You judge quality by who gets a contract from some politician? Maybe I should ask the lady at the DMV for her choice of red pens?
I’ll theorize, I think they are accurate enough for shooting human sized targets, and have jumped through enough gov hoops and have enough buy history that it’s a “safe” buy on the excel sheet, and can be shipped by the pallet.
Its been stated already, but your use of PRS as the standard is invalid. Its a very specific game, and competitors like things a certain way. Look where caliber selection has gone? Just so happens that those cartridges dont feed reliably in the AI action. It was never designed to shoot baby cartridges. Sure some people try, and some are successful, but it isn't a sure thing. Weight systems are all the rage in PRS, and up until now AI’s didnt offer that.
Up until very recently, AI’s had their actions glued to the chassis. The AXSR (large mult-cal magnum) is the very first to do away with the bonding. The defining element to AI’s popularity up until now was weather or not you liked the ergos, because if you didnt, you were screwed. There were some stock options, notably MPA, but you had to permanently de-bond the receiver, which may get you your ergos, but the original equipment stock is now useless, and has zero value on the use market since nobody else has a bare AI action lying around(they’ve never been available that way). Turn that around and imagine that a prs guy builds a shiny new rifle, and has to toss the stock in the garbage to get the ergos he wants, and cant sell the take-off. He isnt exactly money ahead at that point, in fact it that would make no sense at all. No wonder AI’s dont participate much.
AI built military sniper rifles, not gamer guns. Now they do build a gamer model, and it remains to be seen how popular they become with the gamers. Certainly you must be able to understand that people really like actual military gear?
Before I was building custom guns as a business, I was paying $4-5k for a custom on custom action (Surgeon for example), with rings and a few spare mags back in the mid 2000’s, from various gunsmiths. Look through GA precision’s catalog for reference, largely its unchanged with regard to cost, as true customs (not prefit guns) are labor intensive and still cost that much. At the same time, AI’s started at $6k, and went to near $8k depending on model and options. Today you can buy a non-folding AT in various cartridges, with probably THE most elegant quick change barrel system, for sub 4500 bucks. The new gamer gun, the AT-X is still sub $5k. So costs are overlapping with other true customs. I spent a lot of money on customs in the mid 90’s through the late 2000’s. Each new one had a little tweak on the last one. I LOL’d at the AI costs of the day, and kept on buying customs. I had a dealer down the street, and I just didn't get it. Then at some point, having spent $30-40k on customs, what was another $6k? Bought an AW in .308(only short cartridge they came in), almost immediately chucked the .308 barrel for a .260, since .308’s are for old people. Ive been in love ever since. Nothing before or since matches it for my uses. Im happy to build and sell someone a full custom gamer gun, but for robust hard use field guns, i’ll sleep well pushing the AI every time, and make less money doing it.
