Who hates/loves their customers the most?

MPA, Phil will take whatever time it takes to keep your rifle going
Leupold. Had a MK 5 go bad. Had it repaired and back to me in one (1) week. Still working great a year later.
Sierra bullets. Returns their calls and does their best to help you with their bullets. (But their prices are a bit higher than elsewhere)
Creedmoor. Do anything they can help you.

Worst but not anymore.
Midway USA, kept confusing our son with me, refusing to sell me products because I had just ordered. (Last order was something like over a year ago for that product). Finally, they got themselves squared away. No issues with them in the last year and a half. So, they get back to the ok list.

Overall, most companies I do business with seem to be working pretty hard to keep me satisfied. Hard to find something to complain about….Berger, please put the 6mm hybrid bullets on your priority list…Please.

Special shout out to @RobertB He does whatever it takes to help fellow shooters and is one heck of a great factory rep/sponsored shooter.

Addendum, forgot RCBS, they are simply the best customer service I have ever been around. Call them up, tell them you have a problem and it is your fault, not theirs, they say, no problem, we’ll cover it anyway. New part be there in a day or two, in a day or two, the new part shows up, at my door, postage paid and no payment of any type require.
 
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Can’t forget MDT. Traded Ckye pods with a fella and the feet did not lock in properly. Sent back for warranty work and while I did have to wait 6 months due to the transition from the gen 1 to gen 2 ckye pod, they did upgrade me for free to the gen 2 which i still have and use religiously.
 
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MDT has always been responsive. Buddy of mine recently dealt with them and they took care of the issue no questions asked.

On a side note another friend is having piss poor comms with Aero Precision. No one is answering the phone or responding to email/service ticket.
 
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So far, I've been fortunate to only need to send a scope back once. Back in 2014ish, maybe 15, I had to send a Steiner M5Xi 5-25 back. It was my fault. The rifle fell off the bench, dented the scope ahead of the objective lens while it had the sunshade screwed on, and had essentially cross threaded the sunshade. I shipped it off to Steiner and within a week, I had a brand new scope. I've dealt with other companies and didn't have bad service, just nothing that stood out as being excellent service. Edit: I can't believe I didn't remember Mile High. They're local to me, so I guess I forgot and just took them for granted, but they're fantastic! As far as Hide vendors go, @CSTactical has always been incredible, and i know I'm not the only to say it. B&T (Alas) have been awesome every time. I've only ordered from @FisherT&C once, but i wouldn't hesitate to order again. I know Andy Hawkins at Hawkins Precision personally, but his service is exceptional. Same goes for Collin Fossen at Fehu Outdoors.

Bad service, and I'm sure I'm going to rile some feathers here: Seekins Precision. Everyone has raved about their CS. I must have been the one in a thousand because I wasn't pleased, at all, to the point I won't deal with Seekins again.

@CSTactical, @MOUNTIC , @Front Range Precision are always a pleasant experience. Those guys go above and beyond for their customers.

Schmidt, Tangent Theta, Mile High, @MOUNTIC, @CSTactical have all be excellent to deal with as has @RobertB with Manners.

So far I’ve had good luck with companies that I’ve dealt with.

There’s certainly more good companies vs bad ones. CS Tactical, Eurooptic and Thunderbeast have always been great to deal with. I wish I could remember his name but a great dude from Eurooptic added a significant discount on a future purchase to my account after receiving a new optic with problems. I didn’t expect it or ask for it but I damn sure have made it a point to do more business with them since.
Many with fantastic service: europtic, tacops,mile high, cs tactical,birdsong.

Not so fantastic: H&M’s, benelli



the-office-bow.gif




Thank you to everyone here!!! We do our best to assist the hide members, our customers and their needs. We have been part of the hide for many years and will continue a much longer relationship with this fantastic community.
-Mike
-Kajsa
-Dan
-Richard
 
Short Action Customs. Euro Optics, Bartlein, and Mile High have been the recent good customer service interactions.


Haven't had any bad CS issues in a while but Beretta USA was the worst for not replying to voice or emails.
 
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Scott @LibertyOptics is really good too. Have bought from him twice. Some stuff takes a while but the prices are great.

