I was one of the unfortunate ones to get a crappy barrel on one of the "Blonde Bulgarians" that I puchased from Atlantic Firearms.
Fast forward a month from when I shipped it back to Lancaster.
They replaced the barrel, replaced the furniture, reparked everything.
Other than the wait, I am pleased with the job.  I ran 8 mags through it.  No keyholing and no apparent
excessive gas bleed.  They said they used a Bulgarian barrel.
So from my end, I am happy with the repairs.

Glad to hear they did right by you!

Good to hear. Hopefully it's trouble free and no more barrel problems.

Glad they did right by you, OP.

Unfortunately, Lancaster Arms is still screwing other people and continuing to demonstrate a pathetically low level of integrity and business ethics.

As that link reminds us, Chet Durda is a pathological liar, and as long as he remains the owner of Lancaster Arms, doing business with them will continue to be a gamble.

Is Mossberg making the barrels with the proper bore size?



 

but pallets of their rifles have been sold..........

they did me right, contacted atlantic, blaine contacted lacaster, they took rifle gave it back, lost my furnature gave me some nice bulgy wood....after a month i didnt like the wood and wanted plum, I called lancster back, chet answered told him what happend with furnature and he told me hell tell his people to call me later, they did ...asked what color i wanted? I told them plum and he said no problem ill ship it out today, 3 days later new bulgarian plum furnature arived at my door. Im happy with lancaster 4 week turn around time I have a authetic bulgarian barrel also. They told me to keep the wood as a spare, I put the wood on my local gun forum and sold it for 65 bucks.

But, unfortunately, not soon enough to prevent the screw job they did to many of us who bought the infamous Lancaster RR.    That's ok.   Troy Sellars cleaned up their mess for me and I will recommend to everyone that I ever talk to that they avoid Lancaster products in the future.   An "honest mistake" my ass.

And there's another problem, too.

Just because Chet Durda told Atlantic that he bought some Bulgarian barrels, so what?  That could mean anything, and knowing Chet's tendency to lie about anything and everything, I wouldn't take any claims he made at face value.  Unless I saw an actual receipt with a serial number matched to the barrel, I wouldn't just take Chet's word for it with regard to the barrel type on any gun his company makes.  The guy has a thoroughly documented history of "lying to make the sale".  Why would anyone in his right mind think Durda has changed one bit?

Chet would tell you he bought the Statue of Liberty if he thought it would help him sell some of Lancaster's crap.

I agree with you overall, but in this case he is actually buying bulgarian barrels.  Well, to be totally correct, he isn't.  And neither is Lancaster.  An unnamed barrel maker is footing the bill for all the recalled rifles.

 

I'm not surprised that Durda would buy a bunch of barrels and then not perform even a cursory quality-control inspection on what he was buying before assembling a couple hundred rifles.  Real manufacturers, who intend to stay in business for more than a few years, have TQA programs in place to ensure that all vendor-ordered supplies are actually merchantable.  That Durda is ostensibly running a manufacturing operation without a TQA protocol in place, is not at all surprising.  Cutting corners is completely apropos for him.      

At the end of the day, those rifles didn't ship with "an unnamed barrel manufactures" name on them.  They shipped with Lancaster's name.  

Reputable manufacturers understand that dynamic, and act accordingly.  The Lancasters of the world?  Not so much.

I must say reading this post, as odd as it sounds, has me considering a Lancaster purchase, just to see how bad they really are........call me crazy

LOL!  Actually, I understand completely.  Sometimes you read threads like this and wonder, "Sheesh, are they really that bad?  How could they stay in business if things were that bad?”

The thing with Lancaster, is that it’s a gamble.  But not simply in a Century Arms way.  With Century, you might get a rifle with problems…but you will get the rifle.  And Century will promptly repair it if anything’s wrong.

With Lancaster, you may or may not get the rifle within an acceptable time-frame.  Or if you're unlucky like me, Chet will fraudulently take your money even though he doesn't even have the parts to build your rifle.  For sure, if you order from them directly, you will almost certainly not get it within the time period you’re told when you place the order.  In many cases, people have been told they’d get a rifle in under 3 weeks, only to have MONTHS pass (and sometimes over a YEAR) before they actually see anything.  All the while, Lancaster is sitting on your money (personal checks or money orders only.  They don’t take credit cards anymore, because they know that if you use a credit card, you’ll actually have some recourse when they screw you over.)

