BorisBaddenov
Who makes kits I should avoid? I didnt like the Monogram kit I mention above. That mold is from 1966 and the parts do not fit together well at all. I will be very hesitant to purchase another Monogram kit.
Who makes kits I can count on to be good? I had not heard of Lindberg kits, and I was pretty pleased with the T55's assembly. Right now I'm not too worried about how historically accurate kits are, I just like to glue stuff :)
You grabbed three kits well past their prime at Hobby Lobby. But the Tamiya M41 Walker Bulldog is one of the best starter tank kits still available. It's inexpensive, easy to assemble, and looks like a stereotypical US Army tank when done.
Lindberg is an old school model company not very well regarded. They sort of had their deathroll during the early 1990s with that T-55 being one of the last three armor kits they released (T-55, T-80 and BMP-1). Unfortunately for them, the Berlin Wall came down, actual Soviet tanks were available for inspection and Dragon and Esci put out better versions of those same model kits.
They did go into movie related kits like Jurassic Park (dinosaurs and a Ford Explorer) and ID4 (Alien, spaceship and a couple airplanes) before vanishing for over a decade.
Monogram merged with Revell about 20 years ago and recently went into reorganization. So there are some very decent modern kits intermixed with some 60+ year old kits in their inventory.
There are many Chinese model companies that make both high end, super detailed kits and some make very much cheaper, but still good quality kits. Meng, Panda, Rye Field Models, Amusing, Trumpeter, Dragon are among the names to look for.
BUT, the thing to remember is not so much the brand name, but the actual kit.
One company may make the best Jeep, but another might make the best Sherman. Another company makes the best M60 tank and another makes the best Abrams, Tiger, etc.
So bottom line is to ask about a specific kit as opposed to just the best brand. Virtually every model subject is made in kit form by more than one manufacturer. The Abrams tank is available by around ten different companies. It's been in use for nearly 40 years and different companies make the "best" version depending on which era you want to depict.