Geissele Quality Control: A Lack Thereof

M

Molon

Gunny Sergeant
Minuteman
Feb 26, 2020
870
2,314
#1
 
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#7
He originates from ARF but he definitely has knowledge on these kind of matters.

You cannot deny these were not geisseles QC related problems. Every brand has lemons, QC is there to stop them from going to customers..

Quality manufacturer just does not sell the shitty parts they make to their customers (or sells them to a lesser brand as 2nd grade parts)
 
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#10
Across the board, worldwide, poor quality is a sign of the times. For those of us who are old school craftsmen......... We saw quality begin to decline over 30 years ago. There was a time when "Made In America" added value to an object.
Don't allow someone else's poor quality to get you killed.
 
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#11
 
#12
Very timely, and I sent a link to this thread to my friend who sent me the following email this past Tuesday concerning the first outing for the Super Duty 11.5 pistol that he recently received...

Spent 3 hrs. at the range today with the Geissele Pistol. I was unimpressed enough to plan a call to Geissele tomorrow. Multiple failures to eject and lock the slide open after the last round suppressed and unsuppressed. Had to mortar it once to get an empty case out. It didn’t like any of the (3) brands of 55gr 5.56 I put through it… Probably me but my best group was about 1” @ 50 yards with IMI 77gr.

He's currently awaiting an RMA and instructions on how to proceed.

-Rainman
 
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#14
Dildobaggins said:
This right here is why I only buy PSA and Anderson products. Nothing but too tier stuff....
Click to expand...
If you are "building" that is good. Buying an entire assembly, put together by an assembler, not broke in is a different situation. 2 or 3 rounds at the factory prove very little. Saw a lot of this with Springfield M1A's. Those that failed were returned (Warranty) and gone through by a competent gunsmith. Failures were eliminated. I won't trust my life to an assembler.
 
#16
Hobo Hilton said:
If you are "building" that is good. Buying an entire assembly, put together by an assembler, not broke in is a different situation. 2 or 3 rounds at the factory prove very little. Saw a lot of this with Springfield M1A's. Those that failed were returned (Warranty) and gone through by a competent gunsmith. Failures were eliminated. I won't trust my life to an assembler.
Click to expand...
Agreed on the assembler portion. I was completely joking. I would never buy PSA. I'm sure they are fine, but I've watched SOTAR do BCG physicals on PSA BCGs and they didn't even pass proper torque on on the bolts for the gas key and I have personally seen lowers not in spec.
 
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#17
Dildobaggins said:
Agreed on the assembler portion. I was completely joking. I would never buy PSA. I'm sure they are fine, but I've watched SOTAR do BCG physicals on PSA BCGs and they didn't even pass proper torque on on the bolts for the gas key and I have personally seen lowers not in spec.
Click to expand...
As funny as it sounds, manually torquing a screw / bolt / fastener is a lost art. A torque measuring device can not tell a person when a bolt is bottomed out, threads gaulding or wrong TPI for the assembly.... Not looking for a debate on fasteners.
From the largest piece of CAT equipment to the smallest bolt fastening a scope to a rifle, it's the fit before the torque wrench that matters.
JMHO
 
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#18
I won’t go into too much detail, but I had the exact same issue as Molon with a brand new 16” super duty. It took almost a month and a half with two trips for the upper to go back for “repair” and a very serious fuck up on Geissele’s part, before they finally overnighted me a brand new upper and a free set of their BUIS to make it right. It was such a pain in the ass getting them to respond in an appropriate timeframe, that it took me blowing up every single @geissele.com email address I could find to get the ball rolling in the right direction, resulting in their director of operations contacting me directly and working to get the problem resolved. He was very apologetic, and offered me several free items on top of overnighting a brand new upper, to make it right. I had one of the employees over the phone admit to me that they are overworked and understaffed, which was mind boggling to me that a company employee would admit that openly to a customer, although it is apparent in many ways. Regardless, they did ultimately make it right, but this fiasco was something I’d find unsurprising if I bought a $700 PSA, not a $1900 “premium” rifle.

The new upper shot perfectly, but after the hassle and the abhorrent lack of QC exhibited both in their manufacturing process and their assembly process, it left me with such a poor taste in my mouth that I parted out the rifle at a loss, only keeping the components I needed for another build.

I will admit that Geissele triggers are still my favorite. Maybe I have Stockholm Syndrome. I like their rails and scope mounts. Their BCGs are nice also, albeit overpriced. I have owned multiples of each of these components throughout the years they have been available and never had any issues with them. Outside of that, I will never purchase a complete rifle, complete upper, barrel, or receivers from them ever again. This is coming from someone who has been a Geissele customer for probably 12 years now.
 
