Send it back?

[Rusty Spurless]

Howdy Pards,

Couple of months ago I bought a Pair of SAA's 5 1/2" barrels in 45LC with sequential serials & CCH hammers with the intention of them being my new main match guns. Now these are the 1st USFA's that I have owned & I had high hopes for them.

I started working with the 1st one, worked up a handload & am completely delighted with it. Fit & finish are everything that I expected of USFA. It shot beautifully & right to POA. Now that the 1st one is dialed in I started on the 2nd...

Fit & finish are like the 1st but that is where the similarity ends.
After my 1st 50rds the ejector rod housing fell off. All I had done to the pistol prior to this was a through cleaning. The housing was never touched. My guess is harmonics in the barrel worked the screw loose. This is the least of the problems & hardly worth mentioning.
Groups off the bench at 15yds can best be described as patterns. They are about 8" & are 8" low & 6" to the left... This is just at 15yds, I would hate to see 25! I tried it with both my pet handload as well as factory ammo with the same results.

Next problem is with the timing. I have 2 scratches from the bolt on 180deg opposite sides of the cylinder. Now I am not talking about a light line forming, these are scratches that you can feel when you run your fingernail over them. They are literally gouging the metal. And this is with just 100rds through & no extraneous "playing".

I sent an email to USFA & they fired off 2 new screws for me  as well as a RA# to send it back. I am wondering should I send it to them or take it to my local pistol smith to see what he can do.
Im not sure to what lengths USFA will go to make it right.

Any insight would be appreciated.

Rusty

[St. George]

USFA is telling you to return the weapon and they'll pay (or reimburse) the associated costs of shipping - plus, they'll do the work under Warranty.

Taking it to your local guy who will charge you (likely dearly) for the same work that's going to be done at no cost to you makes zero sense.

Let USFA make it right.

Good Luck!

Scouts Out!

[RRio]

USFA is telling you to return the weapon and they'll pay (or reimburse) the associated costs of shipping - plus, they'll do the work under Warranty.

Taking it to your local guy who will charge you (likely dearly) for the same work that's going to be done at no cost to you makes zero sense.

Let USFA make it right.

Good Luck!

Scouts Out!

St. George is 100% correct! Let USFA fix the problem, there are a lot of "gunsmiths" out there that think they can repair them, but most do not have a clue. 

[Black Powder]

Give them the chance to make it right.  A dissatisfied customer is bad news for business.  Giving superior service after the fact is a great opportunity for them to stand above the competition and they don't want to lose that chance.  Although initially you're not happy with the product, they're expecting you to be happy with their service and the product will be made right. 

After the brutality in the markets this week and the resulting loss of confidence, it'd be nice to hear how a good American company was keeping its focus on the customer.

Please let us know how it goes. 

BP

[Doc Sunrise]

Definitely send it back.  Not only is it the right course for the wallet, but they are the best ones to make true factory repairs, including possibly rebluiing to eliminate scrathches.  But also more importantly, they want to find out what went wrong so it is not repeated again.  I remember when I had some minor issues with a hand, and it turned out there was a problem with the metal that they had received for making some small parts.  The sooner the producer is alerted to a problem, the sooner any quality issues can be addressed.  Quick discovery, quick change, problems minimal.  I toured the USFA facility and met with a lot of their production floor people, and I can tell you they all care about the quality of their work.  Every single person we ran into was happy and proud to show off their work.  I am always hooked when the entire team is on the same page about making their product.

Good Luck! 

[Rusty Spurless]

Ok ya'll talked me into it.

I will box it up & send'er back tomorrow.

I will let eveyrone know how it goes.

[Hobie]

It is a no-brainer to send it back both keeping it under warranty AND ensuring that the maker knows where their QC went wrong. 

[Rusty Spurless]

An update to my earlier post...

I decided to hang onto the offending pistol awhile longer & work with it some more before sending it back. I have had a few guns in my past that were dogs outta the gate but once they broke in were marvelous performers. Seems these pistols may fall into that category as well.

I put a set of Wolf main & trigger springs in both of them & took .002 off the left guns bolt with some emery cloth to stop the continued wear on the cylinder & proceeded with my testing

What I did was use a grease pencil & mark each chamber of the cylinder of both guns & then fired 10 shot groups off the bench at 15yds from each chamber to find the worst chamber in each gun. My results were interesting...

Both guns have 2 chambers that shoot consistently away from the rest.
To illustrate this I shot a 10 shot group (5 from each gun) off the bench at 25yds. I left one of the bad chambers empty on each gun. The resulting group (was gonna post a pic but be damned if I can find my digital camera right now) was beautifully tight 8 shot group a little under an 1 1/2" and then 2 "fliers" One 3" above the main group & the other about 3" below it.

So I am back to my original question... Should I send them back?

I like my guns to be tack drivers & part with guns that don't shoot well. Right now they fall in the latter category. I am no pistol smith & am not sure what if anything can be done to correct what I perceive to be miss aligned chambers.

Can this be corrected or am I stuck with good but not great performers?

Any & all input would be most welcome.

[Grogan]

Wow, too bad you can't get (well you can, a premium pistolsmith can do it) yourself

LINE BORED Cylinders!

(I don't think USFA does that?)

[Grogan]

Another thought on something that might work to improve the accuracy of the errant chamber on your Cylinders is to have your Barrel's Forcing Cone/s recut to an 11 degree angle.

This gentler angle may improve the accuracy by giving the slightly misaligned bullet a longer taper funnel to center itself in the barrel.

This is a quick and easy "fix", however if good accuracy still eludes you, I'm not sure what USFA would say about the modification?