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Posted: 12/13/2004 1:51:22 PM EDT
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My buddy and I both placed an order direct to Bushmaster via a FFL on Sept 22nd. WE both ordered the exact same carbine configuration with ultra-light barrels. At the time, I called Bushmaster directly and the Bushmaster customer service rep told me that the turn-around would be 3 to 4 weeks. Four weeks came and went, so I called Bushmaster to check status. I was told that they had more orders than expected and were 3 weeks behind. However, the rep suggested that I call back in 2 weeks. Two more weeks go by and the Bushmaster custom service guy gives the same line about backup and says another 3 weeks. We are now about to the 12 week mark and Bushmaster’s latest update is that we won’t see the rifle until mid January. At this point, I am really upset with the customer service at Bushmaster. Is there any reasonable excuse for their initial estimations being so far off? Am I missing something? Sure they are slammed, but why don’t they calculate realist time estimates instead of pissing off their customers? Has any one else experienced these issues? This whole thing has left a really sour taste in my mouth. What are your thoughts? [Edited for spelling] |
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Midian, What you are getting is exactly what every other AW compnay is giving for speeches right now. Armalite has been saying the same thing for months--colt the exact same. You will probablly see your rifle in Mid January. The expiration of the AWB led to an ungodly ammount of orders for weapons and magazines. I have beeen waiting for 3 glock 22 mags since sept 14th. The distributer has been extremely kind in keeping me up dated--and also to the fact that they have shipped over 4500 magazines since the end of the AWB. So all I can say is that as bad as it sucks--get used to it. --sgw |
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My Charging Handle came bent, I called them up and explained and the guy was very apologetic about it, told me to sent it right in for a replacement. I told him I wanted to use it since I just got the new rifle and he said they would send one out the same day they received it. About 3 weeks later I called them up wondering what the hell happened, UPS tracking said it was delivered 2 days after I sent it out. When I finally reached someone at Bushmaster they said that my CH wasn't even logged in, that's it's probably at receiving. The lady said she wouldn't be able to get to it until Monday, 4 days later. She never called me back on Monday like she said she would, so i called them on Tuesday- still not logged in. Now over a month after i sent it out they still have my charging handle, and I can't use my brand new rifle. I would have just bought a CH if I knew it was going to be like this- the only reason I sent it in to them is because the guy said it would be a 1 day turn-around. The rifle was my first purchse with them, I also ordered over $400 of overpriced stuff from their website. This is the last time I will deal with them. It's not that I had to wait over a month (and still waiting) for my CH, it's that I was lied to on the phone about how long it would take, and when I called up she could have fixed the problem right there by going to get my package and doing something about it. I believe that phone call was 1.5 weeks ago, and still nothing. And she also never called me back. I understand that they are backed up because of the AWB expiring, but I really don't care. They can hire a couple more people to take care of small things like my order. The way it sits now, I don't know when I'll be getting the CH back, but I do know that I will miss at the very least 5 weekends of shooting my brand new rifle before the cold. Big -1 for Bushmaster and especially their customer service. ETA: The Charging Handle can be placed on a table to show that it's bent, or inserting it in an upper will show how badly it scrapes the top of the stock (A2 stock). It's not like they need engineers to check the specs of it, they just need to look at it and throw a new one in a package. I'm not asking them to do anything hard or time involved. |
It takes longer to complete, from start to finish, 50 barrels, than it does 20. |
First, I should state that I am not bashing Bushmaster products in the slightest. In fact, I ordered their product above all other choices for a reason. I asked the question to find out if this is a normal way for a gun manufacture to do business. With a market oligopoly, maybe gun consumers have come to accept this kind of treatment?
My primary concern is that their customer service department has made claims about time to delivery 4 times now and all have proven wrong. If they don’t know how long it will take, then they should not make promised that they cannot keep.
That is exactly right. If I had been told 15 weeks up front, I would have paid a little more for the Colt Super-light my dealer had sitting on the shelf. |
A MEN brother. This is bad business. Plain and simple. |
| Yeah but sad to say, no AR manufacturers are really up to par on orders. If one comapny says 2-4, another will propably tell you 1-3 even if it's really expected in 5-6 from both companies. It don't bother me none. I'm surprised they can keep up at all. Expect longer waits from the bigger suppliers. |
| I once purchased a bullpup from Bushmaster and it was crap, it wouldn't feed with mil spec mags. I returned it, they said they fixed it and it still didn't work. As it turns out, it only can use their 10 rnd mag. this was different than was advertised. My dealer wouldn't take it back and neither would bushmaster. I sold it quickly and will never buy another bushmaster. |
| The handguards on an upper I purchased from Bushmaster had bent heatshields. I got them straightened out enough to where they go together without binding. I know its no big deal, and I may be nitpicking, but I paid hard earned $$$ so I could have a factory assembled upper and kinda feel like I got hosed, they were suppose to be NEW, not BENT. My $.02 |
And that's where my problem started, waiting over a month for a simple part to replace. I guess throwing an item into an envelope is hard for them? |
On a happier note for me I called Leon at Bushmaster Customer Servie a month or so ago and told him that a part of my Bushmaster 2 stage trigger was damaged (my fault) and exactly 3 days later I had a new one in the mail.  I don't think we should pass judgement on any AR company until the backlog from the AWB sunset is filled.
