I think I might have made a mistake. Their site looks legit and I ordered a C7/Model 723 clone complete upper from them. I don't have any issue with them taking the time to build it but it appears I did not do my homework as they never answer anyone's email or phone calls.

I mistakenly ordered the wrong bolt carrier with the C7 upper. No idea why they have a slick side bolt carrier option for a forward assist upper. Anyone I mistakenly put that along with my order and been trying to get ahold of them since Friday. I managed to get someone on the phone Friday and he said he could change the order but was heading home for the day and to send him an email and he'll take care of it. So I did and Saturday I hear nothing, Sunday nothing (understanbly since it is Sunday), and now today I've emailed him again and called (this time leaving a message to ask if he could respond).

Anyone has experience with these people? Based on many reviews online, I think I made a terrible mistake and that the upper will not come to me for upwards to a year or possibly longer than that. My beginning experience with their CS seems to be horrible. I understand I might have made an error but I placed the order on my phone and could have swore I put in M16 Hard Chrome carrier as the option but later in an email saw it says slick side carrier.

Update 2/11: I finally got a response from a Patrick who simply said he hasn’t gotten around to it. No actual answer to anything in my email. Literally one sentence response after all this time. I wasted about 2 hours now trying to call and write emails. At this point they have to be at least aware of my issue. Im reading this page https://www.sniperforums.com/forum/misc/43939-top-notch-top-ends.html from years ago and it is eerily similar to what I am experiencing. I’m guessing most people who order don’t actually have any issue like I do so they might not have tried calling and experiencing the horrifying custom service. It must really be a small shop.

Update 4/10: Got my upper today in the mail. Total time was about 2 months on a 3-6 weeks upper. Perhaps not as bad but I don't know if this was expedited because I called or if it was normally. I'll leave it up to the reader to decide. Overall good product.

In! I've been looking at buying parts from them.

Placed two orders with them.  Unbelievably long time to ship.  Months on one order and even then it was partially complete.  Horrible communication.  Eventually got most of both orders.  Will never spend a dime with them again.

This is what I've been reading as well. People buying things from them and waiting months. One guy waited nearly a year and a half. It's unclear what the reason is behind that and I'm a bit hesitant to really fault them for that considering they may be getting the parts as they are ordered and they might be at the mercy of whatever supplier they use.

It stinks that they can't communicate with their customers though. My guess is that it is a one man shop and either he doesn't know how to use tech, or he simply doesn't have the time. I'll try calling him again tomorrow and I guess I'll just have to wait and hope that they change out the carrier.

Stay far away from this company. Let me guess,they already charged your card?If they don't respond in a timely manner just go throught your CC company. Once it get past 30 days that will no longer be an option. TNTE is crapheads IMO.

Thanks for the info. Yes credit charged and the amount is well into the $800 range so I really need to make sure this is a legit business and not some sort of scam. I just called and sent a follow up email last night. Haven’t spoken to a person since Friday but I will give it until Friday then I will submit a bbb complaint and go that route. Not sure if this is a real business or not but the site appears legit and I did purchase a small item (sling) from before which took about two weeks. If the bbb complaint doesn’t get resolved then I’ll go the route of calling my bank.

The BBB is a joke and widely ignored. Go straight to the bank if they don't respond.

This. It is a real business,a real crappily run one.

Okay thanks. I will be calling my bank this Friday if I don’t hear from them. At that time I have to assume this isn’t a legit business if they cannot even respond to simple inquiries.

I ordered a 14.5" A2 upper from them a week ago. I read they are slow to ship but the stuff is supposed to be nice. We shall see when it gets here. The website said 15-30 days for shipping.

I have an update in my first post. I agree that it appears they do a good job based on what I read just really horrible customer service. Everything on this page https://www.sniperforums.com/forum/misc/43939-top-notch-top-ends.html has been what I experienced. I’m hoping my upper comes next month but who knows.

Hopefully both of our orders work out in our favor.

Yep I’ll try to post some pictures. I recently acquired a new lower for this  retro inspired project and very excited.

Bro just file a dispute with your credit card company now and save your self the headache.  Once you wait and it goes past the time your options will be limited and you’re at their mercy. It seems you were already patient with them and they have not been responsive.

I ordered an upper from them and was immediately charged for it and waited almost a month before calling them. The guy I spoke to was rude and tried to tell me they are an 07 FFL holder yet could not build more than one short barreled upper at a time because they only had one sbr registered lower. I called him on this line of BS and requested my order be canceled when he refused I disputed the charge.

Interesting- always wondered about these guys. Looks like one to avoid.

