"Influencer" I am not a party to the agreement between you and Howa or the terms. If the agreement was some kind of "independent, scientific, certified, unbiased review where it was supposed to be a "random pick rifle", and a promise was made to supply one under that scenario, then that's a different story. And usually under those circumstances, the reviewer goes and purchases the rifle with their own money from a third party source, to be 100% sure. And then on top of that, the reviewer has to then *also be honest* and give an unbiased review (rare). You pretty much said yourself that reviews are typically BS. So whoever is reading a review, has to question that too, including yours. Not saying that's the case here, but how does one truly know that you are given on honest account? There are just as many bad reviews done for nefarious purposes as there are good. Fake reviews good and bad, paid for all the time. In every industry. Companies trying to destroy each other or take market share and sometimes using reviewers or negative PR to do that. In many ways, it's an attempt to circumvent litigation, or have a patsy if litigation happens. Politicians can say what they want because they are considered public figures, but the rest of us can end up in court for what we write or say. That's the world we live in. And that's why "reviews" can no longer be trusted. Influencers? That's a slightly different story, because I don't think anyone really trusts them anyway. But they like them or follow them and support them and the products they like. It's more entertainment and fandom. And I hate it. Somewhere in this thread, I said not to believe anything that you read, and only half of what you see. And I stand to that for every review, even yours.
And for the record, this forum has advertisers right? I have seen all kinds of shenanigans on forums over advertising and sponsor competition, as someone who has purchased advertising and helped build several forums over the last 30 years. You clearly have influence on this forum. Are you paid by the forum or share in the ad revenues? If so, the lines get blurred quickly. Is Howa an advertiser? All important questions. And I'm not making accusations, just playing devil's advocate here and pointing out that it's all relative. But I expect that just raising these points will probably get me banned. Even though I tried like hell to steer it back to the damn rifle.