Hey guys, wanted to put this out there. I got lucky some months back when Brownells was selling assembled Colt lowers for $250, and I wanted to put a good rifle together for my pops, so I ordered it. The idea was to go all out and build him a true as could be M4A1 clone, right down to the ACOG. I had about 4 months to get it ready, but as the recent gun scare kicked off I couldn't find the Colt Socom upper I was looking for anywhere except a company called Charlies Custom Clones, but they charged $1,300 for it. Eventually I decided to just cough up the extra dough and order it from them, I could see where they had a very good rating on gun broker, so I took a shot and ordered off of their webpage. The upper looked pretty good in their pictures, had an M4 RAS already on it, pinned 14.5 Socom barrel, flip up rear, and even the side sling swivel. To top it all off I was going to snap on my Tango Down fore grip from Iraq and really make it a sentimental piece, all was well with the world (except my wallet).

About five days after placing the order (and 7 days before my pops got into town from where he lives) I hadn't received any kind of shipping notification from them, so I gave them a call. After three attempts at different times of the day I spoke with what sounded like an older gentleman, and I told him what the upper was for, that I was on a bit of a time crunch, and asked how the order was going. He told me that the upper was "Sitting in the back waiting to be taken off a rifle," that he would have it out to me soon, and that "We're up in Virginia, so shipping won't take long.' Relieved I let that be what it was and trusted it would be shipped within a day or two at the most. WRONG.

Five more days goes by and still no shipping notification, this left me two days before my Dad showed up. So, I called them again, speaking to the same gentleman. He told me that the upper had not shipped yet, but would soon because they (its a family shop) were going on vacation in a couple of days, and they were going to process all their orders before they left. So, I was again just left there hoping that by some miracle of God this thing would show up before my Dad did so that I could surprise him with it, which was wishful thinking.

On the last full day of my Dad being in town the big brown santa finally shows up at my door with the upper. So, I sneak into the garage, open the box, snap it onto the lower, and....WTF....the charging handle won't retract. The culprit? No firing pin or retaining pin. Insult to injury...theres no front sling swivel either, there are marks where one was mounted, but the swivel is gone. In emailing the company (they were on vacation, so the phones were a no go) I explained the issues I was having, no firing pin, retaining pin, or front sling swivel. They actually got back to me pretty quick, and told me they would send a replacement firing pin and retaining pin, but would not send a side sling swivel as it was an "option" (I have pictures proving thats a lie).

I waited to write this to see what they would do, hoping they would make it right, but no dice. It's been almost three weeks since that happened, and I have had the replacement parts they sent me for a couple days now...a firing pin...and a retaining pin...no sling swivel. Checking their website they have since changed how that particular listing is showed, adding an extra order option for the swivel and some other parts, read CYA. If anyone would like a photograph of the original listing or the email string I'd be happy to provide it.

Take all that with a grain of salt if y'all want too, but I'm not going back. I just won't patronize a company that will mislead and lie to customers, and wanted to put this out there for you guys, so you don't get burned too.

EDIT:

Just saw they removed the feedback I left where I laid this all out on their webpage. So there's really no telling what else they have hidden up to this point.

EDIT #2:

Shortly after making this post Charles contacted me. They asked me to reconsider, stating they were not trying to be deceptive. But, I told them that I disagreed and stood by what I said, that advertising one thing and delivering another was not acceptable. After that email Charlies decided to send me the sling swivel, and it arrived today along with some Steiner rings.

So, in conclusion they did decide to make me whole after all of this. I assume the scope rings were the attempt to make up for what happened. I'm still not thrilled with everything that happened to finally get the pieces I ordered all that time ago, but I can appreciate their attempt.

Yes. Very similar to that post the other day. Hmm

I checked out their site a while back and was keeping them in mind for future orders, but when I saw their bullshit price on colt fbi 11.5 barrels when they came in stock, I won't ever order anything from them.  Just a bullshit, gouging price.  A "bundle of sticks" price, if you will.

Yeah I looked at their website ONCE. couldn’t believe the mark ups

I mean.. no side sling swivel is one thing... But $1300 and its missing parts!!! WTF

For 1300 it better come with a russian bride in the box or something

Also there are a couple of things that seem a little sketchy to me... for clone correctness wise- like they post there arms #22 rings with a picture with the one with no lever stops, which is a very sought after item in the clone world but then they specifically put a little not at the bottom that they are actually ones with lever stops. Its like they know they will get money by misleading.

I'd never heard of this place until reading this thread. I'll admit, there are some pretty cool items there....But good God he sure is proud of them! That was a good chunk of change you dropped to have it missing parts. I hope this works out for you OP.

He missed out on the raping of the Sandy Hook gun scare, and now he's gonna get his fortune

I think he actually has an account here.  He does on TOS.  longshot2000 or something similar i think

I hesitate to interject, but this thread is very upsetting to me personally.

I don't know what TOS is, but yes, the owner is longshot2000 on a few forums.  Maybe here too.   Charlie's is a family business and new and very straight forward.  I am related to the owner, and this is start-up.  Charlie's was quite successful as a local business and also on Gunbroker.  The business stated to boom, and I had some time and came to help for a few months, as the gun business got out of hand busy.

I am not sure about OP problem, I am hoping it got fixed, and if it did, that he might so advise.  I came from out of state to help as Feb and Mar were very busy.  I am sure that getting orders out the door, some mistakes were made.  The owner also shutdown over Easter for a family break.  I am sure some items also got delayed.

I can assure everyone here that there is nothing shady, and I am dissapointed at some of you that add your 2-c without any direct knowledge.  The owner is celebrating the Police and veterans and is sending Thin Blue Line hats free to customers and will soon be sending out military shirts from Nine Line.  He has developed dealership relationship with many, many high-end rifle manufacturers and scope companies and put a lot of money into inventory to sell the right stuff, and also focuses on military correct weapons.  I am just guessing, but I think it is not easy to be a dealer for Colt, Knights, Nightforce, Schmidt& Bender, Daniel Defense and so forth.

What is the bullshit comment on the #22 rings ?  Everyone knows that ARMS does not even produce the older hump-free rings.  Some of you just look to piss on people, and throw gasoline on a fire.  If any of you have ever worked in a small business, you know how hard it is, and mistakes are made.  I called the owner this morning.  He tells me he has 800 new customers since he opened his Website in January, and there is one post here about a mistake, and you all jump on it.  I also know that Charlies has stuff that you cannot find elsewhere, and on the stuff he has that can be gotten elsewhere, it is high quality.

I want to hear more from OP.  Sounds like an outlier, and if OP wants to PM me, I will take his comments to the owner and make sure he fixes anything outstanding.  I personally dealt with a problem with a customer from NY, and it seemed like everything I did and Charlie did went wrong.  Sometimes that just happens, so he sent him a tool to help him fix it and then refunded his money for the part that did not work.  It happens.  It happened to Mark LaRue when he started out.

Another of you is pointing out how expensive the Colt barrel is.  Where can you buy the barrel in question?  I am not sure which one you are talking about.  I am sure some items are expensive.  Many of the items Charlie has are out of stock everywhere.  Nice, Tig.  You bought a barrel for under $200.  Where can you buy another one?  I know that Charlies worked hard to find some barrels from Colt that nobody can get.  You want to know how -- he told Colt he would buy what they have, and Colt's prices are high.  So what?  Shop A sells a banana for $1, and Shop B sells it for $2.  Shop A is always out of stock.  Shop B has bananas.

Anyway, I dont want to rant anymore.   It cuts too close to home.  I wont post anymore, but sometimes someone needs to stand-up for idle gossip.

Devon

IN.

Sorry OP to hear about your experience.  I hope when you do get things sorted out your father enjoys his new rifle.  That's a really nice and thoughtful gift.  Thank you for posting this the way that you did, as a PSA.  I am a sucker for the Colt Pony.  I hope this gets sorted out for you.

This does not strike me as idle gossip at all. It sounds to me like your homie got in over his head, over promised, under delivered, and when called on it basically told OP "tough shit".

I hope you are correct and the situation can be remedied, but unless the OP is lying - and I can't see any reason why that would be the case - it sounds like your buddy blew it.

Changing the product page to reflect the swivel swing as an option AFTER OP bought then lying about it is the epitome of shady. Your relative sounds like a dishonest thief.

Edit: Thanks for the warning OP. Hope it works out for you in the end and I won't buy from them.

Yes—caveat emptor.

He claims Colt is using shorter taper pins (by 0.07”) on a barrel I bought from him, which took damn near 2 months to get.

Folks on TOS had problems with delays, incomplete work, short taper pins & very slow refunds...

It’s too bad that shysters seem to gravitate to the gun world.

ETA: I am speaking as a dissatisfied customer via GunBroker.  Won’t buy from him again, nor recommend him.

TOS = M4.com

Here is what he said, I have redacted email addresses, but happy to provide to anyone.

I can tell you that the time I spent working with him it was crazy busy, but he is very honest.  I think it is one thing to say you have a problem, but another to call someone a liar.  That is not fair.

Re: I am concerned about an ARFcom post
Charlie’s []
Sent: 12:49 pm
To:
Devon:

First thanks for all your help in the last few months.

