Best and Worst Shotguns 2010: Survey Says
This is a redux of a similar poll conducted in 2009, where participants of ShotgunWorld were asked to vote for brands of shotguns in two surveys. In revisiting the survey of last year, a couple of changes were made. This time, participants could vote for up to two brands in each poll as opposed to only one vote from last year's event.
Polls can be funny things. Consider the relatively small number of Nielsen directly monitored television sets, yet the programming they influence is for hundreds of millions of potential viewers and staggeringly huge media dollars. Even "studies" that influence what is healthy and what is not may be from abysmally small sample sizes. Political polls don't always agree and the way a question is phrased can influence the answer. Yet, pundits and parties alike are often very quick to declare in unwavering terms "What The American People Want." If our government really reacted to what "The People Want" it is unlikely we would have so many that are disappointed or perhaps disgusted with our government function itself.
The specific question asked was, "What Brands of Shotguns have most often made you a SATISFIED CUSTOMER?" Votes were cast anonymously. Survey says:
The concurrent poll was, "What Brands of Shotguns have most often made you a DISSATISFIED CUSTOMER?" Survey says:
WINNERS:
According to the satisfied survey, Beretta Group (Beretta, Benelli, Franchi) and Browning Group (Browning and Winchester) accounted for over half (about 53%) of the satisfied votes, with Browning brand alone hitting 24% as the winner. Also of note is Krieghoff, in no way the most common or most affordable shotgun brand, not participating in the slide-action or autoloading markets, yet still the leading premium brand quite easily with 8% of the total for the twenty-five votes cast.
LOSERS:
In the dissatisfied survey, the big "winner" was Stoeger with one quarter of all votes cast. Not a good thing to win, so it seems that Stoeger has a long ways to go, at least according to SGW participants, to clean up its image. The clear majority of dissatisfied owners at close to 60% are comprised of user experiences with Stoeger, Huglo, Mossberg, and Remington.
Surprisingly, with the number of votes cast relatively small, Krieghoff also leads the dissatisfied category for premium brands. That's a bit of a mixed message, with twenty-five people voting Krieghoff as best, but eight folks also deeming Krieghoff the worst . . . more than Blaser, Caesar Guerini, Kolar, and Perazzi combined. Remington received the same percentage of satisfied votes as dissatisfied, while Mossberg displeased more than it pleased at a four to ten ratio.
So, all interesting but in no way definitive. It looks like Browning and Beretta are pleasing the most customers and that Stoeger and Huglo are displeasing the most customers. There might be something to the notion of buying a "B" gun after all? How this actually transmits to sales is unknown, but if I was Browning I'd be happy with my brand performance but if I was Stoeger, I'd be a bit concerned.
Copyright 2010 by Randy Wakeman. All Rights Reserved.
