Which reviews are unbiased? And can you really trust them?

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There are couple of people that take the time to get to know the subject before commenting on it. That's a good thing ! How to "use" the gun, how care for the gun, how to adjust the power, how to adjust the trigger. What pellets apparently work better than others. One guy even lists pellets to use at different distances ! One or two get this in-depth, most do not.

But, if you understand that there are "opinions" in most everybody's comments, then pay attention, be able to pick out these types of comments. I watch many of them. Why...because you can learn, even watching the bad videos IF you pay attention. 

Then after watching a few videos, I'll go into the various forums and use their 'search" functions, see what the street folks think about their guns. BUT...THAT can be even worse than many videos. Putting $1000+ guns in the hands of some "new" guys (no real disrespect intended to us new guys), and reading their comments CAN also be damaging, when there really is nothing to damn the gun or part over. The new guys just need to understand what they have before damning something that they know little about.

You just have to watch, read, and understand that being able to...read between the lines...is an excellent asset. for the person doing the "learning".

I'll continue to watch a couple of the reviewers with more interest than most, but like I say, you can...pick up points from the lesser reviewers if...you pay attention. 

Mike
 
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VERY hard to know which reviewers are being paid to parrot a narrative. 

May or may not be a problem though as it seems there are hype shooters, and shooters who shoot for the enjoyment of throwing pellets downrange. 

The hype shooters are the one's making purchases so they can be the cool kid too. To show off what they bought, online and to their friends. "Check out these YouTube vids!!! I just bought one too and IT. IS. AWESOME DUDE!!!!" They don't seem to care as much about longevity, maintaining a point of impact, reliability, consistency, etc, just that they have the latest greatest, or at least what is currently being hawked as the latest greatest. 

Then there's the actual shooters. The guy's who make a purchase with the intent of keeping it and shooting it for a long (hopefully trouble free and enjoyable) time. They don't care if it's last year's model, just that it keeps putting pellets where it should when shot. Oh, and these guys care that it's still shooting and not in parts on the bench. 

Perhaps an oversimplification and overgeneralization but hard to argue that there are some nuggets of truth in that analysis. 

Nothing wrong with being a hype guy or the opposite guy doing it cuz he enjoys shooting/precision/accuracy/reliability/consistency/etc. Hype guys are happy doing what they do. Shooters are happy doing what they do. 

Greater transparency would make the shooters happier, hype guys likely don't care either way. As for greater transparency of what sponsorship entails, I don't think that'll happen (goose that laid the golden egg concept). 


 
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With more recent ( last 4 years or so ) Rash of new air guns coming to market, have used these reviews for base information about what the heck is a XXXXX said gun ?

Beyond that few reviews get into the meat and potatoes of how built, quality of the parts, the engineering used etc .... Mostly sharing the Bling and talking about superficial marketing key words and phrases.

Sure most share accuracy which even then is not telling enough in most cases being pellets change, conditions change and no 2 shooters are equally skilled at that task.



As a Machinist and general Mechanical type person ... once i get hands on these often never stated shortcoming or positives come to light and with most guns there MANY !!



Trust them reviewers ? ..... entertainment value and basic WTF and not much more.



No insults intended or implied ... as I too live in a glass house.



Scott S
 
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I love the "full review " that ends up with, look what I got my hands on. Then goes on to unboxing, then shooting a bunch of crap at short range with a gun capable of shooting good groups at a 100 yards and beyond. This is me shooting not a review. Hope a few venders are looking at this and only send to those to a review. Let me see how it shoots and the working parts, I can judge the rest for what I want.

SORRY if this steps on toes but sometimes the truth hurts.
 
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What he said (finger pointing up)

! If you don’t spend a few days at least, preferably weeks, shooting the gun and digging into it, I don’t consider it a full review. One exception I’ll give some slack on is the reviewer just has variation of the same model. Ie Uragan full sized vs Uragan Compact comparison. If they know one model they know the other especially if it’s a go to gun for them. I guess an in depth review that ppl should / could consider using as a gauge on buying the gun. 
 
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A persons browser history is watched and their trends are analyzed. Then Google or Utube put things up that they figure are your interests to attract you. Metal detectors and airguns are my interests and I get inundated with articles like “best of this or that”. Experience reading such nonsense has convinced me that these chosen reviews are terrible and at times outright ridiculous. 
 