Well, I just sent him a note as well. I think we have fixed everything. We sent a little extra with his parts. Also, we gave him $150 off his next visit. Seemed like a sincere guy.

His facts are pretty close to true. Can not argue. We screwed up his bolt. We rushed to get out the door a ton of orders and we tested and cleaned his bolt and did not put it back together. We had 123 orders, I am not 100%, but I think his was the only mistake. We had a night team in getting Santa’s gifts out the door, so we could close the doors for Easter week.

We learned from that in a few ways. One is that we need better QA inspection at the end of the process. Haste makes Waste.

I think you saw this when you were here. I scan make a list of things that have worked well and things we still need to improve upon.

Shit, there are a bunch we need to do better, but integrity is not one.

The customer is wrong about us lying. We did not lie about anything.

He pointed out that he felt our listing was deceiving about the side sling. I thought it was very clear to me: it said something like sling loop was optional, click here to order. But, given his feedback, our web guy changed the format. Feedback is important. The reason we took it off initially, was we had a dozen or people say they didn’t want it, and wanted a lower price.

Devon, this guy seems like he wants the right thing. We did not fully meet expectations. I answered his email while we were away on our family break. It took a while before we were back and could send him his parts.

I think not meeting expectations (admit) and “mislead[ing] and l[ying] to customers (deny) are different. Hopefully he can correct that statement.

I still think we owe him more. It was quite an inconvenience for him. He can return the upper for a full refund, postage paid, or suggest what else we can do.

These other guys, BNW and Tigwelder, do you know them? They are talking out of their rear-end. We ordered these barrels from Colt and cost an arm and a leg. We have 349 people signed up for a barrel, and our prices are $469 to $489. Brownells sold them for $419, but are OOS. G&R has them listed for $369, but it looks like all of his Colt barrels are OOS. Arms Unlimited does not stock it, but also has lots of OOS barrels. Specialized Arms has 11.5” barrels listed for $695 to $795.

Keep up the faith. Tell those guys they all are invited to make their first purchase at $50 off. They just out in code AR15 and spend more than $149, get $50 off and free shipping. The first 20 people get the $50 off, just for AR15.com

We need 20 new customers, then, let them post a review. If we get 100 new customers, maybe we will sponsor AR15.com, like we are going to do at Snipers Hide.

Sales Team
CHARLIE’s Custom Clones
http://charliescustomclones.com
> On Apr 18, 2018, at 3:12 PM,   wrote:
>
> Hey,
>
> Do you know this guy, SCHROEDUM. He is saying you fucked him over and puting it on AR15.com
>
> https://www.ar15.com/forums/general/PSA-Charlies-Custom-Clones/5-2102608/?r=71982682&page=1&anc=71982682#i71982682
>
> Devon

I hope this works out for OP and the vendor in question.

It’s one thing to charge higher prices(‘merica), be slow to ship, send incomplete orders etc... All of that can be explained, justified, and forgiven.

But once you step into the realm of changing item descriptions after a fuck up, and removing negative reviews because it’s in your power to do so, that’s when you step into toothandnail territory.

It will turn out poorly, except for the memes... they could be glorious.

If he really wants to make it right why not just send OP his sling mount?

Bullshit.

They were peddling Colt monolith barrels which had the chamber extension replaced with a regular AR-15 chamber extension by a third party.  There is no reliable way to perform this modification.

They were also selling new "Colt" M203 barrels about 4 months ago.  I inquired about them.  I asked if he could prove the provenance of them.  I already knew the answer.  I never got a straight answer from them, yet they wanted 2x more than a barrel purchased from LMT.

There is some stuff on their website that is genuine.  This is the stuff that anyone can order from a number of vendors.

Anything that is collectable they advertise is suspect.  I own all of the OEM rare stuff they sell, I know the difference between it and a fake or non OEM alternative.

So why put the wrong picture then down the page put a little note stating that the picture is the one that everyone is looking for but not the one they are selling???

Now it's a party.

Oh boy!

In on this!

703 phone.  Where are they?  Must be local to NOVA, but I've never heard of them or seen at the nations gun show.

That's a good coupon code discount, but I'm done playing games with family owned businesses that get in over their head and are quick to remind everyone as part of their problem resolution that they support LE/Military.

"we're just a small family business" - check
"yeah, we made some mistakes, but not on purpose" - check
"we're closing to go on vacation" - check

Only thing this is missing is "veteran owned" plastered in the homepage.

I was offered credit to buy more stuff and wait, and wait......and wait......to see if it shows up or is assembled correctly.

Think about that: why would I give more money to someone who hosed me and ignored emails?

Questionable parts, questionable communication & practice.

