BARTLEIN BARRELS CUSTOMER SERVICE EXPERIENCE

[Frank Green]

The bigger question is the 400MOD just
marketing hype or is it to hard for magnums using high temp powders. Can I cook one using 570 in a standard 300 RUM?

@Frank Green


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Put some of this in context. All of the test barrels we made and sent to ammunition and bullet makers all came back with no negatives.

The very first one we made went to an ammunition/bullet maker and the caliber was 6.5CM. Normally on p&v (pressure and velocity) test barrels which also can be used for accuracy have an average barrel life of only 1700 rounds. Give or take a few. That barrel went 3400+ before they seen any issues with it. They ran another +100 rounds thru it to confirm what they were seeing, and the barrel was considered toast and it was pulled from service.

We have a different ammo/bullet maker that every barrel they order in a rifle caliber they are buying the BB material and paying for it. Not just one or two. They will order 10 at a time in calibers ranging from 223 to 308w, 6.5CM or 300wm etc... not a single complaint or phone call back with a problem. Now all of their pistol caliber test barrels they are buying standard SS material barrels. Why... pistol barrel in like 45acp could go 90k rounds before its junk. So, in the case of the pistol barrels, they can't justify the cost for the BB material.

 

[Frank Green]

At times you have to put yourself in our shoes. Where do you draw the line?

What should we do when a shooter is making up his own duplex loads (mixing powders) and calls and says the barrel doesn't shoot or that it prematurely died. Let alone he's running an 80gr powder charge of his own concoction down a 300wm barrel.

Wildcat chambers, powder charges or custom powders with no load data, how it's getting cleaned or lack of maintenace, damage from cleaning, custom made bullets that don't shoot.... the list can go on.

So where do you draw the line?

Later, Frank
Bartlein Barrels

 

[Frank Green]

The barrel came in and Brady worked on it/did the initial inspection. Not making excuses but here is some more info on the timeline etc... right around that time.... on short notice not just Brady but Mark here had to have pretty much emergency surgeries. That took them out for a couple of weeks. That left me and Brad in the office for orders, phone calls, emails amongst other things. Then I was off on vacation in early August.

So, my apologies for the time involved as well. It's not what we like, and I know a customer doesn't like it either.

When Brady looked at the barrel in question, he knew the final call wasn't going to rest with him. He needed me involved.

In standard steel and BB steel we've seen issues with the +P chamber stuff.

Slice and dice it all you want. Cutting half the land height away from the throat and in this case we we're told the throat was lengthened .750" and running a 100gr of powder down the bore of a 30cal. I can only imagine what is going to happen.

Maybe the designer of the +P chamber stuff should warranty the barrels? There is no data anywhere in terms of pressure and velocities and barrel life and safety etc... that has been done by any ammunition or bullet maker with +P chambers. So to my knowledge no hard data to back anything up. It's custom... it's wildcat stuff.

Just like cleaning.... maybe the guy that came up with a new liquid cleaner and they are mixing in Iosso bore paste should not just stand behind the cleaner but should stand behind the barrel when there is cleaning damage. I won't even get into the guy chucking his cleaning rod in a cordless drill and cleaning the barrel and the damage that causes.

In the end I offered the owner of the barrel in question one for half off.

Later, Frank

 

[TaperPin]

Many of us appreciate your candor in interviews and posts you’ve made here and elsewhere. Straight talk about issues makes me appreciate your company more than just the great shooting results of barrels.

Making aerospace-quality parts and selling to the general public in the age of decades of abuse of Costco/Amazon/EBay returns can’t be easy. Not everyone wants you to shell out free barrels to whomever has the best story or is the squeakiest wheel - leave that business model to someone else. Rather than charity to the barrel burners, I’d rather my money goes to the company and employees.

Keep up the good work and you’re at the top of the list for my next barrel order.

 

[Frank Green]

Many of us appreciate your candor in interviews and posts you’ve made here and elsewhere. Straight talk about issues makes me appreciate your company more than just the great shooting results of barrels.

Making aerospace-quality parts and selling to the general public in the age of decades of abuse of Costco/Amazon/EBay returns can’t be easy. Not everyone wants you to shell out free barrels to whomever has the best story or is the squeakiest wheel - leave that business model to someone else. Rather than charity to the barrel burners, I’d rather my money goes to the company and employees.

Keep up the good work and you’re at the top of the list for my next barrel order.

Thanks!

At times and I'll be honest we've replaced things when we knew there was absolutely nothing wrong. Maybe it was a gut feeling maybe it was because there was truly nothing wrong with the barrel that we could see or measure or in how it shot where we shot it personally.