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#19
Forgive me as I do not know for certain, but I have understood they do not have original ideas to AR platform, they just expanded there because there is money to be made.

Quite similar to Barret. Ofc I am not directly comparing them, just motives to manufacture ARs.
 
#20
Desert_Racer said:
I won’t go into too much detail, but I had the exact same issue as Molon with a brand new 16” super duty. It took almost a month and a half with two trips for the upper to go back for “repair” and a very serious fuck up on Geissele’s part, before they finally overnighted me a brand new upper and a free set of their BUIS to make it right. It was such a pain in the ass getting them to respond in an appropriate timeframe, that it took me blowing up every single @geissele.com email address I could find to get the ball rolling in the right direction, resulting in their director of operations contacting me directly and working to get the problem resolved. He was very apologetic, and offered me several free items on top of overnighting a brand new upper, to make it right. I had one of the employees over the phone admit to me that they are overworked and understaffed, which was mind boggling to me that a company employee would admit that openly to a customer, although it is apparent in many ways. Regardless, they did ultimately make it right, but this fiasco was something I’d find unsurprising if I bought a $700 PSA, not a $1900 “premium” rifle.

The new upper shot perfectly, but after the hassle and the abhorrent lack of QC exhibited both in their manufacturing process and their assembly process, it left me with such a poor taste in my mouth that I parted out the rifle at a loss, only keeping the components I needed for another build.

I will admit that Geissele triggers are still my favorite. Maybe I have Stockholm Syndrome. I like their rails and scope mounts. Their BCGs are nice also, albeit overpriced. I have owned multiples of each of these components throughout the years they have been available and never had any issues with them. Outside of that, I will never purchase a complete rifle, complete upper, barrel, or receivers from them ever again. This is coming from someone who has been a Geissele customer for probably 12 years now.
Click to expand...

Is this all newer production issues?
 
#22
Well I just picked up one of the brownells special edition geissele rifles, hoping I get to a range next week for function test. Between short chambers and that tiny gas port, what a goat fuck.... Guessing I maybe looking at a new barrel, gas block, gas tube atleast? Fuck...
 
#24
Desert_Racer said:
It was definitely a Geissele barrel, not one of their DD barreled versions. I purchased it in Q1 of this year.
Click to expand...

I never purchased the URGI version so mine all had a Geissele barrel and I never had these issues. I'm just wondering if this is a new problem or if maybe this has happened before but the frequency of occurrence has increased recently.
 
#25
I suspect it’s just a huge batch of barrels that were out of spec. My friend bought a Super Duty last year and that rifle has eaten everything, including Tula, and never choked on him. He’s put thousands through it without issue.
 
#26
I have written off Geissele as a consistent high quality performer...sadly..ever since they dipped their toes in with rifles...they haven't been the same...they are too spotty anymore...
 
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#27
Desert_Racer said:
I suspect it’s just a huge batch of barrels that were out of spec. My friend bought a Super Duty last year and that rifle has eaten everything, including Tula, and never choked on him. He’s put thousands through it without issue.
Click to expand...

Well, I'm glad you guys have told us all about it. I was going to buy another factory built pistol (have a few builds going already) so I'll look elsewhere.

I still have a 14.5 SD that eats everything.
 
#28
Desert_Racer said:
I suspect it’s just a huge batch of barrels that were out of spec. My friend bought a Super Duty last year and that rifle has eaten everything, including Tula, and never choked on him. He’s put thousands through it without issue.
Click to expand...
I have to agree with this. I have a relatively new (this year) SD16 upper receiver group that's accurate, soft-shooting, and (so far; relatively low round count) reliable. Pappasniper has posted similar satisfaction with his SD16 rifle.

I first read of this issue on another forum, and reports seem to be snowballing, plus 'in Molon we (or at least I) trust'! That said, I'm not ready to write Geissele (or anyone else at this time) off. Between firearms, optics, and miscellaneous other pricey toys, I've returned more 'not ready for prime-time' stuff over the years than I care to count...and this was before COVID and supply-chain issues. I do think that Geissele needs to own-up, man-up, and make things right ASAP. Their response time does seem slow. The sooner they put this behind them the better.