I have also bought from @Precision Underground and he was great trying to figure out what was up when my bag went to Hawaii on its trip to Utah from Florida (USPS mess up).
 
Good: henderson precision, bushnell, manners(if Tom is involved, otherwise it's hit and miss), triad tactical, liberty optics, longrifles Inc, joebob outfitters, euro optic.

Bad: McGowen is complete garbage. Dan is the worst person to be answering phones for anyone.
 
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Cannon gun safes. My 10+ year old Cannon safe was submerged in saltwater during a hurricane, no guns inside and I had left the safe door open. The insurance company denied coverage, (another story).
I called Cannon Safes to ask how to effectively clean the locking mechanism, they asked if I had any evidence of flood, sent a picture of the safe with several inches of mud in it and picture of headlines in local newspaper. A few hours later they called and asked when would be a good time to accept curb-side delivery, one week later I had a new larger safe delivered curbside, tipped the trucker nicely and he helped move it into place in my office.
I cut loose the locking mechanism in the old safe and put in new shelves and now, though it's getting rusty, use old one for storage. It was a very bright spot in an otherwise dismal time in my life. I can't describe how helpful the person I talked to was.
 
Cannon gun safes. My 10+ year old Cannon safe was submerged in saltwater during a hurricane, no guns inside and I had left the safe door open. The insurance company denied coverage, (another story).
I called Cannon Safes to ask how to effectively clean the locking mechanism, they asked if I had any evidence of flood, sent a picture of the safe with several inches of mud in it and picture of headlines in local newspaper. A few hours later they called and asked when would be a good time to accept curb-side delivery, one week later I had a new larger safe delivered curbside, tipped the trucker nicely and he helped move it into place in my office.
I cut loose the locking mechanism in the old safe and put in new shelves and now, though it's getting rusty, use old one for storage. It was a very bright spot in an otherwise dismal time in my life. I can't describe how helpful the person I talked to was.
Not what I was expecting. Glad to hear it.

Bartlein has been phenomenal, no issues, just great CS when I’ve called, emailed with questions. Customer for life. Obviously vortex has been good but should they have to be that good? Sadlak was also phenomenal when I had an issue.
 
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Vortex is always been great. One time with Shilen, turned out ok once the guy figured out I wasn't ignorant on the issue and accepted fault. Otherwise, I would've been railroaded. Ruger for a $6 rear sight screw on a SBH, wanted the whole gun at my expense-FU, got it from Brownell's
Rugged suppressors, whoever I spoke with twice was like wondering in a vegetable garden expecting an intelligent conversation with the turnips in January. If you read this-why in the fuck would you use aluminum on a three lug adapter? Ended up with a Kaw Valley Precision one.
 
Unfortunately I can pick out a lemon from a mile away, companies should pay me to buy the lemons from their products so others don't get them! You could set 100 blocks of mild steel in front of me, and I'd pick the defective one every time. Many times we see where someone with an "in" with a company/maker gets special treatment so of course they sing their praises. The same is true when a company gets blasted on the forums or social media, all of a sudden the company steps up and turns it around, and people praise them. That just says to me if they had not gotten blasted on forums/social media they'd have never helped the customer out. It's like rich/powerful people that when they get caught they are sorry, but you know they are really only sorry that they were caught and the masses found out.

Swarovski used to have amazing customer service, not sure if it's still the case, used to be you could send your gear in yearly, they would go through clean, inspect, calibrate etc. free of charge. Leica was not great to deal with but not horrible. Swarovski was always super helpful for any questions, and they'd hand you off to an optic technician if needed. That said I've never had anything of theirs fail, so that I can't say. Vortex has been great, Athlon was pretty good when I had an issue with my Cronus Tactical 7-42 spotter. Bushnell was pretty good to deal with, but it's been years since I had to deal with them and it was through a rep.