A good example is the local swat team. We build and maintain all of their rifles. The LT asked me one day to go shooting with them during training as one of the team guys was convinced his barrel was bad. I said sure. Even brought one of my rifles along. Any chance to go shooting works for me!
I watch the guy shoot the rifle. Yep, he's blowing shots around on the target. Looks at me and says, "SEE.... it's bad!" So, I get on the rifle prone/bipod at 200 yards and shoot back-to-back groups with box ammo just under an inch for group sizes. I shrugged my shoulders. Then the LT who is not a shooter said let me try it.... he hammers a nice group down range. He looks at the deputy and says... "what's wrong with it?" All the guy says is no... it's F'd up and I'm not using the rifle! Keep in mind he had already been shooting it for several months after the rebuild and now just all of a sudden, it's no good. So, I told them to bring it in when they didn't need it and we replaced the barrel but I'm telling ya... there was nothing wrong with it.

 

[Tumbleweed]

The barrel came in and Brady worked on it/did the initial inspection. Not making excuses but here is some more info on the timeline etc... right around that time.... on short notice not just Brady but Mark here had to have pretty much emergency surgeries. That took them out for a couple of weeks. That left me and Brad in the office for orders, phone calls, emails amongst other things. Then I was off on vacation in early August.

So, my apologies for the time involved as well. It's not what we like, and I know a customer doesn't like it either.

When Brady looked at the barrel in question, he knew the final call wasn't going to rest with him. He needed me involved.

In standard steel and BB steel we've seen issues with the +P chamber stuff.

Slice and dice it all you want. Cutting half the land height away from the throat and in this case we we're told the throat was lengthened .750" and running a 100gr of powder down the bore of a 30cal. I can only imagine what is going to happen.

Maybe the designer of the +P chamber stuff should warranty the barrels? There is no data anywhere in terms of pressure and velocities and barrel life and safety etc... that has been done by any ammunition or bullet maker with +P chambers. So to my knowledge no hard data to back anything up. It's custom... it's wildcat stuff.

Just like cleaning.... maybe the guy that came up with a new liquid cleaner and they are mixing in Iosso bore paste should not just stand behind the cleaner but should stand behind the barrel when there is cleaning damage. I won't even get into the guy chucking his cleaning rod in a cordless drill and cleaning the barrel and the damage that causes.

In the end I offered the owner of the barrel in question one for half off.

Later, Frank

When can I expect to receive my old barrel back Frank? Thanks

 

[Frank Green]

Shipping was sitting on it as he was told by Brady to wait in case we needed to do something else with it.

If it doesn't make shipping today it will go tomorrow. I think it will make it today. They pick up here anytime now.

Later, Frank

 

[Bomberodevil]

Thanks!

At times and I'll be honest we've replaced things when we knew there was absolutely nothing wrong. Maybe it was a gut feeling maybe it was because there was truly nothing wrong with the barrel that we could see or measure or in how it shot where we shot it personally.

A good example is the local swat team. We build and maintain all of their rifles. The LT asked me one day to go shooting with them during training as one of the team guys was convinced his barrel was bad. I said sure. Even brought one of my rifles along. Any chance to go shooting works for me!
I watch the guy shoot the rifle. Yep, he's blowing shots around on the target. Looks at me and says, "SEE.... it's bad!" So, I get on the rifle prone/bipod at 200 yards and shoot back-to-back groups with box ammo just under an inch for group sizes. I shrugged my shoulders. Then the LT who is not a shooter said let me try it.... he hammers a nice group down range. He looks at the deputy and says... "what's wrong with it?" All the guy says is no... it's F'd up and I'm not using the rifle! Keep in mind he had already been shooting it for several months after the rebuild and now just all of a sudden, it's no good. So, I told them to bring it in when they didn't need it and we replaced the barrel but I'm telling ya... there was nothing wrong with it.

Frank, I’m an off-the-shelf rifleman, and I’m not sure I’ll ever order a custom rifle with one of your barrels. But I think you’ve provided good customer service here and your offer for a replacement barrel at 50% off was more than generous. I imagine if I buy a 2023 F-350, delete the emission stuff, put a performance tuner on it and blow the engine in 30K miles, the dealer isn’t going to warranty it. In mechanical engineering, there’s rarely if ever free speed or performance. Something has to give. Thanks for your replies on the various shooting sites, you seem like a good businessman.

 

[Frank Green]

That language falls into the “unclear.”

And I’m not certain it’s relevant anyway. His barrel wasn’t a prefit, so it had to be chambered anyway by a smith. OP just had it chambered +p.

If you’re going to deny +p, you need to state that.

I'm not picking on ATMAT here but I'm going to branch off a little bit on the +P chamber and wildcat chamber stuff along with some Saami chamber stuff. I'm going to give everyone food for thought and again it's what I/we see on stuff and in this case things that are saami spec or partially saami spec so some might consider it a normal thing but it possibly is not or teeters on it being abnormal depending on how you look at it. In no random order....