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Many on this site have extolled Bushmaster products and customer service. These testamonials were the reason I sought out and purchased Bushmaster products. My opinion and experience is not in line with the praise others have heaped on Bushmaster. What I received were second rate products, obviously devoid of even cursory quality control proceedures. I have seen better work from "Pakistani kitchen table" gun manufacturers. The concept of "bore sighting" must be totally foreign to Bushie. The kicker was when I contacted "customer service" and they refused to repair or replace an obviously defective upper. I have several purchases I intend to make soon, but not from Bushmaster. 50% of the reason was the bad experience I had with their "customer service". |
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My upper I ordered after the ban came bashed in by the gorilla package handlers (ups). The second upper wasn't even test fired and didnt fit on my lower and was a light gray color. The third time they finally came through with a black lower that had been test fired and fits nicely. I guess the third time was the charm. They were nothing but apologetic and understanding when I was on the phone, except for one of the sales guys that was a dick when i wanted to swap out a carry handle for an arms 40. |
I've always had pretty good luck dealing with Bushmaster except for 1 barrel that I got from them. The threaded end was sticking out of the box through a hole and ithe FH threads were crunched. The UPS guy thought it was funny but it pissed me off.  Bushmaster sent me a return label, UPS picked it up and Bushmaster sent me a new barrel in a few days. This was in Oct after the sunset too. Sometimes dealing with their CS guys (which seem kinda rude somtimes) is a pain in the ass but overall I'd have to say dealing with them is OK. Now....Rock River has some exceptional CS but they never seem to have any parts instock when I need them.....
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I have been waiting 8 weeks for 20" upper... they told me 6-8 weeks up front. I called yesterday and they said that the batch of 100 barrels that my order is assigned to just went in to production and I will have it my hands the first week of January. Appearantly, since october, all new orders have been assigned to batches since all new orders are new production (i.e. there is no inventory, they have sold out). Batches are ordered in groups of 100, appearantly. So, my delay was due to them needed to get 100 orders for 20" barrels before the batch could be produced. On the other hand, I ordered a patrolman's m4 back in late sept and received it one week later. I never had a problem with Bushmaster. I think their customer service is great. |
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Midian I ordered a 16" dissy on Nov 12 through my ffl and was told approx 2- 3 weeks. I called their customer service at the end of 3 weeks. I was told it had shipped and given a ups tracking #. I checked ups web site and it showed the rifle had shipped. It finally arriced at my ffl on Dec 8. At first I was kind of pushed out of shape at BFI. When I checked the detail on the ups tracking system I found it had taken 8 days to get from BFI to my ffl in Montana. The delay was ups, not BFI. In all I had contacted customer service twice and got great service both times. Lee....................... |
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I gotta chime in here and let you all know something that you may not be taking into consideration. I work in the heat exchanger industry. About one year ago the Chinese started purchasing all the steel they could get their hands on. As a result the lead times went WAY out and the prices went up. This problem still exsist today even though the chinese aren't buying as much as theywere a year ago. This caused a major supply shortage in the steel market. Which includes Carbon, Stainless and Chrome steels. Fast forward to 9-14-04 Sunset date. ALL the AR manufactures get swamped with orders. They in turn place big orders for supplies of barrles and such and guess what. There is already not enough steel to go around. Now this accounts for Barrels. I can't comment on the lack of or amounts of Aluminum to use for Lowers and uppers. |
They sent me this email after I contacted them about a problem. Like I'm a god damn idiot who doesn't know what a gas key is. I requested that they take the defective-ass gun off my hands and just give me a new one, and they act like I and the gunsmith are backwoods morons who can't figure why the fancy metal stick will not shoot even after I bang it on the tree!
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I don't see where they treated you like an idiot. Maybe your just looking for something to bitch about. It looks as if they are trying to help you with your problem. Even after a year of you using your rifle. Your reading too much into their e-mail. I never take care of problems via e-mail. Pick up the telephone and give them a call. You'll soon see that they do want to help you. |
Sounds like good advice to me. What was the content of your original email to them? |
| I ordered two complete lowers in mid October. Was told the wait would be two weeks. Have called every two weeks since. Now they simply say they are still on backorder with no projected shipping date. Had I known this in October, I would have gotten DPMS lowers. |
email from BM I got yesterday. just plan ahead... If I order now, it would be ready in time for the tax return check to arrive. 