Beretta, Tikka, Sako, benelli......sadly I'll never buy another just because dealing with Beretta USA is so horrible, and I pray my TRG never needs service. I've been trying to get an s20 looked at since late 2022, couldn't get a response or a human on the phone for months or to return voice mails. About a month ago they responded to the online repair request I made in February to send my s20 back in. Person was totally clueless, they advised me to send it to a service center that did not handle accuracy issues (their website says all accuracy issues must be sent back to Beretta direct). I asked the person about it and they responded a few days later that I was correct and gave me new info to send it into Beretta directly. I can only imagine the shit show it would have been if I'd have sent it to the wrong service center as I was advised.

Sig.....honestly I'm just not impressed with Sig anymore, my MPX, MCX, and 320 x-five have all had significant issues, that with any sort of product testing would have never left the manufacturer. There's using your customers for beta testing, but Sig has taken it to a whole new level. There were so many major modifications to the MPX that Sig stopped giving them generation names. I have had Sig send me some parts on request, which was nice, but for other seemingly simple things they either refuse to sell the parts (saying they don't have enough, or they won't sell them etc.) and you need to then return the entire weapon to them for eval, for something like a firing pin, extractor, etc. I've also had multiple incidents where a customer service person sent me the wrong parts, did not understand generational differences in parts etc. Some are great, some are totally clueless. If you own a Legion you get a legion rep, they are pretty good, but they will ONLY help you with legion issues.

JP, these guys are without a doubt the best gun company I've dealt with. The first 22LR JP barrel I got I didn't feel was shooting as expected, I sent it in, they built it one of their uppers/handguards, they put their new bolt lightening cuts in it, accuracy tested it, shared the results with me, explained that they didn't chamber the barrel for high accuracy but 100% reliability and asked what I wanted to do. I had them ship the whole built upper back to me and the deal they gave me was amazing. Had a .224 supermatch barrel that didn't want to shoot and had gas port issues, sent it in, they could not fix it or replace it so they gave me my choice of any other barrel they had as a replacement. Comms were great, turn around was great, you dealt directly with the guy handling your issue.

H-S Precision, eh luke warm on them. Years ago I bought a 300wm PHR, came with a tiny test target, something like 0.25", could not get it to shoot, not even close. Sent it back to H-S, turned out they also could not get it to shoot, no explanation, so they re-barreled it but it took months. It shot okay with the new barrel but not great and at that point I was happy to see it go. It makes me very suspicious of their test targets.

Kimber was horrible, I had a 1911 Desert something or other years ago after they first started their downhill slide (by the same person running Sig's QC into the ground now not surprisingly). The AL frame feed ramp was so soft that HP bullets were denting it and it started having feeding issues. Kimber said it was a non-issue, gun shop I bought it from ended up taking it back. Bought my father a Montana in 270 WSM for his retirement in 2007, would not shoot, not even close, lots of people reported issues with them. Sent it in, and it turned out that Kimber said it "met" their requirement which was something silly like less than 0.75" at some odd short yardage like 43 yards and test groups were not shot with the action in the stock, they were bolted into a solid mount.

Nosler, also not great, the Kimber above was replaced with a Nosler M48 in 270 WSM, also would not shoot, had lots of other issues, Timney trigger was gritty, action was gummy with heavy cerekote, stock was skim bedded but there were no pillars. Nosler didn't really want to hear about the issues, at the time they had their own website forum, posts were removed etc. It was replaced with a Weatherby Sub-Moa in 270 WSM that still shoots and runs great to this day.
 
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Was just blown away by David Wilson Manufacturing on my LMT. I realized his shop was half an hour from me so i took a barrel to be pin and welded thinking I'd have to leave it for a week or two till they could get to it. They did it right there so i wouldnt have to make the trip across town again. Excellent work too. Then we BS'd about rifles for 20 minutes because they love this stuff too
 
Good: Sons of Liberty Gunworks. Very prompt email responses and great service.

Bad: KAC. Had a buddy’s CQB sr-15 blow up during a class and they told him it was his fault when he shipped it in. They also bent the gas tube and scraped the upper to shit and back when they had it in their possession. Told him good luck, buy a new upper at full msrp

Opticsplanet. Wouldn’t cancel my supposedly in stock order after waiting two months. Had to threaten to go through my credit card company before they canceled the thing.
 
I've heard more than a few reports about KAC not having the greatest CS.

