BD408,
There are alot of rifle componant companies out there that will tell you one thing about shipping time and then give you another. In many cases depending on the manufacturer, that is understood.
I use Lilja barrels for 95% of my rifle builds, I do not know how many I have ordered from them to date, would have to check on that but I know its pushing up to well over 200 barrels in just the last few years. Every barrel I have ordered from then has arrived in 8-9 weeks from time of order except for a couple orders that were placed when they moved their shop.
In all those barrels I have had two that arrived that were not as I ordered as far as taper or twist rate. ALso, of all those ordered, I have only had two that would not EASILY shoot well under 1/2 moa with the first loads put through the barrels. Of those two, one was my fault, the other was just a barrel that needed to be relapped by Lilja. The one that was my fault was a 30" #5 contour barrel in 25 cal that I asked Dan to flute with large 5/16" flutes. THe barrel was just to flimsy with my 257 Allen Magnum chambering in the 1-7 twist with the 156 gr ULD RBBT loaded to 3400 fps.
Still, it was plenty accurate to shoot some big game out to over 500 yards with perfect performance, just not 1/2 moa.
Krieger barrels are also world class and I use them probably the most second to the Lilja barrels. THey take a long time but they always show up within 16 to 18 weeks in most cases. Occasionally 20 weeks but thats the longest I have had to wait.
As far as stocks, Manner stocks are about the best I have used for getting stocks to me on time and fast for that matter.
For receivers, The very best I have used are Nesika, they get there within 8-10 weeks of order, all the time.
If I HAVE to have a rifle out in a certain amount of time, I turn to these manufacturers.
I bring this up because there are great companies out there that have their ducks in a row. There are also other companies out there that offer GREAT products but working with them is just a pain. So much so that its often more work then worth the products they sell.
I am not in the business of giving bad press to a company either but when someone asks my opinion specifically about a company, I simply refuse to blow smoke up their pant leg and say that more them likely they will get their barrels in the time they are told by ABS, because that is simply untrue. Its a long wait, at times its a big fight and the end result just is really not worth it in my opinion.
When a company takes your deposit payment and you wait a year for the product and then call them back to see what the hell is going on and their comment is, let me know what you ordered and we will get going on it for you, it really take the air out of your sales and the frustration goes through the roof.
So then I have to call my customers who have been asking why their rifle is already several months overdue and I have still not even got the barrel yet and tell them I had to send in the barrel specs for the barrel we ordered over a year ago because they had no idea what we had ordered.......
Customers get ****ed at me and I simply get tired of that because its not in my hands but I have to explain the situation to my customers, they get frustrated and I get the brunt of it.
To be honest, if a customers wants an ABS barrel, I will not say no, I simply tell them to call up ABS and order it themselves and send it to me. I offer all the specs then need to order the barrel and they do it themselves.
The reason I do this is so that the customer can see that its them and not me that is holding their project up twice as long as I said it would take to make.
So while they make great barrels, never had one not easily make my 1/2 moa accuracy requirement, in my opinion, they are not worth the fight and extreme wait to get a barrel. I have yet to get an ABS barrel that I personally ordered in less then 10 months and many are WELL past that amount of time.
Just my opinion and one echoed by many times more then those that say ABS has good customer service. The best way to get a company to get their business in order is to get the customers to demand that they do.
Kirby Allen(50)
