Are Canadian shocks simply bad?

They seem significantly worse than guards in every way, and are only slightly cheaper.

Their supposed niche seems to be “budget guards before T3”, but The Piat is so slow to fire that they have a really hard time scoring hits on all the scary light vehicles they are supposed to protect you from

AT tommies seem to fill their role way better, simply because they have way better reflexes and accuracy and so can reliable score some damage by ambushing or exploiting vehicle momentum to blast them before they reverse.