Seems to be a common theme amongst firearm makers that exist to create firearms for .gov, that also happens to sell firearms to civi's.
 
I will say that I have had great customer service from work a few companies throughout the industry. I think that we're lucky to have the best kind of like minded people out there to help us.

One of my most recent interactions was with the guys from Outlier with a barrel I got that the bore was tore up on. Within a couple days and a few emails I had Michael personally call me and want to make things right. He is the owner of the Arken and Outlier companies and has been great to work with. Still waiting on my replacement barrel but I'll update with any new info.

I also had a really good experience with Burris customer service. Within a day they had a replacement sent out for me.

RCBS is another one that has taken care of me very well over the years.

I have had awesome interactions with the guy from F3R machine as well.
 
Lantac USA is amazing. Had a bcg that wouldn't cycle properly no matter what. Didn't even buy directly from them. They didn't care nor needed to show receipt. Emails were responded to almost in real time. Think Zac from tbac fast. Returned calls immediately, all communication was excellent. Even said if the bcg continues to not cycle call back and they'll look at a replacement.
 
Best: Cadex, hands down. Had a headspace problem with a rifle, the owner gave me his cell phone number in case I had any issue/questions while it was being resolved.

Worst: FN, waited 2 1/2 years for a part. Their tag line should be “We Don’t Give a Fuck”
 
I have had a lot of the same positive experiences with Vortex and Eurooptic as others have mentioned on here so far, but I really want to highlight KRG.

I don’t know if you guys remember when they came out with the 10/22 bravo stocks, but there were some issues with getting all the different actions to fit perfectly. I was one of the first round of people to order the 10/22 bravo and was really bummed when my action didn’t fit right. I’ve run an X-ray on my tikka for ages and know they are a quality shop, but what impressed me was how they owned the issue, communicated fantastically with customers (both here on the forum and returning my emails and phone calls about the issue same day) and sent out the fix as soon as feasible with very little effort on the part of the customer. They are a great company to deal with and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them.
 
A little surprised no one has mentioned Forward Controls Design yet. Roger is an absolute stud, and has taken parts off his own guns to send to customers on more than one occasion, myself included. He's also replaced a package I had stolen with no questions asked, and he's always happy to interact with his customers.

Also Centurion Arms and BTO have come through with a minimum of pain on my end.

Worst was probably AP Rhino when they were still around. They stopped responding to my e-mails after I tried to cancel an order that had been in limbo forever.
 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Our rental SCAR 17 shits the bed all the time and FN is the absolute worst outfit to deal with. PUKE.
Not surprising, it seems like almost every company that has significant gov't contracts their civilian CS goes to crap. While there's a lot more overhead and expense in working with the gov't, you could never even come close to charging the rates you could in the private sector that you can to the government. Of course you also have 10x the bureaucracy, red tape, and oversight to deal with.

The 20s 6.5 problems were a perfect example, they basically told customers having problems for almost 2 years that it wasn't an issue, and it just meant you can only shoot the 1 type of recommended hornady ammo through it and that was acceptable for a long time till they started to get a lot of bad press about it. 6.5 semi's and even bolts learned LONG ago that a small firing pin was needed, look at how many people had to have AI bolts bushed before AI went to a small firing pin. If I remember at the time AI simply told people they don't offer the gun in any of the problem calibers so it wasn't an issue but of course after a couple years they changed to a small firing pin as well. The 6.5 option for the 20s was so late to the game they should have known it would need a small firing pin setup.

It reminds me of Sig with the M17/18/320, military testing found problems, made them redesign under an ECP, and instead of flowing that fix to their civilian products they just keep business as usual until things started to get into the public eye then it came out Sig made changes to the M17/18 to fix that issue and others and they were not flowed down to the civilian guns.


That said I forgot one, Robbert Otte, with In Lead We Trust, is amazing, he supports the Sig MPX 100x better than Sig does. I've seen him on multiple occasions go way above and beyond to help out MPX owners, sending them parts they can't get form Sig, evaluating/fixing MPX's for people they are struggling with etc.
 
