maybe it’s time to lay all the cards on the table. I apologize in advance if this takes longer to read than a tlm vid does to watch, lol
I’ve been reloading as long as I’ve been shooting, not that it matters. since I fell in with mr world champion, and have befriended and hunted with other members of the benchrest club and their rifle builders, I’ve learned they are a snobby bunch when it comes to handloads and rifles. they wouldn’t even let me sit at the same lunch table until I replaced all my dies with the neck bushing types and micrometer bullet seaters. my custom rifle had to have a seater die custom made from the reamer they used to chamber the barrel. all this seemed a little overkill to me, but I’m not opposed to trying new things, even if they’re not broken, lol.
my loads are identical to lawman’s except I use LESS AA2200 than he does. again that doesn’t mean anything since chambers are different. 2,000 of the loads were new brass. powder for every load was weighed with a calibrated electronic scale and verified. until I sent the gun off, I hadn’t had a different powder on the table in months. now I’m not saying it isn’t possible that someone broke into my house and poured a spoonful of bullseye in one of my cases, but no one is going to convince me it happened.
none of this matters because the use of reloads gives the manufacturer a get out of jail free card. however, a call from lawman to the mgr resulted in the mgr emailing me and stating he spoke with lawman (whom I appreciate going to bat for me) and he cc’ed a copy of the email to the two ‘gunsmiths?’, with a link to this thread. now maybe that was just marketing fluff and no one ever looked at this thread, I don’t know. but if they did, they would have known I was using handloads. even if they didn’t, they definitely saw my note with the gun indicating that.
this is where I feel let down. ‘good’ customer support would dictate they notify me right away and inform me they would be happy to inspect/repair my gun, but it would not be covered under warranty, then ask me how to proceed. ‘good’ customer support would have been to return my email requesting a progress report, from which I still haven’t seen a reply, but it’s moot now since the gun is on its way back.
‘great’ customer service, which is what I believed they offered, would have been to perform the inspection and bolt replacement at no charge. the bolt is $150 retail, what’s it cost them? $40… $50 bucks? granted I said I didn’t expect it to be fixed for free, but under the circumstances, ie the praise lwrc has received here and lawman’s support, I had high hopes that I was about to receive ‘great’ service.
all one need do is search 6.8 bolt failure. there is much on this topic, everything from… it doesn’t exist to… it’s a common and well known problem. I’m suspicious about what I read on the internet, but if you look at the sources and are halfway decent at determining credibility, one can glean just enough information from which to render a conclusion; a more reliable one than simply saying… ‘it’s the handload’ without inspecting anything.
I’ve seen ARs that have been blown apart from hot loads... their magazines blown out, mag well flared, bolt stuck etc. as in a civil case, where a verdict must be based on evidence that suggests an outcome was ‘more likely than not’ rather than ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’, I conclude the lugs had been weakening over time and finally broke. I’ll close with the old saying… ‘don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining’