Brand new out the box, homey.
Check it out:
https://youtu.be/kOKnRpzuO9A
I thought it was a minor issue, so I gave the castle nut another 3/4 turn, restaked and went to the range. The gun choked hard and when I broke it open there was a cute curl of metal where the lower was chunked (I actually don't think this was part of the malf- I don't even know how this could have happened, and I think it was already there in the box). Also, I brought along my special M118 (not LR, I mistyped earlier) and it didn't print a good result with the MWS.
I had a Magpul MIAD I wanted to use and when I removed the grip, the selector spring was kinked over and pinched between the receiver and the Hogue grip (I guess "speed selector" was not an intended feature). Somewhere I have a pic of the indent it left in the gumby grip and the kinked over spring coming out of the lower, but not that exciting.
Seeing that the rifle was obviously assembled by some kind of drug addict fiending a fix, and who obviously doesn't care about my life-or-death, let alone victory on the battlefield, I inquired about to returning it to KYGunCo. They said nope, all sales final, take it to LMT.
LMT is not set up to deal with these kinds of things. They have "sales" but not "customer service." I asked if they would swap it out for me and they said "no, because it's a used rifle now" (?) and I sent it in. Talked to their special man. He seemed cool, acknowledged the improper assembly, and said he'd personally test fire.
A couple months go by. Industry peeps are telling me be patient, LMT is a fantastic company, they will make it right, the special man will probably hook a ninja up with a SS barrel for my trouble, etc... I call to follow up and apparently he's been busy. Waiting for the promised phone call and his diagnosis with return (also they said they would refund my shipping at this time).
Come home from work one day and it's at my door in North Arlington. They clipped the burr, replaced the endplate and restaked, and shipped it back. I took it to the range with some MKE M80 ball (Is barrel break in real?) and it failed to turn a good group (ok...) but also malf'd again.
I had meetings at ACC RIA the next month and I was going to bring it with me and continue pursuing, or perhaps just chuck it down the parking lot and drive away, taking the whole POS rifle as a loss, but I decided a better COA would be to sell a a healthy loss and move on.
Never got my shipping refunded, but the phone calls and dealing with the people were such a nut roll I was literally losing my mind.
Does this make LMT a junk factory? No, my MRP upper is performing well... but if you buy an LMT rifle, you may get rejected and or improperly assembled parts, faked QC tags, and end up in costly customer service hell.
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