I'm gonna throw out F5 MFG as total trash. Jeff owes myself and other vendors many, many, many thousands of dollars, and I've seen too many customers get treated like assholes for asking why they never got their stuff. Not the right crowd for their products, but I will gladly call Mr. Milton out for being a terrible human being.
 
I will echo some of the others in regards to places like MDT, Euro, Short Action Customs. Called Straight Jacket today and they spent time and helped me with a few chambering questions for a barrel that wasn't theirs. At the end of the conversation they were nice enough to offer a promo code and I decided to give them my business.

I'm on the fence currently with Burris. Deciding factor will be when the scope gets back to me.
 
I just ordered from Really Right Stuff. Best customer service interaction I’ve had in years. Fast, accessible, great communication.
Your post made me remember about Thermal Optics. Read anout them here for ordering a RRS tripod. Was my first tripod so he answered questions and made sure I had everything I needed, all from the side of a mountain while hunting
 
I've dealt with a lot of companies over the years in regards to CS for warranty and defects and the majority of the companies I would say have excellent customer service. IMO one of the biggest advantages of going through a great vendor like Euro Optic or Mile High is that they'll go to bat for their customers if there's an issue. You mention S&B is great and I think they should be the example to follow, I had one very minor issues (little grease droplets on the reticle only visible with a NV clip on) and Jerry knocked it out in no time and even tuned the parallax for me just because he's a fucking master and I thought that was awesome and I've never had another optic that the parallax worked like that thing did.

This is a list of companies that I have had negative CS experiences with:

- CHPWS. By far the absolute worst, see my thread on here.
- Christensen Arms. The people doing the repairs are just fucking retarded, it's a long story.
- Nightforce. I still patronize them even though I said I wouldn't and recently had a positive CS experience with them too when they sent me out a replacement ring cap for free when I called them asking to purchase one for one I lost. It doesn't make up for the $2500 defective 5-25 F1 they stuck me with though.
- Sig Sauer
- Holosun
- Zeiss. They flat out refused to warranty a scope because it was a store display model despite being brand new from the retailer who's an authorized Zeiss dealer, it just had a "display" sticker on the box which they saw when I sent it in and had an issue with.
- Al. I got a dud of a 243 barrel directly from AINA that had .030+ of runout in the Tooley chambered barrel and wouldn't shoot worth a shit and trashed brass (you could see the runout on fired brass with the naked eye). They tested it and provided the target showing 1-1.25MOA groups and said that was within their tolerances. They finally agreed to replace it about a year later and one of the guys came out to get a christmas tree around christmas and picked it up and that's the last I saw of it and I never got a replacement, so they basically stole my barrel.
- Q. I love their stuff, but their CS is shit. Anytime I contacted them with just simple product inquiries asking when parts for their "modular" "quick change" rifles might be in stock I got a dick head answer every time.
- Aimpoint. They refused to fix a PRO that took a shit on the first range outing after the model first came out because they were only supposed to be sold to LE/mil despite all of their dealers selling to anyone who ordered and later Aimpoint even dropped that purchasing stipulation. I also had a T1 crap out pretty early that had to go out to Sweden and they had it for over 8 months and ended up replacing it with a new unit anyway.
- SAC. I sent my AI AE MKI to Mark when he was just a new shop to have it chopped back and threaded for AAC brake and timed. Mark jsut threaded and timed it, he didn't cut it back as I had payed for and spec'd in the email, sent it back to me and said I could send it back in on my dime if I wanted it corrected. I declined and he was supposed to refund me for the cutting and crowning service I payed for but not provided and never did.
- PSA. Multiple bad experiences from their junk parts out of spec and them refusing to correct it, to order issues and errors. Never again.

I know there are many more bad experiences I've had, but those are the ones that are standing out at the moment.
 
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Good: Ruger, Vortex, MDT, Meredith Rifles, Dead Air, Northland Shooters Supply, Zeiss, Magpul

Meh: Wilson Combat, Beretta, POF

Cameraland NY I'm a little mixed on, they have good deals are helpful to talk to on the phone and in message, but I've used their layaway a few times, and it always seemed like they didn't write anything down. One time closed out early with no communication, another time didn't record that I'd made a payment. It worked out ok, but seemed pretty haphazard.
 