But yes, they support LEO & uber-ninjas.

Maybe the OP is a one off situation but I know I won’t buy from you guys ever because of this emotional rant you posted up. If you guys are doing well I would recommend you hire a PR person fast because you suck balls at it.

Not my business.  The emotional rant is about people who are taking time out of their day to piss on a  family member who have no direct knowledge of the facts.  The business owner's post is much more measured than mine.  What is more productive than sucking balls is maybe a community of gun owners not throwing their own to the wolves so quickly.  We all have enough wolves at the door.  

Dude don’t have such a short fuse.

If that were my business I’d send him the sling swivel and shirt. I ordered from Noveske. Item Came with a giant gouge. They fixed it, and offered me cerakote service for free and send me a t shirt. Which I was stoked about. I told like 100 people. But I told them how great Noveskes CS was. I see you’re trying to stand up for a family member and I get that. But when someone finds this thread, instead of the OP saying “hey to took care of me and made it right” they are going to see you losing your cool. Businesses like that don’t survive long. Doesn’t matter how many RIS rails you have in stock.

Olympic Cerakote Lite or what?

Maybe it's just me, but everything about this company screams unprofessional: from the cutesy product descriptions, to the blown deadlines; shady practices like removing feedback, editing product pages and misrepresenting product photos; to the entire way they have responded to this situation. As well, I'd agree with another poster above that I'm really tired of the whole, "we're just a small family run business and we support LE/Mil so forgive all our fuckups" routine. It's almost deja vu to previous business implosions we've seen. Either you as a business/company are forthright, professional and dependable, or you aren't. You offer some pretty overpriced products and people expect service to at least reflect that. If you don't offer service that justifies your prices and you repeatedly fail to keep your promises, I don't care how small, family/LE/Mil friendly you are and how much you love puppies, people are going to be pissed off. Getting emotional and indignant about it is only going to make things worse.

Looks like it's in Great Falls.

9893 Georgetown Rd, Suite 122, GREAT FALLS Virginia US 22066

It's less "throwing our own to the wolves" and more "throwing shitty business practices into the light so nobody else gets screwed"

But wait there’s more! We believe banned Welcher “frank4guns” is related to this somehow. I’ve asked Barrelnutz politely to prove us wrong. But somehow I don’t think that will happen.

https://www.ar15.com/forums/Industry/M110-and-Mk11-barrels/381-287204/

Your review, and a long reply from Charlie are back up on his site for whatever that is worth. He didn’t go into specifics but if his response is in fact true, I’m wondering what the issue is at this point OP. Not taking sides, genuinely curious.

Damn..

Oh what the hell, in.

Is your sceen name pronounced as scrotum?

I don’t think anyone is throwing anyone to the wolves.

When 2 different gun sites have members who have had bad experiences with a “mom & pop” company that has questionable practices, bad CS and it’s unclear what they’re selling is genuine Colt OEM, word spreads.

When Gander Mountain hoses customers, people bitch about it.

This sucks....I am on their mailing list for one of the M110 barrels.  I need one for my build.  Shit....

I can understand both sides of the story.  Mistakes happen, that is part of being human, and it applies to businesses as well.  I can forgive a business that makes a mistake, then tries to set it right.  I have difficulty with businesses that try to blow smoke rather than fixing something.

It would appear that providing the missing sling swivel and something for OP's trouble would go a long way toward resolving the situation.  Offering a discount on future business wouldn't be all that attractive to someone who probably won't trust the business with any return patronage until AFTER they have made the first problem right.

I really hope Charlie's can work this out with OP.  There is just as much positive PR to be gained from internet postings about great customer service, as there can be bad PR from internet postings about poor customer service.  Although I dislike o'bummer, he was right that "actions have consequences".

Whatever delivery time they quote you, just triple it. Then expect any work needs to be double-checked, as 2 things I paid for I had to redo myself.

Good luck!

At least I know the work I did was done right.  I asked for a refund on the “work by experienced gunsmiths” that had to be redone, but my emails weren’t returned until they got back from vacation, and they still never answered.

Ugh.....

Looks like I need to source a barrel somewhere else then I guess...

I don't know anyone personally here, but this thread couldn't of been more timely. Considered ordering a M110 barrel for a clone build, I stumbled across Charlies website a couple of weeks ago. See how its resolved for the OP.

I’d keep stumbling.

When important details aren’t done properly and you have to redo everything to be sure, you can save more money & piece of mind by doing it right the first time on your own.

Oh fuck no.

How long before fake 50% off  coupons for secret squirrels ala Starbucks/4chan?

It's like they are all using a free "Shitty Business" template they found online or something, LOL.