B&T APC 45 Review

[bmg]

Get your replacement yet?

[amd5007]

Get your replacement yet?

Nope nothing. After Talking with Tim (the day after I posted my initial review) he said he would send it out right away. Since then, I haven't received any info from him or his assistant, Jessica. I called my dealer/friend and he hasn't heard anything either. A month to get me a replacement on top of the weeks they had my faulty APC is unacceptable. This is pure speculation but I'm thinking they discovered some flaw with the APC 45 design and are working to fix it.

EDIT 11/2: I deleted this second part of this post. What I said was not accurate but I did not realize that at the time.

[KalashniKEV]

Hell, Kimber's customer service beats the pants off anything B&T has been able to give me.

Maybe they're on vacation?

They have a labor law that mandates 5 weeks of vacation for workers under 20 and 4 weeks for workers over 20.

The same law also mandates no person ever do more than 45 hours or labor per week in general trades, and 50 in a few other special jobs.

According to a study by UBS, Swiss workers demand 2-3x more pay for the same work as workers in other European countries.

B&T need to fix themselves and find a new manufacturing location if they want to have a competitive offering.

[amd5007]

EDIT 11/2: I am deleting this post because I spoke with Tim at B&T USA and he told me the steps he went through to work with my APC. My perspective was not universal and I misunderstood/did not realize what he was going through with my APC

[gbomb50]

I'm a new member and fellow APC45 owner. Did you send your magazines with your APC to B&T? I ask this because 1 of my 5 magazines seems faulty.

I fired 150 rounds of Aguila and Federal 230 grain fmj from 4 of my magazines but the fifth magazine produced FTF's after every round fired. I can fit 25 rounds in the other magazins without issue but the fifth is the hardest and the spring seems to bind.

Yours does sound like a different issue since you're having FTE's but thought I'd share my experience.

[amd5007]

UPDATE:

On friday (10/28), I received the replacement APC 45. I also got a call from Tim asking if I'd shot it yet. I hadn't, so we talked about a few things including recommendations for ammo, how I should shoot it as a pistol, if my previous APC had been looked over by designers, etc. I ended the call hopeful and fairly optimistic. Later that afternoon I went to the range with 100 rounds of CIP spec ammo to evaluate the APC. I loaded up the mags and shot all 100 rounds. I had all the same failures I had before, including 2 failures to feed. Although, the malfunctions weren't as frequent as my previous APC, it was still doing it. I had roughy 12 malfunctions in 100 rounds.

I went home disappointed, broke it down, lubed it extremely well, installed the KAK shockwave brace and waited till the next morning. On saturday I went to the range with 200 rounds. I began shooting and as malfunctions started occurring I let my fellow shooters have a try. Everyone, with every mag, at inconsistent intervals produced the same malfunctions again, roughly 8 failures in 200 rounds. So it's not nearly as bad as my previous APC (35+ failures in the first 300 rounds) but no where near the performance of what should be expected of a $2,000 firearm. I called my dealer friend and we arranged to shoot it on wednesday, (11/2) today.

Well I cleaned and lubed it last night, met my friend this morning and shot 200 rounds. We had 9 malfunctions, (6 FTEs and 3 FTFeeds) between the both of us. I guess I'm used to being disappointed but he was EXTREMELY pissed off. I came home, made lunch and called Tim from B&T. He didn't pick up so I left a message. I hope he'll call me back soon. I have a strong suspicion I'll be getting a refund for the APC, mags and stock. But I highly doubt I'll get compensated for the hundreds I wasted in ammo.

There is one interesting thing I observed while cleaning this APC. When I had the bolt out of the gun, I inserted a live round under the extractor, against the bolt face. There is ZERO, i.e. absolutely none, extractor tension against the case. With the round on the bolt face and the rim under the extractor you can wobble the bolt ever so slightly and the round will just fall free. There is also a fair amount of play between the rim of the case and edges of the bolt face, so much so, that if you turn the bolt upside down, the round will just fall free. The edge of the extractor does engage the rim of the cartridge but doesn't impart any force against it. Now I have no experience with 45 acp sub gun bolts, but on the 9mm Scorpion and Sig MPX bolts I've handled, the 9mm cartridge is locked against the bolt face with significant extractor tension. I never checked the bolt face, extractor engagement on the previous APC but I would strongly suspect it had a similar issue.

[amd5007]

UPDATE:

Ok two things to mention.

Tim called me, I will be receiving a full refund for the purchase price of the APC and mags. Good, got that squared away.

The next point: he saw this review on this site and felt that I had misrepresented their quality of customer service, drawing conclusions that were unwarranted. We spoke at length (>40 minutes) about this and there were things that were communicated unclearly and things I misunderstood. I acknowledge that in certain comments I made before in this thread, while accurately representing how I saw things at that time, were not the entire story about what was going on. He explained the efforts he went through to fix my issue that I did not know about. So yes, they are a small company here in the US but the quality of communication has been excellent. Yes, there were texts that went unanswered, but the fact that I was texting the CEO of a company (which I did not know at the time...I thought he was a sales rep) is remarkable. Nothing I posted was meant to be a personal attack against Tim or B&T USA. So I have updated and redacted certain comments I made that I think cast poor light on B&T USA in general and Tim in particular.

All in all I can say this, yes the APC let me down, however Tim at B&T USA has exerted his best efforts to make the situation right. While that was not the desired outcome I had in mind, it is satisfactory. So from my experience, if you have a B&T product and you have any issues, don't hesitate to give them a call.

[Kenneth]

^^^


That sucks that the B&T didn't work out. Hopefully they can get it ironed out.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[dushan]

Thanks for the updates

Sorry your APC45 troubles. I take it you're not going to be getting the APC9?

[C4IGrant]

From reading this (and knowing how small B&T US is and the amount of travel Tim has to do), I think you received good CS and the full refund to boot.


To date, we have sold a considerable amount of B&T firearms (to include the APC45). We have ZERO issues, complaints or problems. So it is possible you simply got a lemon, though it is odd to me that the gun ran just fine for B&T.




C4