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I'm gonna throw out F5 MFG as total trash. Jeff owes myself and other vendors many, many, many thousands of dollars, and I've seen too many customers get treated like assholes for asking why they never got their stuff. Not the right crowd for their products, but I will gladly call Mr. Milton out for being a terrible human being.

Says the guy who partners with a company like Audere that markets chinese garbage, hides the fact it's imported, plays on the Italian branding, MKM delivers customers a bunch of defective chinesium "Italian" bipods (17% defect rate according to the email I received from your company) and then plays it up on their IG account as them being low stock because of demand when the reality is they all had to be pulled and sorted through because of how many customers were complaining about the quality.

I'm not sure if you should be casting stones.
 
Griffin, Proof and MDT first class!!

Griffin owner is a first class POS. He got caught sexually harassing gun bunnies in DM's on social media, and years before that he was trying to get me to send him a bunch of NV clip on units without paying for them and flexing his "reputation" for payment credibility. He even went as far to purchase several listings of mine on GB trying to get me to do so. He would not pay therefor no merchandise or payment was ever exchanged.
 
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Cameraland NY I'm a little mixed on, they have good deals are helpful to talk to on the phone and in message, but I've used their layaway a few times, and it always seemed like they didn't write anything down. One time closed out early with no communication, another time didn't record that I'd made a payment. It worked out ok, but seemed pretty haphazard.

I called them once because they had a sales special going on bushnell scope I wanted to purchase but you had to call in for the deal. My call was answered immediately by some guy that sounded like your typical new yorker who greeted me but before I could respond started SCREAMING at another employee in the background with the phone up to his mouth, I pulled the phone away from my ear and listened to them yell at each other for about 15 seconds before I hung up the phone. I've never called them again.
 
Says the guy who partners with a company like Audere that markets chinese garbage, hides the fact it's imported, plays on the Italian branding, MKM delivers customers a bunch of defective chinesium "Italian" bipods (17% defect rate according to the email I received from your company) and then plays it up on their IG account as them being low stock because of demand when the reality is they all had to be pulled and sorted through because of how many customers were complaining about the quality.

I'm not sure if you should be casting stones.

That's a lil crazy IMO. We are always transparent. Only the Audere "Shadow" stuff is made in China, like many bipods and tripods. Any rings, mounts, rails, brakes, etc are made in Italy, not far at all from their San Marino shop where billet parts were milled/turned before they expanded beyond that shop, and I have visited it personally. We are considering running some 5 axis parts here in MO as "Audere US", additionally.

Stock is indeed low because their bipods were, and have been quite popular. If you'd like more detail, the owner packed our order of bipods while every other employee couldn't make it in due to catastrophic flooding. The employees outside of San Marino could not make it in and were literally helicoptered food due to roads being washed away.

Admittedly, to miss botched threads on a tension lever is unacceptable, and had we known to look for this, a batch of tension levers with issues wouldn't have made it to customers.

This seems a far cry from not paying bills to me, and again I am happy to be transparent and have never mislead anyone on where parts are made. Feel free to contact direct rather than using some accusatory tone in the future, not a very flattering look.
 
That's a lil crazy IMO. We are always transparent. Only the Audere "Shadow" stuff is made in China, like many bipods and tripods. Any rings, mounts, rails, brakes, etc are made in Italy, not far at all from their San Marino shop where billet parts were milled/turned before they expanded beyond that shop, and I have visited it personally. We are considering running some 5 axis parts here in MO as "Audere US", additionally.

Stock is indeed low because their bipods were, and have been quite popular. If you'd like more detail, the owner packed our order of bipods while every other employee couldn't make it in due to catastrophic flooding. The employees outside of San Marino could not make it in and were literally helicoptered food due to roads being washed away.

Admittedly, to miss botched threads on a tension lever is unacceptable, and had we known to look for this, a batch of tension levers with issues wouldn't have made it to customers.

This seems a far cry from not paying bills to me, and again I am happy to be transparent and have never mislead anyone on where parts are made. Feel free to contact direct rather than using some accusatory tone in the future, not a very flattering look.

