Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Great product, terrible service, when is enough enough?

Why is it that some of the gun industries best manufactures have the worst service? I ordered a rem sporter contour from a company a few years ago and the one they sent was way heavy and way off in dimensions. I used the barrel for a different stock but when I wanted more barrels I sent them 2 nice rem take offs and asked them if they could duplicate the contours. They said no problem, they'll duplicate them and keep the program on file in their CNc lathe for my future orders. Said it would take 4-5 months. I went ahead and ordered 27 barrels to get a discount figuring it would be easy to move the extras.

I started calling at about 6 months and called at least every 2 weeks to be told either you'll have them in a week or two, or I'll check and call you right back. They never called back or returned any of the messages I left. Finally after over a year a guy calls and says 2 of your barrels are ready to ship I need a current credit card. I give home the numbers and asked him to please take some calipers and measure them against the take offs I sent before he ships. He agreed to and then a week later I get the barrels and the contours are way off and over a half pound heavy. I call them up and say there's a problem don't ship the others until we figure this out. They agree and then a week later I get 4 more that are way off and heavy just like the first two. I call them again and say don't ship anymore until they measure them. Two days later I see another charge on my card and call them and manage to get the order stopped but the charge still goes through. They then said I needed to send them the stocks I'm using so they can measure those too. I said just measure my take offs or use any rem sporter stock around the shop. I sent the first 6 back but never got credited back on my card for the 8 they billed me for 2 that they never even shipped. I asked for a refund while they figured it out so I wasn't paying interest and they said if they reversed the charges they were done with me. They said they were going to rework the contour and send me a sample and that's how they were going to be and that was that. I optomistically waited for the new attemp while paying interest on $2400 for barrels I didn't have. The samples showed up and both were still quite a bit heavier and at least .040" bigger in diameter than any of my rem sporter take offs and I have a lot of take offs.

After several days of trying I finally got them on the phone again and asked if they could just turn them down to match the ones I sent them 14 months ago so they would fit my rem, HS, B&C and edge stocks without having to sand out the channels. They said no the last sample they sent is how they're going to be and acted upset because I asked them to simply duplicate the ones I sent them over a year ago like they said they would. They then just agreed to refund my money, I also asked for my take offs back and they said they'd see what they could do.

After a week there was no credit back on my card so after several attempts at calling I finally got through. They said they'd do it for sure Friday and never did. I've called a dozen times this week and finally got through by blocking my number only to have call dropped right after I started talking. At that point I called my credit card company and started down that road.

They make a great barrel do I've tried to be patient but the overall customer service experience has been terrible. I understand stuff happens and tried to give them a chance to make it work but I'm tired of the I'll check and call you right back and then never getting a call back routine. I'm also sick of hearing two more weeks for 6 or 7 months. I'm amazed they can get a bore so precise but can't lay their blank next to my take off and run a pair of calipers along it.

I started making big sporter blank contour orders a few years ago because the lead times were so long and not many places stocked rem sporter contours. I figured I could get enough to get on the discount list so my personal ones would be cheaper and I could sell the extras no problem to guys who didn't want to wait months. It hasn't been bad
with some manufacturers like Rock Creek for example has been very good to work with lately.

This other company however has been a frustrating waste of time with lots of unanswered phone calls and emails and me paying interest on barrels I don't have. At this point I just hope I get my $2400 back, my take offs back would be nice too since one was a new stainless 300 win I could use but I'm not going to hold my breath. They make a great barrel and have a great reputation but this experience has to be one of the worst customer service nightmares I've had. It makes me question whether they would ever stand behind a barrel of I did get a bad one from them. I've got about 11 more barrels coming from a different company and then I think I'm only going to order what I need.

Once again it was NOT Rock Creek. They have been great to work with and their rem contours have been spot on. Plus if they have a problem or mix up they take care of it promptly and are apologetic instead of acting like I did something wrong.

I'm not naming the company I'm having problems with because they do make a good barrel and you may have a better customer service experience than I did if you just stick to their chart. In the time they've been jerking me around I have bought over 100 barrels from other manufactures and although they're big and busy you would think that's a sale they wouldn't want to mis. So to all of you that were waiting for barrels I've been saying I had coming from someone other than Rock, I will no longer be getting anything but Rock. Im not in it for the $20 per barrel I make, I just enjoy the fire and rifles but this run around has taken the fun out of it.

Bb

You should have sent a mountain rifle barrel...........