22 Creedmoor.... brass is available from makers but at least till now to my knowledge no box ammo is available. I asked one ammo maker face to face at Shot Show one year are you going to make box ammo? They said NO. I asked why.... they said they see nothing but problems coming down the road if they do and they don't want to deal with it. They did plenty of ammo testing to make that decision.

So calibers like 22CM and 6.5PRC that are being used by shooters in PRS.... come up to me and say.... I've got a problem. Ok what's up? I'm blowing up bullets and the barrel only has like 200 rounds on it. This is day 2 of the match....the previous day they fired a 120 rounds on the barrel. I have to ask all the questions. Then I ask.... did you clean the gun last night? The answer I normally get back is no. My comeback is.... that's your problem and is what is causing the failure. You don't put 200+ rounds on the gun in two days.... problems are going to happen. Or even if they don't blow up any bullets the accuracy is suffering. I've seen 6.5PRC barrels so fouled in like 300 rounds from not cleaning you couldn't see the grooves of the rifling back at the chamber end of the barrel.

So we did do a real few 22CM installs for customers (probably less than 6) but I'm not doing anymore.

26 and 28 Nosler..... I call the 26.... 26Stupid and one maker calls it 26Why. When I get feedback from a ammo/bullet maker making new load data for they're new loading manual they are coming out with and tell me it burned the barrels so fast that they could not get any reliable data out of it and decided not to put it in the loading manual. I had a powder maker send me pics of a 26 Nosler test barrel and asked me to guess the caliber and how many rounds on it. I said 300WM with 800 rounds. They said no....26 Nosler at a 110 rounds. They thru the barrel away at 449 rounds. The 28 Nosler the one ammo place barely got enough rounds thru the barrels to put loading data in they're manual and they where on the fence about doing that even. After about 10 fittings on 28 Nosler for customers here... I pulled the plug on us doing any install work on 28 Nosler. Half the guys rant and raved about it and the other half bitched about it. The 26 Nosler from day one I refused to do any installs for customers. I know the phone is going to ring with a problem.

277SF.... operating that at 80k psi and you want to keep the barrel in peak accuracy configuration.... you will need to clean the barrel after every 20 rounds fired. I'm not making that up. That's hard data. From a machinegun/combat gun point of view and accuracy not a big deal most likely but some guy wanting to build a hunting rifle or match rifle with this round.... I've told all the guys here in the office. Not happening. I won't do it. Yes at this time the 80k psi ammo is suppose to only be available to the military and the commercial ammo will be downloaded to what are suppose to be normal levels. I'll guarantee though....some guy isn't going to like the box ammo at 2800fps and will take to reloading it to get the 3000+fps mil spec. but he will have no clue as to what pressure the ammo is running at. Fouling will be an issue, along with barrel life, accuracy etc....

You can use your own thoughts on similar calibers to the ones above. Also even calibers like 300WM when a guy is loading 80gr of powder in a saami spec chamber and I've seen pressure test data that tells me exactly that his load is running over 72k psi...one it's a safety thing, two excessive pressures will also cause accuracy issues and not just with 300WM. The pressure is so high when the bullet leaves the barrel that it's actually tipping the bullet up more and the bullet is having a harder time to recover or possibly even not recover and accuracy suffers.

We won't do fittings on a Savage action or a Rem. 700 action in calibers like 338 Lapua. I'm going to tell you border line safety issues. Everything is at it's limits. You want a 338 Lapua... buy a AI rifle or a Impact action with the 1.125" receiver threads as well as that lets run a bigger breech diameter. One is safety and the other reason is for functionality. AI even seen issues with the older AW's they made in 338 Lapua that's why they redesigned the rifle for the bigger breech thread. Everything was stretching/moving around more with that big case and the smaller diameters on the barrels.

Later, Frank

 

[Frank Green]

The bigger question is the 400MOD just
marketing hype.....

@Frank Green


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Here is some other data and this relates to 277SF and 80k psi pressure....

The steel case head/two piece case design and running the rounds at 80k psi.... the 400modBB material has stood up better vs standard s.s. or c.m. barrels to the chambers getting rings in them where that steel/brass shoulder junction is. I've got pictures with measurements where that ring starts to show at like a 110 rounds. By 500+ rounds that ring is about a .001" deep and by 700+ rounds the ring had grown to almost .002" and extraction issues where starting to happen.