It is crazy. The only mention on your website for the product page says "Designed in Italy" and then goes on to the history of Audere where from reading it most would assume they have been making their stuff in Italy since 2016, that's how I gathered it. No mention of Chinese imports. That's NOT transparency, I wouldn't even call that translucent. You and Audere both hide the fact that this stuff is Chinese.

The threads were not just botched either, the threads were fucked up most likely because they spec'd them wrong, drilled out AFTER annodizing, helicoiled, and the helicoils left sticking out enough that it sliced my finger open when I grabbed it. They botched them, and then botched them again trying to fix them and still sent them out the door.

As far as not paying bills... I never did receive my $25 gift card that I was supposed to receive for the promotional purchase of the bipod either. Tony also couldn't apply a $25 credit towards the scope caps that were ordered well after the fact either despite my order for the bipod being in the system and paid for.

Our first comms began after YOU responded to me in your thread here about your new levels when I inquired about ETA. You offered to send me one and told me to email. I emailed your company and Tony had no idea what I was talking about and then the levels weren't even ready. Told me I could backorder the old model and I'd get a new one. That turned into waiting for the bipods to come in since that was on the same order which were overdue.

This is a thread about good and bad CS with companies, I'm not sorry that you're not flattered with my response to you when you called out another company while you're company is far from perfect. Your CS skills are obviously seriously lacking if you think calling out another company like you did is a good idea even if all of your ducks are in a row.
 
A little surprised no one has mentioned Forward Controls Design yet. Roger is an absolute stud, and has taken parts off his own guns to send to customers on more than one occasion, myself included. He's also replaced a package I had stolen with no questions asked, and he's always happy to interact with his customers.

Also Centurion Arms and BTO have come through with a minimum of pain on my end.

Worst was probably AP Rhino when they were still around. They stopped responding to my e-mails after I tried to cancel an order that had been in limbo forever.
I want to echo the shout out to Centurion Arms. Great products and great service.
 
It is crazy. The only mention on your website for the product page says "Designed in Italy" and then goes on to the history of Audere where from reading it most would assume they have been making their stuff in Italy since 2016, that's how I gathered it. No mention of Chinese imports. That's NOT transparency, I wouldn't even call that translucent. You and Audere both hide the fact that this stuff is Chinese.

The threads were not just botched either, the threads were fucked up most likely because they spec'd them wrong, drilled out AFTER annodizing, helicoiled, and the helicoils left sticking out enough that it sliced my finger open when I grabbed it. They botched them, and then botched them again trying to fix them and still sent them out the door.

As far as not paying bills... I never did receive my $25 gift card that I was supposed to receive for the promotional purchase of the bipod either. Tony also couldn't apply a $25 credit towards the scope caps that were ordered well after the fact either despite my order for the bipod being in the system and paid for.

Our first comms began after YOU responded to me in your thread here about your new levels when I inquired about ETA. You offered to send me one and told me to email. I emailed your company and Tony had no idea what I was talking about and then the levels weren't even ready. Told me I could backorder the old model and I'd get a new one. That turned into waiting for the bipods to come in since that was on the same order which were overdue.

This is a thread about good and bad CS with companies, I'm not sorry that you're not flattered with my response to you when you called out another company while you're company is far from perfect. Your CS skills are obviously seriously lacking if you think calling out another company like you did is a good idea even if all of your ducks are in a row.
I don't typically speak for the company in a public format, but I want to clarify a couple things here that haven't been mentioned. Out of all of the Pre-Order and post available Bipod orders, we only received two complaints in the US (I cant speak for the European customers). One to exchange for another bipod and one refund. All of the other blemished stock was caught before shipping and taken care of very quickly.

As far as the $25 gift card towards the caps, we actually lacked the technical ability to apply the discount for you, which is why I had sent a link to compile the scope cap set when you received the gift card code. Without getting too technical, this would have resulted in getting two $25 gift cards.

I will let Tyler respond to the rest of the comment.
 
