I bought some of those unshielded Bronsons when I needed some bearings in the early shutdown stage of the pandemic. I knew better intellectually than to trust a bearing without a shield, but these were literally the *only* bearings in town and I wanted to support my local shop, which I was naively believed might have a bad year due to quarantine.
Complete trash. Lasted a handful of sessions, until I rolled into the dirt and they were basically destroyed permanently. I can't believe that they can charge so much for a product that sucks so comprehensively.
My synopsis of Bronson raws is that they might be pretty good if they had shields. I had the same "I should know better" feeling when I bought them but then I vividly remember going out the first day and being genuinely a little scared by how fast they were. I was thinking maybe the hype and marketing was actually real and was starting to come to terms with the fact that I might have to admit I was wrong about them. Then a week later they were dirty and slow and just have never been the same even after meticulous cleaning. There's just no real way to bring a bearing back after the inner races get damaged, which is the entire point of shields in the first place. Why the fuck not just make that bearing but with a good non contact shield?
I guess if all you skate is clean, pristine concrete parks they might last a little longer and be decent, but literally a week on just normal east coast streets in summer (so not even bad crust or the snow/rain/salt shut we get for half the year) was enough to kill them.
Also "audible speed technology" is the most ridiculous marketing angle I've seen in a while.. As if popping shields and running your bearings dry is some sort of technological marvel that no other bearing can replicate.
I will say that my g3 have been decent enough. They were over lubed out of the box but once they broke in and dried out a bit I found them to be pretty solid.