I don’t get the impression that
Buzzbait
is being overly critical, so much as he is comparing GEC to its own standards set in earlier runs. If anything I’d say that’s probably what GEC has been doing to have been producing the quality it has been for as long as it has been. If you don’t keep high standards then you won’t produce high quality.
I haven’t been around long enough to compare but it seems fair to do that, especially since it isn’t apples and oranges.
I think
@traumkommode is right about the mid year change at GEC making a difference. The run of 14s seemed pretty flawless if you exclude the Cripple Creek shield failure on a few. The 99s and 85s also seemed to be well done. The earlier 43s had some weaker pulls but were a nice pattern and had good fit and finish. The biggest difference seems to be the size of runs and limited options, which is consistent with higher demand and limited expansion of equipment and workforce. To stay at market demand and keep the quality you either have to add highly skilled workers or produce higher volumes of a pattern to keep efficiency up, I’d wager.