Also lets look at 6.5PRC.... ammo makers have burned up barrels in as little as 400 rounds..... the longest ones last about 900 rounds. That's standard S.S. So lets say an average of 650 rounds for barrel life. Dave here in the shop one of his rifles is in 6.5PRC for PRS. With the BB material at about 900+ rounds he had one bullet failure. He asked me to look at the barrel and for my thoughts. I said the lands at the throat don't look bad but the carbon fouling is bad. Clean it real good (Dave does know how to clean). I looked at it again. I said nope.... either clean it again or give it a light finish lap. So he did the latter. Took about 90% of the carbon fouling out. Barrel shot with no issues with no bullet failures but at just shy of 1200 rounds he pulled the barrel. He knows he is on borrowed time. So based on the average for a standard SS barrel you could say Dave's barrel went a good 1/3 to double the life longer. I'll be conservative and say a 1/3 longer.

Some of these chambers/rounds being used there is no free lunch.

Some guys think because it's suppose to last longer that that translates into "I don't have to clean it as much!". No you still have to clean it.

Later, Frank

 

[atmat]

I'm not picking on ATMAT here

Just so you know, I don’t feel picked on. I do appreciate that you’re taking the time to respond and address questions here.

 

[Frank Green]

Just so you know, I don’t feel picked on. I do appreciate that you’re taking the time to respond and address questions here.

I just wanted you to make sure you knew I wasn't picking on ya! That's all.

Just trying to answer questions and put somethings in perspective for everyone. That's all.

 

[Gingerman]

@Tumbleweed - It is important to take advice from disinterested parties. For instance, me telling you to take the 50% offer for another barrel. It's a great offer for what's happened. We can all get wrapped up in emotion and make it blind us. I worked for a very fair, smart, and respected judge. He would tell people, "Not even I would represent myself in my own legal case!" His rationale was emotions would/could hamper the logic and strategies. (40yrs of being a lawyer, 20yrs of which a Judge)

In summary, get a new blank at half cost, and get your old barrel sent back to you. I think that is the best outcome.

 

[Tumbleweed]

@Tumbleweed - It is important to take advice from disinterested parties. For instance, me telling you to take the 50% offer for another barrel. It's a great offer for what's happened. We can all get wrapped up in emotion and make it blind us. I worked for a very fair, smart, and respected judge. He would tell people, "Not even I would represent myself in my own legal case!" His rationale was emotions would/could hamper the logic and strategies. (40yrs of being a lawyer, 20yrs of which a Judge)

In summary, get a new blank at half cost, and get your old barrel sent back to you. I think that is the best outcome.

Buddy, that ship has sailed and I've already explained why. Regardless of whether the barrel was replaced or not, I had a poor customer experience with very poor communication. As stated before, I felt somewhat insulted and essentially called a liar. That's red zone for me and I will not do business with a company like that again, ever. I'm just happy that my barrel is on the way back so I can do some in stock measurements in order to get another barrel on order.

 

[JohnJohnson]

Thanks for the elaboration, Frank. Bartlein is on an extremely short list of companies that I just flat out trust no matter what. Only barrels I'll use.

 

[wind gypsy]

I'm guessing this means Frank wouldn't be a proponent of a .22 SAUM improved?

 

[wind gypsy]

Buddy, that ship has sailed and I've already explained why. Regardless of whether the barrel was replaced or not, I had a poor customer experience with very poor communication. As stated before, I felt somewhat insulted and essentially called a liar. That's red zone for me and I will not do business with a company like that again, ever. I'm just happy that my barrel is on the way back so I can do some in stock measurements in order to get another barrel on order.

I know it's a principle thing but.. I'll give ya $300 for a bartlein #3 in .224 bore, 7.5 twist that you paid half price for.

 

[Steve300xcw]

Where do you draw the line?

That is a hard question. No matter where you draw that line somebody is going to be on the wrong side of it and they will be upset. It is what it is, and they will get over it eventually

Offering a new one up at 1/2 price is beyond fair.

 

[5811]

Buddy, that ship has sailed and I've already explained why. Regardless of whether the barrel was replaced or not, I had a poor customer experience with very poor communication. As stated before, I felt somewhat insulted and essentially called a liar. That's red zone for me and I will not do business with a company like that again, ever. I'm just happy that my barrel is on the way back so I can do some in stock measurements in order to get another barrel on order.

I had a tough time getting ahold them earlier this year, as well. But once I got through and learned about some of the reasons they were a little short staffed in the office, I tried to be understanding. When I dropped my firearm off for work prior to that, Brady gave me a tour of the shop and introduced me to some guys. Its not some huge operation with a room full of customer service agents at cubicles. Its just a shop full of guys that have talent and passion, and when one or two have health issues, I can see why some emails slip through.

Now if you feel like they called you a liar, then youve got to move forward in a way thats right by you. No one can make that decision for you. No one should tolerate that. But be careful in making those accusations while saying "essentially" because that carries a lot of weight for some people.

 

[Gingerman]

I know it's a principle thing but.. I'll give ya $300 for a bartlein #3 in .224 bore, 7.5 twist that you paid half price for.

Hey, I was lining him up to get that 50%!