Received this directly from the manufacturer. It's unfinished stainless, so I'm not worried about the small scratches. This is from a well known company that has been in the game a while, not a fly by night company. The things caught me off guard:
1) Un-centered fluting. Don't think I have ever seen fluting this far out of line with the index pin and gas port. Don't know that I have ever seen them out of line on a barrel, fluting or dimples. It's almost dead center off between a recess and high point. Just seems lazy. I'm sure it won't effect accuracy by itself, but it doesn't install a lot of confidence that attention to detail was put into other parts of the process. Drew a red line between the pin and port on the below picture for reference.
2) Banged up barrel extension ring. Looks like they whacked it pretty good more than once when installing the index pin.
3) Chatter marks in front of the barrel extension. Hopefully these where made during fluting and not during rifling.
Am I being too picky? The only other stripped barrels I have purchased are Rainer and Larue, never had a problem with those. This barrel is chambered in an intermediate distance accurate round. So I was expecting a little better "fit and finish."