Why So Much?
by John Metzger
A bunch of the boys were wooping it up in room 313 at the Sahara Hotel. SOF's Fourth Annual Convention was just starting to brew downstairs in the Casino. John Satterwhite was pulling something out of a gun case on the coffee table.
"Like to see the new HK sniper rifle?" he asked. Sure we did. Everyone in the room liked guns. All eyes turned to the large black case on the table. Satterwhite pulled it out. A hush fell across the room. Even the drunkest among us caught himself in mid-stutter and shut up. The convention staff-types, range officers and match shooters filling the room slowly staggered toward this amazing-looking weapon, now propped up on its tripod on the glass table. Everyone picked it up, held it, dry fired it, stared at it and inevitably asked, "how much?"
Satterwhite answered, "Five thousand dollars."
He wasn't kidding. Everyone looked sort of disappointed.
When Satterwhite sent in this story, Brown left a cryptic note scribbled in the margin: "Why does this gun cost so fucking much?" Indeed. Why five thousand dollars? The question ate at me. But about four months later at the S.H.O.T. Show in Dallas I finally got a straight answer right from the H&K people themselves.
"Hey, guys. Why the high price?" I asked the reps at the booth.
"Because it's an HK."
"Ha, ha. No, really?"
Well, they really didn't have an answer.
"It will shoot under one minute of angle out of the box," the reps continued. "The scope alone is worth between $1,200 and $1,500. We gurarantee that the gun will at least equal all manufacturers' accuracy claims." (It is typical of European ammunition manufacturers to market ammo with specific accuracy claims.) Do those answers justify the price?
Five-thousand dollars is a lot of money. But the PSG 1 is a lot of gun. My conclusion? If you are not interested in owning one of the most accurate semiauto .308 sniper rifles in the world, don't buy it.
taken from
www.remtek.com/arms
