Nope, they will not sell you a barrel extension. Its kinda a pain in the ass to buy a whole barrel just for the extension, then pay for a bartlein and the work to chamber, thread, and profile it. My advice would be to buy a factory barrel and shoot it a bit. If you are happy with the accuracy, keep it. If not, then you have an extension to use and send it off. From what I have seen with the factory barrels is you get a good group every now and then and the next one is all over the place. Or you'll shoot 3/5 into one little hole and 2/5 will be 2" away in different directions. This goes for 5 different factory LMT barrels with handholds using 6 bullets and 3 powders, as well as multiple boxes of different factory ammo. I have never experience any sort of problem with my .260 bartlein from day one and now have close to 2000 rounds through it.
I read somewhere in a previous post that somebody had trouble with the spring loaded detent for the mag release got stuck. I also had this happen two different times. Somehow the opening of the hole gets peened over and the plunger can't be pushed out. Fixed that with a drill bit.
Another issue happened early on was the charging handle was coming loose upon firing and hitting me in the nose, by looking at the upper receiver you can see where it was rounded over from wear where it should have been a square sharp edge. A call to LMT told me to throw it in a mill and deepen that recess for the charing handle claw. I did and all is now well.
Another issue I had was when I cleaned the whole rifle and was working the bolt back and forth to spread the lube. I went to pull the charging handle one time and it would not go back. The chamber was empty and no magazine. I pulled the rear take down pin and when I opened the receiver the buffer and spring shot forward. It turns out that the buffer retaining pin had come loose and locked up the whole system. Not sure how this happened, but I put it back where it belonged and realized that it was barely held in place. Then played with the buffer tube and noticed it could rotate a bit. After looking closely I saw the thread relief for the back plate had been stripped in both directions allowing the buffer tube to rotate. I called LMT and talked to them about it. I mentioned that the tab on the buffer tube that holds the retaining pin down was not centered like on a normal buffer tube. I was told it was like that by design because it allows greater surface contact on the retaining pin. Yeah maybe in a perfect world, but once the tube started to wear, it locked up the whole rifle. LMT sent me a new buffer tube and all was well. I should also add that I never removed the buffer tube from the factory rifle and was still staked the way it came.
I know it sounds like I am bad mouthing LMT, but honestly I am not. I love my rifle very much once I replaced the barrels for accuracy, recut the upper receiver for the charging handle to catch, fixed the mag catch twice, and replaced the buffer tube after the whole rifle stopped working. LMT was very willing to help with all these problems. I spent the money on an LMT because "Failure is not an option" they say. I use and shoot my rifles a lot and feel like if there is a flaw to the system I'm going to find it. My LMT is honestly one of my favorite rifles, but it took a while to get to where it was. You would think after spending $3k on a rifle a guy wouldn't experience the kind of problems I have.
Once more, this is not a knock on LMT, I love my rifle very much and hope this doesn't turn into a pissing contest with somebody who throws it in their pelican case and shoots at a concrete range on weekends and says their rifle is flawless. I only posted this for informational purposes and hopefully others can learn from what I have experience. If anyone has any questions about what has happened please feel free to PM me.