I've seen the link and I appreciate the input. I will look into the company you mentioned.

After careful consideration, it appears the majority of complaints involve the lead time. As I said in my original post, I don't mind the long wait if they can do it well. A lot of folks seem to be very happy with their uppers and I hope I experience the same result. It just seems like their customer service sucks. They don't reply to emails, don't answer phones, and it's impossible to get ahold of them. I'm thinking they must be a very small shop and from what I read, it's a active duty firefighter doing the show. So it may be that he's on the job and then doing this as a hobby, who knows. Either way, it sucks you can't get ahold of these people and I really can't put the blame solely on them as I made an error in my order and trying to correct it.

Waited 3 months for my order,said f it and asked to cancel. Store credit only. Could not do a chargeback because it was 90 days(at least) prior.I was charged for an item they did not even have.Good luck

I'm prepared to wait it out. Hopefully the estimate of 15-30 days for my upper is correct. I'm about 7 days in now. If it takes longer, well I guess it just takes longer.

As an update, I got my stock shipped today. Well they said the label was "printed" but it hasn't actually left the shop.

Haven't heard anything back about my upper though. I'll start bugging them on it mid March when they say it would get done.

TNTE seems to blame everything on them being a small shop. When I tried to email them about my order mishap, they go through each of the excuse: they haven't looked at it yet, they just came back from SHOT show, and they're a small shop. I still don't know if they corrected my order or not. If I get the wrong bolt carrier with my upper from them, it's going back to them in pieces.

I also just learned of TNTE’s reputation after I ordered a few small things last week.
Lucky for me I got tracking info today and it should be here Monday.
I consider myself fortunate and will never order from them again. Too many people have had too many problems.
It’s a shame though because they do have some nice stuff.

Glad to hear you have a tracking number.

I'm sort of on the fence about calling their stuff "nice." I think it makes more logical sense to me that they are ordering the items as they are placed on their website. That would explain the extreme delay over any other explanation even the "small shop" explanation. It seems to me that when you place an order, they then order the item from their suppliers then wait for it to come to them, then ship it to you.

That would be the only logical explanation I can make of their extreme shipping times. It makes no sense to me that a simple butt stock would take nearly 2 weeks to ship unless the first week they are waiting for it from their supplier, then the second week is where they pack it and ship it to their customers.

It's sort of shady to me that they'd do this but regardless they seem to have nice items.

Anyone know how good TNTE’s M16A1 20” barrels are?

They don’t make anything themselves. They order from dpms or delton from their faq page.

Sent them an email today. Apparently what I ordered has an 8+ week wait and not 15-30 days like the listing said. So I'm about halfway.

I just ordered from them yesterday for the first time and got a shipping notification today, some small odds and ends to finish a build (a1 front sight kit, handguards, gas tube). Shipping was a little high but we shall see

Yep, I got my carbine butt stock last week. I'm still waiting on my upper. I'm 4 weeks as well with a 4-6 weeks quote originally but I'm guessing we're going to get ours the same time sometime this year.

I haven't had any issues with them; my upper came in the time period specified without me needing to harass them about it.

That said, I know many people have had problems with them.

Today marks the 6th week since I placed my order for the upper. Starting tomorrow it is considered over the estimated time they quoted me (the website still says 3-6 weeks).

I'm hoping that I don't have to wait over a year to get this upper but that is looking very realistic right now.

TNTE makes a lot of "DO NOT DEAL WITH" lists for a reason.

9/10 orders drag ass. Many items misrepresented, shady vendor all around.

Exactly this - by the word.

Don't even want to see their name written now

Yeah it's unfortunate because when you search for stuff, their website comes up first in google. I wonder if there is a way to complain to google about them?

BBB

They seem to be smart enough to avoid Google association.

Those aren't things people outright read until they have a problem. I rather folks not even have a problem by their website not showing up so high on google.

Googling their company name brings plenty of hits.

It doesn't matter....numerous threads here and across the boards go ignored. Much like Delta Team Tactical/Davidsons/Omega. And then people act surprised.

Yeah I'm guilty of that, unfortunately. However, waiting isn't really a issue for me but being lied to is really a big issue. My first "small shop" order came from Fulton Armory and it took nearly 4 months to make and that was well below their estimated time. So I was happy with that.

I guess reading the reviews it sounds rather like people being impatient but I think the biggest point is these people lie about their estimates and put the blame on factors they can control. Last email I had with them said they came back from shot show but apparently doing that puts all their orders in backlog because they have to "catch up." Why is going to a trade show causes everyone to go into backlog? Is going to this show really more important than fulfilling orders? It sounds to me like they need to really adjust their estimate and just say, "we'll get to it when we get to it."