Altus shooting solutions

They kick ass. Don’t remember the names of of the people I’ve dealt with but they have done 2 rifles for me and have been a pleasure to deal with. Both rifles were completed right on the quoted time and are lazers.

evolved ballistics

Awesome. Answered a phone call on a Sunday and helped answer questions on twist rate and length for a barrel. Super helpful and I could tell they went out of there way on a family day to make sure I was taken care of

Trigger tech

Had a problem with the 2 stage diamond, 2 emails over the course of about a day and it was replaced with a new one and some swag on the way. Couldn’t ask for more.

Haven’t had any bad experiences so far
 
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I rarely need customer service, but when I do, how things get handled determine whether I continue to do business with that company.

The good:
SAC: They have always been responsive. Even for routine stuff they are easy to get in touch with, professional and quick. Consequently I have given them way too much of my money over the last ten-ish years.

Vortex: Outright giving an almost no condition warranty, and standing behind it goes a long way. Good optics are expensive, and knowing that they will take care of me if I screw up makes the difference for me between them and other brands. I first learned about them when buddies talked about getting their Vortex optics repaired/replaced, and that gave me enormous peace of mind and convinced me to buy from them. I cant afford to eat the replacement cost of a high end scope. Good CS doesn't just take care of current customers… It gets you new ones as well.

Leupold: They don’t explicitly warranty for user error (e.g, rifle fell off a truck), but they have always stepped up and taken care of my peers and I when we broke something. That goes a long way also.

Alpha Brass: They recently sent me SRP instead of LRP brass. It happens. The fix was responsive, immediate and easy. I bought more as a direct result of this CS interaction, and will buy from them again in the future.

Smith and Wesson: Not long gun related, but about twenty years ago I bought one of their M&Ps shortly after it was released. Tons of problems, with persistemt failure to return to battery. Swapped shooters, ammo, magazines, cleaned it. Etc. Finally sent a note to S&W… The next day I had a shipping label in my mailbox. Less than two weeks later I had my pistol back, fixed, with a note explaining the problem, and how they fixed it. They also installed novak tritium sights at no charge. I don’t typically need S&W products, but for the past twenty years I at least consider them before making a purchase.

Nighthawk: They fixed a problem for me promptly and with no hassle.

Larue: Yes I know I have a thread about a problem with a Larue barrel. Right now they seem to be taking appropriate steps to fix the issue, and I need to give them a reasonable amount of time to do so. Long term they have been amazing. I have an original OBR and they helped me get it optimized for competitions. I have bought countless mounts etc over the years, often while deployed. I don't think they sent a single product to me while I was deployed that did not include a lot more than I asked for, and at a lower cost than I expected. When we had problems they were quick and responsive.

The bad:

HK: I bought a USP-C in .40 the day I turned 21. Over the next ten years I put a lot of rounds through it. Eventually started to have problems that I couldnt fix. I Tried to get help from HK, even if it was advice to fix user error. They couldn’t be bothered to give me the time of day. The crux was the recoil spring was going bad, but HK claimed it never needed to be replaced, and they kept telling me that it couldn’t be the recoil spring assembly. I asked to just buy a new recoil spring assembly and they refused (I guess only an HK armorer is qualified to replace a drop in part that requires no disassembly etc). They eventually told me that if I insisted, I could pay to send it to them, with a prepaid return shipping label, and a money order for the cost to diagnose. And that it would be six weeks minimum before they even looked at it. Instead I went to a local gunsmith who fixed the problem for less than fifty bucks… it was the recoil spring. The whole experience was so frustrating and enraging that I will never do business with HK again. They might have amazing CS now, but I will never know because I will never buy from them again.

Armalite: I bought one of their SPR Mod 1 rifles, which was basically an introductory 3-gun build. It was great for a bit, then I started to have gas regulation issues. Eventually it would no longer eject/chamber even with the gas port wide open. come to find out the gas block was not adequately secured, and was slowly creeping forward. I pulled the block and there was nothing but a friction fit holding it on. No dimpling for set screws, no pinning. I wanted Armalite to correct the problem and affix the gas block properly (at least dimple the barrel for the set screws). Again ended up going to a local gunsmith who dimpled for free. This was such a simple problem and they lost my business over it.

(edited to clean up formatting)