-Rainman
 
#30
It's painful to see that they (Team Bill) can't seemingly get this right consistently. I have a current gen 10.3" Super Duty with the updated sling point that I picked up from G with a coupon around June and it has been a superb weapon for the 2k rounds I have on it so far with no failures. Reliable with and without a can, 1.5" groups with most m193 ball and sub moa with handloads, smooth shooting and very little gasiness compared to the MK18 or 10.3" HK mr556 we shot it next to. I have not tried it with Tula because on paper and in my opinion it does not seem to be gassed for that ammo.

Clearly Geissele has some out of spec barrels or something in circulation which they need to address or watch people continue to get burned when they unknowingly buy a bad one.
 
#31
Yeah that is just it...they can't turn out a consistent product anymore it seems...they are capable and they do...but they let too many things fly in my opinion...
 
#33
Lol to the person that thinks QC stops defective products from going to customers. I'm guessing you've never been involved in implementing quality management system nor worked in QC.

Measuring a small sample % vs the total vatch does not guarantee out of spec products won't reach customers.
 
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#34
AngryKoala said:
Lol to the person that thinks QC stops defective products from going to customers. I'm guessing you've never been involved in implementing quality management system nor worked in QC.

Measuring a small sample % vs the total vatch does not guarantee out of spec products won't reach customers.
Click to expand...
Is that how Geissele does it? Or do they claim to measure each component? I think BCM (for example) measures each component before it goes onto a rifle (could be wrong on that, don't have time to double check).

EDIT: On the other hand, so-called "QC" depends on what the manufacturer considers to be acceptable tolerances. Could Giessele be allowing for too wide a tolerance on their specs, resulting in all this?
 
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#37
Naaman said:
Is that how Geissele does it? Or do they claim to measure each component? I think BCM (for example) measures each component before it goes onto a rifle (could be wrong on that, don't have time to double check).

EDIT: On the other hand, so-called "QC" depends on what the manufacturer considers to be acceptable tolerances. Could Giessele be allowing for too wide a tolerance on their specs, resulting in all this?
Click to expand...

That is one of the problems with QC and why it is always fluid. Every good QMS has a monitoring section which should trigger an internal corrective action if something is off. It's not just QC but rather the whole QMS.

My statement is more general of QC, it will not stop all bad products from going out. It is why LMT, BCM, Geissele etc. Have all had either rifles or parts go out to customers all screwed up. I think even JP had some 223 barrels that were jacked up as well (could be misremembering that).

Geissele as an organization seems in need of a QMS overhaul. They've had too many non-conforming parts as of late. I wonder if this is due to a staff shortage, over-worked staff or just issues with running at full capacity for 2+ years.
 
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#38
AngryKoala said:
Lol to the person that thinks QC stops defective products from going to customers. I'm guessing you've never been involved in implementing quality management system nor worked in QC.

Measuring a small sample % vs the total vatch does not guarantee out of spec products won't reach customers.
Click to expand...
-I was talking about the concept of QC. If you do QC and still have lots of end user problems, your QC is either bad or is not in connection to manufacturing.
 
#42
Desert_Racer said:
I won’t go into too much detail, but I had the exact same issue as Molon with a brand new 16” super duty. It took almost a month and a half with two trips for the upper to go back for “repair” and a very serious fuck up on Geissele’s part, before they finally overnighted me a brand new upper and a free set of their BUIS to make it right. It was such a pain in the ass getting them to respond in an appropriate timeframe, that it took me blowing up every single @geissele.com email address I could find to get the ball rolling in the right direction, resulting in their director of operations contacting me directly and working to get the problem resolved. He was very apologetic, and offered me several free items on top of overnighting a brand new upper, to make it right. I had one of the employees over the phone admit to me that they are overworked and understaffed, which was mind boggling to me that a company employee would admit that openly to a customer, although it is apparent in many ways. Regardless, they did ultimately make it right, but this fiasco was something I’d find unsurprising if I bought a $700 PSA, not a $1900 “premium” rifle.
Click to expand...
Thats alot of screw up, but it sounds like once it was identified, someone bent over backwards to compensate you. It took me 6 weeks of of calls and getting hung up on and filing an FCC complaint before an ISP refunded $500 it drafted from my account. Things in this country have really gone down hill in the last few years across the board.
 
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#43
If I were to make tools that someone else might depend on their life on, I would check that the tolerances are far beyond failure margins and check randomly.

The same applies to climbing and other high-risk activity tools.

I would say, in the firearms industry, failure repeatance measures how serious the manufacturer is. It is what makes the difference between hobby and duty guns, the far ends are visible but the where the line is drawn is a little bit gray area.
 
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