Seems a bunch of barrel makers are in Yankeeland, if I know anything it's that you can always tell a yankee, but you can't tell them much.

I thought that quote referred to "Dutchman".
At any rate few things worse than a Yankee Dutchman that I can say with certainty.........and I'm always right.

To the OP only you can say but sounds like you are there to me.

I probably should clarify further that it IS NOT Brux that I'm trying to get my money back from either. The company I'm getting the run around from would come completely unglued at the thought of doing a stainless mtn contour.

Bb

They are in Wisconsin though and start with a B and end with an N

Is it Krieger?

Yeah, Krieger starts with a B and ends with a N.

I wonder if you received "sporter magnum" contours? They mic the same at the muzzle...

No, it was mag sporters I was after. The ones they sent weighed 4 pounds and were at or over .700" at 26".

Bb

I know of someone else who had almost the same exact issue w/ their sporter barrels. They wont order another....Good luck w/ your refund!

Scott,

I was replying to the OP. I have not seen in any of the posts where Burleyboy named the company in question. I had a recent dealing with Krieger barrels and they won't make a light contour in stainless steel for the Remington 700 I wanted to rebarrel. Just trying to see if they were the offending company.

Actually that was about Germans......not us humble Yankee's.

Wasn't Krieger..........

If you are planning selling them anyway, why is that big of a deal? You are assuming they won't sell...?

My bad, just blind guessing on my part.

Are you kidding? Read it again, and if I was ordering that many barrels, supplied exact spec, had to wait twice the time for a partial order, etc. etc. I'd be telling any company to pound sand soft.....

I guess they're plenty busy without your business and don't really care. I can't imagine how many barrels GAP orders from them every year.

Didn't GAP use Rock before they switched to Bartlein??

I'm sure your right, they are pleanty busy and don't care. $30,000 a year in lost business is probably nothing to them. I've had a few other people pm me saying they had about the same experience. If they would have told me up front they couldn't match my take offs I would have been ok with it and moved on to someone else. Just the 14 months of run around has me a bit bent.

Three different local guys each wanted some so I took them to around and let em look them over before I returned them. Not one of them wanted one after looking them over. I ran an add for a day or so too and it looked like they were going to be a bit tough to move. They weren't just heavy, the transition taper was way off.

Sometimes it's a bit tougher to move something when you have to explain what they were supposed to be and how they came out wrong. I wasn't about to try to advertise them with out a disclaimer as to the size discrepancies.

I thought with all the stocks out there set up for remington sporter contours having a correctly sized drop in duplicate would be a pretty good thing. Guys could rebarrel their 700's and drop them back in their stock or go B&C, ti take-offs, HS, and rem inleted mickeys or even a Boyd's or LSS take off. Sand the speed bumps bed the lug and be off and running. I was shooting for a convenient solution so a contour that didn't fit didn't work for the market niche I was shooting for.

Maybe I'm too picky. Also, a simple call back, returned message, or honest timeline sometimes goes a long ways. If they would have told me in June it's going to be 7 more months I wouldn't have wasted a bunch of mine and their time checking in every 2 weeks. I also got tired of apologizing to my friends that were waiting for them for telling them they'd be here in two weeks over and over again.

I also personally like rem sporter contours. Between the mag sporter, the standard sporter, the mtn and KS you can cover a lot of sporter weight bases. Plus it seems like a lot of manufactures #3 for example can vary a lot from someone else's #3. The rem sporters I get from Brux, Rock, benchmark, pac nor, shilen, and douglas seem to all drop into a rem channeled stock so it can make things a little easier when crossing brands assuming a manufacturers rem contours are reasonably close to an actual rem.

If a manufacturer doesn't want to cater to a part of the market that's find with me. It just would have been good to hear that up front.

Bb

Bb,
Sorry for your poor experience, but thanks for sharing it. I have the luxury of picking up my barrels because the makers are close by, so I can inspect them. Haven't bought one from the company in Jackson yet, but I'll give some hard thought before I do and go see some samples.

After reading Bart's contour page, they clearly say their Rem barrels are .660" at muzzle. They even state this "Please Note: Any changes to the dimensions on the Rem 700 Sporter Contours are Non-Returnable. The Factory Barrels may vary as much as .015" on dimensions. These are our standards. Also, the stocks barrel channel inlet can vary as well."

http://www.bartleinbarrels.com/contours.htm