his honesty .

[dromia]

Aye, Jan took no prisoners either.

[Chapuis]

Its far more common than you think in fact I'm rather surprised that you've only just discovered this Ovenpaa.
There are very few reviews in shooting magazines that are true and honest with the majority of reviews are carried out by a few regular contributors.
Some years ago I was stalking in Scotland with a group that I had never met before. I had often read articles written by one of the other rifles or his partner who were regular contributors to several magazines. Another shooter upset them badly early on in the trip by saying "don't you two ever actually buy anything. Do you blag all your shooting gear?" You could say that things were slightly tetchy between them for the rest of the week.

[snayperskaya]

I know many people on here don't like F#cebook but I have found that in the closed groups I'm in if people ask about a particular piece of kit or equipment that is relevant there is usually a few people that will give an honest unbiased opinion on it.

[Pete]

Very few people who have actually bought something with their own money will admit to having bought a lemon................so bad reviews are more likely to be honest than good'uns.

Pete

[1066]

It seems common practice to only publish "good" reviews - the basis being that if you write a bad review you won't be given any more stuff to review.

[TomH]

In terms of magazines, the big revenue earner is advertising not the sales to readers. Be it guns, cars, bikes or widgets publishers are scared of offending advertisers with sometimes inconvenient truths about their products. It was I believe Cycle magazine in the US in the 70's that so outraged Honda with an unflattering revue that they didn't buy any advertising for over two years. Lesson learned. So in publications we have an acceptable level of criticism (to the advertiser) on trivial and minor points to give the appearance of objectivety amongst the glowing praise. The advertiser is happy and usually buys a page or two of space in the edition that contains the revue.

[The Gun Pimp]

I used to write for a popular shooting magazine - until it couldn't sustain itself - i.e. income from advertisers and subscriptions/purchases failed to exceed circulation and printing costs.

Advertisers are the life-blood of any magazine - and they naturally expect to get their products reviewed - favourably.

Write a damning report and it just won't get printed by the editor and the writer won't get paid.

So yes, take any 'paper' reviews with a pinch of salt!

Having said that, a £200 scope may be a piece of sh*te compared to a £2000 scope but, many shooters will be happy with the £200 scope - so, you have to try to review it taking into account the cost.

Now, having my own blog, I can say exactly what I like about a product for review - as long as it's truthful - otherwise, I could be sued. That's one good thing about the internet.