08-29-2014, 07:11 AM
Lonehill Wrote:Hopster, I got the same Shilen barrel through Midway a week ago. Got my upper completely assembled, chambered a round and then extracted it. Brass had an inch long arced scrape in the middle of the case. Got to looking inside the chamber and there's a pretty nasty scratch in the chamber. My barrel came in a hard cardboard tube capped on the ends and pretty well packed. Came through U.S. mail. Maybe they got in hurry on this run of barrels and let some through with poor QC. I hope to somehow polish mine a little cause I don't want to wait forever on another one. Finally cancelled my order with Satern after a year.....
My barrel had the small gouges in the locking recess, just forward of the lugs. Since the bolt had popped a hole in the end of the shipping tube, I thought maybe they were caused by the bolt getting knocked sideways, leaving scrape marks in the recess. I have a real problem with Midway now after 10+ years of purchases. They now ship everything in single ply boxes which are carelessly packed, and they think a few air pillows will keep things from shifting. The box was rated at 35 PSI. The heavy barrel in its tube simply shifted back and forth till it destroyed the box. The items that spilled out were repacked by UPS into another small box, and the torn box was taped back together also and sent to me. Half of the Redding Match die set was missing, along with the die box. When I complained, the cubicle rat simply read from a script stating how they have tested all of their shipping methods.
I wrote to "Larry Potterfield" and after a few phone calls and emails, finally got a reply: Larry is, well, not really much involved with running Midway anymore. He is the icon. I told the fellow (who like everyone there, has no last name) that Larry was basically Colonel Sanders, or Aunt Jemima, just an icon. Customer service there really sucks. After $17,400 in purchases since 2007 I am now looking at other options for my main supplier of gun stuff.