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My distaste for Bushmaster was entirely due to their customer service. My 20" XM15 had a variety of problems when I first brought it home, but that didn't especially bother me. As someone who works for a firearms manufacturer I certainly understand that shit happens-so I gave them the benefit of the doubt. Even after the third trip back for warranty repairs I wasn't completely frustrated. What finally did me in was their unwillingness to replace a rifle that doubled and tripled regularly since the day I bought it. No matter what they did the issue never went away. All it would have taken was some local Barney Fife to hear my "three round burst" AR and my life could have been fucking over as I knew it. To be unwilling to step up to a problem like this is unforgivable. I finally ended up selling the rifle at a loss to get rid of it, and for several years I swore that I'd never roll the dice with another one. Earlier this year my wife talked me into buying her a Carbon 15 "Lady"-and at least her rifle doesn't double. As with my earlier Bushy however, after sighting in this Carbon 15 I've considered donating my old boresighter to Bushmaster-along with clear, easily understood instructions on how to use it. My pre 94 Bushmaster lower half will probably stay in the collection, because that lower at least has been completely trouble free from day one. The trigger is smooth, it has a beautiful finish, and the selector has positive detents at 'safe' and 'fire'-unlike some of the lowers with spongy selectors I've had in the past. |
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Lets face it people, everyone is swamped. I purchased many different guns and parts from various oem's in my life. Oly arms, bushwackers, rra, armalite, etc... I started building from when I was very young. Any time I tried to get what everyone else was wanting, I had to wait. I always got stuff like, 2 weeks Sir. Guess what, it was way longer than that. We all want Bushmaster barrels and such because the are chrome-lined and 4150. Everyone else does too. So go with $olt or Bushy, you either pay or wait. That is assuming that $olt will sell to you. If you go with another vendor, you may have to sacrifice on 4150, or chrome, or ... Now, all this pays with the oem for you placing the order and not going else where. But, although they make out right now, it will bite them in the ass later. You see, RRA will start to buy or make 4150 chrome barrels and get them out on time, or give realistic time lines for delivery. And then others will scramble to catch up. This thread alone will cause some to shop elsewhere. And the dude reading this thread that works at the oem will think about this, may not care too much and play it off, but it will be in his/her head. But we the buying public, telling our stories, will make one company step up and make us happy. The other will fu*k up and we will stop buying from them. When that happens and DOD contracts are done, so will they be. In my line of work, it takes months to get a customer and only a second to lose them. Regards, Mortis... |
+1 on that one!! I always like the retail clerks who act like there going out of the way just to help you. I've left a ton of shit on the counter because poor customer service. The best one was the time Home Depot said I "had" to pay for some plumbing parts after the cashier tried to charge me too much for a item clearly priced lower. The manager actually followed me out into the parking lot threatening to call the police because I wouldn't pay. I offered him my cell phone to call 911. The range of expressions that ran over his face were pretty entertaining. He actually started to reach for my phone a couple of times and then you could see the wheels creak again and his hand move back. As for Bushmaster, I ordered some parts from them a while back that included some of their zeroing targets. Got everything except the targets. Several emails and phone calls and I still don't have them. Best one was the woman who insisted they'd been packed with everything else but they must have fallen out of the box in transit. Hmmm...the box was all sealed up when I got it and too small to have packed the targets in anyway. Never have gotten my targets, looks like I probably never will. Funny how ADCO, Eagle, and RRA gets most of my business now. |
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I've been reading all the replies, I still can't find an excuse as to why it takes over a month to replace a charging handle. Add to that the fact that customer service said it would be done quickly when I first called them for the RMA. Also, after calling them twice after that, I would think they would jump on it. I guess opening a package, taking out a little piece of metal, seeing that it's bent, throwing a new little piece of metal into an envelope, and sending it out is just too much for them to handle. And to cover up for that they have customer service lie, and when called on it, they see no reason to get off their ass and do those simple steps listed above. |
| If it was my defective charging handle that they have lost, and I had proof it was delievered, I would ask to talk to someone higher in the BM Company. I would keep doing this until I got my replacement part. I have ordered two barrels from Bushmaster in the past, and from my experience it always takes longer for them to ship when ordered in December. A lot of the parts they use are manufactured by outside sources. I am assuming their suppliers also supply other AR builders. After the ban expired no doubt all of the AR suppliers and manufactures are hard pressed to meet the demand. Most of the manufactures did not gear up for the demand until after the ban-no one wanted to commit to big orders of parts until they knew what was going on. A lot of people here purchase complete preban uppers and post ban lowers before the sunset of the ban and kept the lowers at a friends house until the ban expired. I bought two stripped lowers before the ban was lifted and was planning to buy a varmit upper, but I think I will wait until the smoke and madness clear. All of my built ARs were old prebans. IMHO the BM is worth the wait, but I can't wait to build the two RRA lowers into rifles as their quality and low price rock! JT |
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