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Thank you Mike and a few others for the kind words and support to my work, very much appreciated. I figured I would chime in to share my experience with being a reviewer even though I really don't consider myself one. I started my channel for fun about seven years ago and had never really intended it to put me into a position to be able to handle so many different brands of Airguns. When I started out I mostly just worked with what I currently owed and bought with my own money, mostly pesting type videos that lacked quality and to be honest just sucked. I looked up to a few big names in the industry as many do and really had no knowledge of all the politics that goes on. Over time I started getting approached by certain manufactures to review products, take photographs and generally document my experiences. After awhile I was sort of in the middle, made many who I thought were friends and started acquiring more credibility to be able to get higher end products. From the start I figured out that no matter how honest you are people will hate you for it, definitely need thick skin in this business because people can be straight up nasty! Unless you have a well established channel it's near impossible to get paid, needless to say I got taken advantage of on the regular. This was what I felt I needed to do to grow my channel and to receive product to review, after getting nothing in return I got sick of it. A few of these guys I had looked up to turned out to be total fakes and in it purely for the money and that's it.....was disappointing and made me back away from events and forums. Some life changes happen, mostly due to my mental and physical health that forced me to leave my job that I had been doing for over 20 years. I decided to start doing professional paid video work and photography for both Airguns and a variety of outdoor related gear. I make videos that I want to make, I use products I want to use and have refrained from going brand exclusive, I felt that would take away some credibility to my work. "Yes, I'm one of the most hated people in the industry from not only several manufacturers but quite a few distributors, other reviewers and people on the forums" I don't play nice for money and love what I do, wouldn't trade it for anything. Acquiring new products to field use can get very expensive as you can imagine, the only way it can be done on a professional level is to have financial help from either the manufacturer or distributor, I'm blessed to work with many supportive companies that provide product and fund my work. I enjoy getting a new product, taking it out in the field over several weeks or months and documenting my experience. My experience is every single Airgun on the market has a negative, some more than others, it's my job to share this in a professional, friendly and constructive way. I personally don't watch other Airgun reviews as it takes focus away from my own side of the street, I tend to enjoy other types of videos such as outdoor gear type reviews. I watch some of these videos to gather some ideas for new camera angles, editing techniques and overall production quality. For me I just enjoy the filming and photography aspect of the work, I hate talking on camera but it's become a little easier over time and just part of what I have to do. My advice as others have said, take reviews with a grain of salt and realize that not everything is the best thing ever....ton of bullpoop floating around as to be expected.
 
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Forum member reviews may be the best. Otherwise, buy'em and try'em, there's no other way. I put no faith in reviews done by folks whose livelihood is tied to it. They need a regular source of free products to "test", but they will come only from those suppliers who are confident of favorable results.

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I don’t think the “reviews” of Forum members are unbiased at all. Mostly they are either raving about how cool the thing is, or how poorly they were treated by the seller.

They normally don’t use any sort of consistent methodology that could be honestly be considered a useful and valid test for other potential buyers. 

That said, they DO give opinions of how they feel about the product and are usually willing to vent about problems they had, which, when combined with the experiences we encounter from others, can be pretty useful.

My interests regarding reviews are more in seeing the displayed pictures of the product, and the entertainment value its its a video, though I don’t see most videos all the way thru. But rather, I skip around looking for the more interesting points.

But I am not a typical consumer … more often I look at airgun purchases as learning tools and potentially entertaining tuning projects. 
 
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Let's say...the guy from Patagonia started to play the sponsorship game...n he did like it one bit..he want to say or use what ever he likes to .. n he quit.. imagine the pressures he felt .. in order to make a video explaining why he didn't liked to be sponsored n why he was out ... I imagine money was good but he didn't needed that much bear the cost of the deal control his channel.. now imagine what those that only say great things about certain brands each n every time are doing... I don't trust them not a word..if I like some a lot..I just buy it .. test n reviewed my self... ... better yet... You guys are the best reviewers ever... meaning all the member of AGN .. sometimes like when I purchased my taipans or uragans..I completely read what ever you have to say about it...than I make a decision..👍👍
 
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What I’d like to know up front in all honesty from the reviewer is wether the gun handed to him by the manufacturer is a “special model”, meaning prepped for the video.

The best barrels out of the lot, pre tuned, trigger all adjusted perfectly, scope rail perfectly mounted in line with the bore, Ammo pre sorted and pre weighed. Yes, all that. 

I bought one of my first pcp’s based on a famous reviewers performance, hitting hole in hole at 75 yards. I buy the gun and best groups I got was 3/4-1” at 50 yards. Even used the same pellets. I was new, and made note to self- never buy again based on a review by a youtuber, especially one that relies on youtube reviews to make the mortgage payment. To them, I say, go out snd get a real job. 


Anymore I do my research and look snd see what the members here have experienced with the different guns. Now, having said that, I am keen to the ones that always call out the guns as POS models.

” It leaks constantly” or “ I’ve sent it back to the vendor like 8 times”. It seems to me these same guys, as time goes by, it doesn’t matter what model gun they have. Same old whines. For the guns I’m looking at that these guys are complaining about, I treat that like a typ review on amazon- if it stays below 25% with the negatives, it’s worth purchasing. 


Example- the LCS SK19 is like that. That 25% complaining how many times it went back to AOA. I do an internet search and find many positive reviews on other forums. I called members who own the gun. Once I saw that 75% positive, I bought one 
 
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How many reviewers have you heard them say, “its junk”, “dont buy it”, “garbage”.

your not going to, unless their genuinely honest. 


like the cyclops, or some here. No one willing will say that something they own is garbage.

I believe that a most of the reviewers get sent guns with a lot more quality control, and has been tested, so when its reviewed, it works flawlessly.
 
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Maybe I just don't spend enough time watching airgun review videos? Every name mentioned here and possibly eluded to as reviewers I take with a grain of salt. They all have something to gain from a positive review. These reviews to me are really just videos to share the features offered on a gun and a general idea of what to expect performance wise. There are just too many variables, mechanically and human to expect the exact results as the reviewer. I think we have probably all bought a gun based off of what we watched or read about on a particular gun and found out that it just didn't meet our expectations. These "reviews" are just guidelines for me and I don't put a whole lot of credit to them until I have experienced the rifle for myself. It's also just a form of entertainment for me too.
 
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