Worse yet, when people call to ask where in the hell their rifle is, they are met with a litany of excuses that very much have the tenor of “the dog ate your AK”.  Their favorite excuses are: The wood isn’t finished yet, the CNC machine broke, we don’t have your FFL (even though you’ve already had it sent twice), everyone has the flu, and the ever popular “It’s done and is shipping tomorrow”.  Of course, it never ships “tomorrow”.  It’s a deliberate lie designed to shut you up and get you off the phone.  Apparently Durda, being incredibly short-sighted as he is,  doesn’t put much thought into what he’s going to say when, a week later, you call back wondering where in the hell the rifle is that was shipping “tomorrow”.  Then it’s right back to the excuses…  

So if you order, set your expectations correctly.  And understand that if Lancaster was to go belly up at some point during the MONTHS they have your money, you’re probably never going to see that money again.  (Whatever happened to that company Durda set up to sell batteries?)  Like I said, it’s a gamble.  As with most gambles, some people win, some lose.  I personally don’t think there should be much chance of “losing” when we’re talking about buying a rifle.  Which is also why I don’t understand how come anyone would send their money to a company that they KNOW has screwed over dozens of people.  It’s just begging to be screwed over yourself.

Thank you for the heads up, I think I will stay away like Lancaster has Ebola....
However I pose one question....If you were to order through a dealer as opposed to going direct, what is the quality of their rifles like? I am lucky I have 3 Century Variants, and never had a problem with any of them, no canted sights, good furniture, minimal mag wobble.  

But I do appreciate the insight and feedback. I can understand waiting months or maybe a year for a rifle I want, however I am not paying upfront for a not instock item....

put it this way after not recieving my rifle until 6 months later. they still owe me money they overcharged me on my rifle order plus extra mags a pouch bottle and front sight tool i ordered and im sure ill probly never see them. but ill keep telling the truth about this company until they fulfill there obligation.

While I am still curious as mentioned before.

I think for once i will take the safe road and not do business with them....

I have heard to many negatives about them to risk it.

If we're talking about any Lancaster rifle made within the last 18 months, "inconsistent" is probably a fair quality description.  Some people report getting rifles that are fine.  Some report problems of various types and severity.  Their AK-74's have a lot more problems than their 47's.  But even the 47's are not problem-free.  A dealer who sometimes has a booth right across from Lancaster at an Arizona gun show, swears that Lancaster's rifles are so poorly built, they sometimes have to try several magazines just to find one that will seat correctly.  This dealer said it's a pretty funny spectacle to witness.

I wouldn't buy one.  Not when you can get better quality for a similar price.

Yes ... they really are that bad.  I am waiting on the 2nd of two rifles ordered simultaneously from Lancaster around mid-February.  Yes, that's nearly 5 months.  Perhaps the most appalling was being told "it's in transit" multiple times over the months.  

When the saga is complete ... and after I reasonably discuss the saga with Lancaster (Chet and Shane), I will post details of the ordeal.

If one intends to order "just to see how bad they really are" ... well, they must have a lot of time on their hands.

Quite frankly, some of what he's doing qualifies as mail fraud (if payment is sent via US Postal Service).  Someone could easily ding him hard, if they wanted to.

Looks like it's time for a road trip.  Probably cheaper to fly in and rent a car at the airport than to drive.  Did you file a complaint with the AZ attorney general's office?

i've been waiting for my ak74 (not RR) for over 3 months.  returned under the barrel recall.  emails and phone calls no longer returned.  

it was such a nice ak74 but after this i'll never own another lancaster anything.

File a complaint with the Arizona attorney general and claim theft by Lancaster.

That's the thing with Lancaster.  Besides the rough riders, they've always built great fucking guns.  It's the CS that seems to be the issue....

call the local police station where lancaster is located and ask for the mail fraud dept. its 2k so its a fenloy and mail fraud is federal as well as state offence.

lol, funny cause it's probably true!!!

Seriously...at this point, people who have been burned by Lancaster (and there are several such people, according to various current reports out there on the Internet) should just call the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office and file a theft report.  If Lancaster isn't going to do right by those people who have sent money to them, and is going to ignore any and all attempts at communication, people should simply call the police to report a theft.  

After a few of those reports trickle in, the Sheriff's office will realize that something shady is going on at Lancaster, and will either take action or contact other appropriate legal authorities to take action.

Of course, this assumes that Lancaster doesn't shut its doors first.  Frankly, from the way things sound, I wouldn't be even remotely surprised to hear that Lancaster just shut down its operations one day soon, taking a lot of customers' money with them.  I wouldn't put it past Chet Durda at all.