They don't have any parts on hand.  They use buyers money to obtain parts,  then build / ship.  Most buyers could do better with limited knowledge and local gunsmith if they can't build it themselves and have better parts too.  Buyer already has the money.   If unable to shop or build paying their fees might work.  I'd personally rather have something at least worth the value of parts used in build and not pay a huge profit margin for delays and take what's ever available at the time.  Their market is the unknowing and plenty of that still out there.  No one with any real AR platform knowledge would even think of using them.  Not like they have a good deal on anything.

All it takes is shortage of one part and buyers get nothing until parts become available.  They are still doing the Obama shit and praying on the not so informed.  Notice most don't come an ask until they haven't received the service they are used to receiving from most any other vendor out there.  Sellers like that open the door for the Delta's and such.  Who could do any worse and still deliver the goods.

I think you're absolutely correct about them ordering the parts as they come in. Their excuses don't really make logical sense until you think that maybe they are actually ordering the parts then shipping it to you. I'm not sure how I feel about this but I think most people would agree that their estimates are way off. Even if they order parts, it still doesn't quite make sense about their extreme lead times.

I guarantee you it will be a DSA barrel if not specified. They told me for a month "O we like to use Green Mountain barrels" multiple times before I ordered, and I was very clear with them this is what I wanted, come to find out that was not what they sent me. Honestly I don't even think they did the FSB install, just pinned the flash hider, and they might not have even done that.

Waited almost 2 months to get my barrel.

I will not purchase anything from them again.

~Josh

Was your bbl DSA stamped?

Well I'm still waiting for it so I can't say one way or the other what I will get. However if this is the barrel I receive with my upper, I won't feel cheated. So long as it's a non F height fsb.

https://www.dsarms.com/p-11686-dsa-ar15-145-chrome-lined-m4-17-twist-556-nato-barrel-with-sight-tower.aspx

The ZM4 bbls are good shooters IME.

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Not surprising in the least.  

Alright, I called my bank and they told me I can dispute the charge whenever I like. I told them I'd like to resolve it with TNTE before I go ahead with a charge dispute. I haven't heard back from the email I sent them, and I will give them until Monday night which I will then consider that they are not processing orders any longer and will want my money back.

Patrick did end up calling me back on the subject and explained they are down to 2 people in the office. He did say he's unsure when he might be able to ship things since the distributors are closed as well and they got so much orders to fulfill.

I think he was being honest and I guess our stuff is in complete limbo. My guess is that it's going to be pushed out to end of year.

I must have gotten lucky.Didn't do any research.
Just checked, ordered on 12/28/19 and I got my A1 bbl assy before the end January.

Funny how fast a chargeback threat snaps people to attention.


2 choices. Wait it out or get your money back. Your decision ultimately.

I won't get into the full conversation but Patrick did say he would look into getting it out soon. However, I have read stories online from other folks who seem to had a similar situation where they called and were told "next week" and turned out into months. So I'm not sure how I'll take it but at this point I have no choice but to believe. I know the COVID-19 puts everyone in an extreme situation, but this isn't like I ordered this during the outbreak and want it "right now." I placed this earlier this year and waited well after the proposed processing time and then nearly three weeks after. Matter of fact, you could say the end of my proposed timeframe would mark the start of the mass panic buying and shutdowns. So I think I gave it the maximum processing time, and plus about 2 1/2 weeks after before I started to call. I guess what I'm trying to get at is what happened during the near month and a half prior to the outbreak? Could someone really be so backed up that they can't even determine if they're able to complete something on time? That seems a bit strange to me and honestly I think such a person would have immense stress because they're constantly having a backlog and having to deal with very (understandably) angry customers. I think I would either limit how much order can go into my system so it doesn't create a backlog or at least take off the processing time and just put on the website that it'll get done when it gets done.

Honestly these sort of things make me feel bad. On one hand I understand a lot of people experience problems so I don't want to rush them, but at the same time it's one of my pet peeves to be told something then it never happening and never hearing about it again. I just hope this can be resolved but yeah, I guess some folks just put in an order and don't mind waiting after the proposed timeframe they're told to wait.

A bit of final update. I had my upper shipped out early this week and got it in the mail today. I'm fairly happy with the resolution but hopefully TNTE will better communicate with people who purchase uppers or other goods at least once past the deadline they proposed. I think that would help a lot of confused and upset people especially with the many reviews online. I might put another order in with them later on after all this pandemic stuff go over but this time will fully understand how they operate.