Disagree all you want but the facts remain- Most of these companies came out
post-Obamascare. There's a good reason for this... it's because the sharks smelled the, new, fresh blood in the water, a breed of gun owners so stupid and gullible that there was much salivating done at the possibilities. This was an entire field of people with obvious interest but lacking in the intellectual depth and skepticism that used to accompany many gun enthusiasts. Thus, it was like shooting fish in a barrel, or the field of dreams for the guys that own those companies... "If you make it, they will buy it"
Wilson's 1911s aren't taking someone else's gun and building off it, it's a full in house 1911. Big difference between what they and these others are doing. Not to mention a 1911 isn't really a gun catered to mass production.... so all Wilson really did was taking a platform that was a dumpster fire and put a lot of attention and care into building their product. There's also a big difference between building a racegun for competition and trying to tell people that their stock Glock isn't good enough to shoot bad guys with (which is basically what Salient does, more or less. ) Apples vs Durian comparison, imho. Bringing a Wilson 1911 into this is like trying to compare an Audi to a Honda Civic.
There were tons of people collecting guns and shooting in competitions long before either of those two companies have come along. All these guys have done is come along and scoop up some of the cash being thrown around by new gullible folks, who "thought they needed something cuz it looked cool" or some "public tactical dynamic critical pooping incident" type of instructor got paid to hawk it, and had a wad of cash burning a hole in their pocket. I will give them a lot of credit... they smelled that the density of fools increased dramatically and capitalized on it. Kudos to them from a business perspective. It takes a certain amount of savvy to have like, $600-700 worth of parts and sell it for 4 times as much and still have the buyer be mostly happy. Look at all the other crap poured onto the market, sliderlock, saf-4-block, etc, etc, ad nauseam.
Would I want one of those guns? As a curiosity, Sure... maybe for $1000 complete. Assuming I could test fire it beforehand to make sure it wasn't a piece of shit. That's about all its actually worth. The Glock is
supposed to be a pig. Don't try to apply lipstick to it, it's not going to work and its probably going to make the pig upset.
You're gonna spend your money however you want, however, I have to say... you must have started this thread for some reason- perhaps because you had a shred of doubt internally, that possibly buying one of these thing is a bad idea.... If you were confident about the product you would have just gone out and bought it without starting this thread. ponder that for a minute.
I'm not trying to be a dick, but if you're looking for a bunch of people to perform a "
product validation rally with drum circle" with you on something you're thinking about buying, you're gonna find there's a lot of skeptics hanging around here. (and btw, I might seem like an
*******, but my curmudgeon and skeptic level is about a 3 or 4 around here.... I'm a lightweight by NES standards) Then on top of it when you come back and start telling us our opinions suck (that you asked for) it leads some of the more skeptical members to question your motives- and that it's not really a serious inquiry, but possibly rather some kind of call for attention. (You can thank me later, now that I've forestalled someone else from using this jump to conclusion mat on you. )
Also ponder the fact that you can own 2 "normal" glocks, do a few (basic) mods as others have outlined here, and have a bunch of mags and spare parts, and be way ahead of the game for what you would have spent on one Salient gun. Worth thinking about, IMHO. It's a head scratcher for sure.
NSFW:
-Mike