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.
