Some insight into the "only review good tools thing".
I used to write for several national gun magazines, and the un-said policy was somewhat the same...but probably not for the reasons you think. First...NO I didn't get free guns. In fact, many of us writers were convinced that the manufactures do everything they can to keep guns from getting into our hands. They routinely missed shipping dates, which blew deadlines, etc. Often they would ship us a broken gun...so no, they didn't cherry pick guns to send to us.
The reason we steered away from "bad" guns was because it caused more trouble than it was worth. Magazines are 100% funded by advertisement...subscriptions cover less than 40% of the cost of just ink. So we live and die by advertisement. Well those advertisers were the same companies who were making the guns, and they could exert a lot of power. I know of people who were basically blacklisted by a major manufacture for running down their product. Meaning, they wouldn't advertise with ANY publication that hand that writers byline between the covers.
Now, all that said. There were some who would completely trash a gun without their full due diligence.
You have to understand something about product reviews. 99.9% of the time, they are reviewing a grand sampling of ONE! Because anything and everything that could go wrong, did go wrong, that doesn't necessarily mean a product is bad. EVERYONE puts out a bad item from time to time; that's just the FACT, and the truth.
So when you completely trash someone's product, or even company; is that really being fair? Everyone has seen a broken Snap On product, but everyone knows that's the exception, not the rule. And again, it's a sample of ONE! Is that representative of the entire product line, or even the company?
Therefore, when we did encounter big problems from a major reputable manufacture, we would give that manufacturer every opportunity to make it right. It's a good test of their customer service, and their ability to resolve a problem.
If there was a problem that was resolved during one of my reviews, I would report exactly what happened, and what steps were taken to correct them. That didn't always make the manufacturers happy, but the "unwritten code" was fulfilled (meaning, we gave them EVERY opportunity to make it right.), so in such situation as that, our editors would go to bat for us.
When I was a gun writer, I made my living reviewing guns. So I had to have at least a minimal rapport with the manufacturers...they needed me just as much as I needed them. So we all did our best to work together. They did their best to make a decent product, and I did my best to give it a fair shake.
Now, the REAL reason that I really didn't review junk guns was...It's a freaking waste of my time. I don't get paid one red cent more for an article that took 5 tries with the manufacturer and 6 months to bring to press, vs an article that went together in 3 weeks. So I avoided companies I felt were questionable, because it was a very inefficient use of my time... Hey, we're all just trying to put food on the table for our families.
I NEVER ONCE LIED! But there were some guns I gave up on and decided to just write about something else.
Use common sense...9 out of 10 guys on this forum knows what the "bad" tools are. His reviews are informative and they appear to be fair reviews of the product he's reviewing. He doesn't OWE you anything! So if you value his reviews, then watch them. If you don't, there's probably a dozen more reviewers to choose from.
