Piston AR Recommendation

[Nom de Forum]

Is this what you are really asking?

You literally asked for recommendations on piston ARs. After reading the thread are you not really asking for a recommendation for an AR your wife can depend on to be reliable, accurate, and comfortable for her to shoot? If that is what you are looking for, then I suggest a top tier DI. I think she will find DI rifles better handling. If money is not a problem, I doubt she will want anything else after she shoots a KAC SR-15. They have them at US Autoweapons in Scottsdale according to the email I received today. I purchased mine from SGC a couple months back and it is without a doubt very "user friendly". They are not cheap, but considering what they have as standard features they are a bargain. Some variation of the E3 bolt design may be the future for all ARs.

 

[Hedgemeister]

Nom, based on your comments it appears that you have not read the thread. I was going to buy a piston AR, but based on some help here and speaking to the armorer at her department, we decided on a DI gun. The KAC is nice, but we already bought a DD that should be here tom. Their E3 bolt looks promising but I will wait to see more testing done.

 

[Hedgemeister]

Ended up getting the eotech xps-2. The deal was too good to pass up. $342 after rebate with shipping. If anyone is looking for this eotech you can get at Botactical for this price. Just use the coupon code eotech at checkout. Thanks one last time for everyones help. I saved a ton of money by asking a few questions.

 

[Z-Michigan]

That's funny, I have an XPS2-2 waiting to be mounted on my #1 carbine. I think it's a great sight, and love the EOTech 552 I've been using for a couple years.

 

[basicblur]

Ended up getting the eotech xps-2. The deal was too good to pass up. $342 after rebate with shipping.

Hey Hedgemeister...did you catch the $50 rebate PDF at EOTech's site?

Your mention of the discount at Botach got me interested in Botach's discount, and I ran across the EOTech rebate. Don't know if you can get both, but I don't see why not? Only problem I might see is if Botach is not an authorized EOTech dealer. I haven't read the fine print on the downloadable PDF rebate form-I may call EOTech tomorrow to see if the $50 rebate can be applied to Botach purchases.

Thanks for the heads up on the Botach discount-I didn't dig too much, but saw no mention of it at their site, but when I tossed an EOTech in the cart and applied EOTECH as the coupon code, looks like 'bout a 20% discount-$50 on top of that would be sweet.

 

[Hedgemeister]

Basic, you should get the rebate. I found out about it over on arizonashooters forum and there were a few guys that bought them and got the rebate. I was leaning hard towards aimpoint but this deal was just too good.

 

[cemjr]

I hope you have better luck with Botach than I did. Canceled my order after waiting for ten days to be told my order wouldn't be filled for about another week.

 

[skibud85]

LWRC?????????????????????

I have the LWRC M6A2 (5.56mm) Pistol. A very nice gun but customer support is very poor at LWRC. I also have a LWRC carbine, and have never had a problem with it.

Problem #1).The gun has been back to LWRC once, for a FEED problem they fixed. It took months to get it back, they never updated me via e-mail, phone or letter. The shop I bought the gun at called LWRC to check on the status, at first they couldn't find it and didn't seemed concerned till ATF and a lost gun was mentioned. And after all this it still took afew weeks and more phonecalls till they had an answer on the status. When the gun was shipped back ,not so much as a phonecall, e-mail or letter was included to apologize for the delay and problems on a very expensive gun.

Problem #2). The Quad Rail is out of spec. The top and bottom are fine, it is the side rails that are too large. Soft mounts fit fine, but anything that is rigid will not fit on the side rails. I discovered this when I tried using GEAR SECTOR mounts. They fit on the top and bottom, but will not fit on the SIDE rails. LWRC sent a second Quad rail, it had the same problem. The shop even had a second LWRC pistol in stock, it had the same problem with the side rails being out of spec. GEAR SECTOR was contacted(a great company), and advised of the situation. They offered a full refund of the used parts and assured me their product was within Picatinny specs. The thing that really soured me on LWRC was the e-mail I received, explaining I was the ONLY PERSON IN THE WORLD that was having this problem, and the boys in Tech were not going to jump out of their seats to change anything for one person. Now in my opinion, if I was running the show at LWRC I would fix the gun of the only pain in the ass with the problem, and it would be done with. Unless of course, I am not the only one with the problem!! But, I am the only one that has brought it to the attention of LWRC???????????????????? Sounds like it might be something to fix when the next run of quad rails are manufactured. I was going to post the letter, but decided not to. If you want to see it, drop me a message and I can forward it too you

I like the products LWRC has, just not very impressed with customer support.
I hope I am the only one with the problem, but I doubt it. I find it very difficult to recommend a great product like LWRC when I have been very disappointed by their support policy?

 

[Z-Michigan]

Interesting post about LWRC; probably belongs more in a separate thread given that this thread is largely concluded.

I have observed from reading posts (not personal experience, much) that it seems many of the "most prestigious" rifle makers that get government contracts and lots of fanboy attention also seem to have a reputation for providing poor service to individual civilians who happen to purchase their product. I've read this (and again, no personal experience) regarding Knight's, HK, LMT, and Colt, among others. In contrast some companies like Armalite really do a great job on customer service, but don't seem to have the fanboy reputation or the lucrative government contracts. I haven't read anything negative in this regard about BCM or DD, which is why one of those would be my most likely choice among higher-end AR makers.

 

[MCMXI]

I haven't read anything negative in this regard about BCM or DD, which is why one of those would be my most likely choice among higher-end AR makers.

I wonder how many people choose a particular firearm manufacturer over another based on their perception of how good that manufacturer's customer support is. I can honestly say that CS doesn't enter into my decision process.

 

[kwelz]

I wonder how many people choose a particular firearm manufacturer over another based on their perception of how good that manufacturer's customer support is. I can honestly say that CS doesn't enter into my decision process.

Amen to that. If you buy quality in the first place you probably won't need Customer support.

 

[NWCP]

I like my Stag Arms Model 8. It's been a pleasure to own and shoot. First 700 rounds through it and no issues.

 

[skibud85]

LWRC?????????????????????Followup#1

CS is important only if you need it-AND I NEEDED IT ON MY LWRC PISTOL- and it wasn't there! The people I talked to were always very nice and tried to help. I just found it very strange, when we discovered the spec issues on their side rails of the QUAD RAIL, they agreed it was a problem but had no intension of fixing it for one person that was complaining????????????????? I think they have great products, and won't badmouth the product or the people. But, I will tell the people that ask me about LWRC what I think of the support philosophy they have.

In the future I will give my business to other companies. I also have afew LMT's, and plan on buying afew more in the near future. For the time being,LWRC is out of the running for my money.

LWRC has nice products, just be aware of CS.

 

[Z-Michigan]

I wonder how many people choose a particular firearm manufacturer over another based on their perception of how good that manufacturer's customer support is. I can honestly say that CS doesn't enter into my decision process.

Well, to each their own. I always buy quality and have not yet needed any customer service, but I will not seriously consider Knight's or HK because of their poor reputations for repair service to civilians. Have you ever read Correia's rant "HK, because you suck and we hate you?" It's dated but I think accurate.

 

[stchman]

Amen to that. If you buy quality in the first place you probably won't need Customer support.

Most asinine statement I have ever heard.

So a quality firearm it is impossible to have defects?

 

[kwelz]

How about reading what I said before throwing around insults. I said probably. As in most likely, but not 100%.

Some companies need good CS because they have a much higher rate of defects. They shore up their bad QC with good CS. It is a bad way to run a business but it fools enough people to succeed.

I would rather have a good product where 1 out of 10,000 goes back and have the company be a pain to deal with than a company that has 1 out of 500 go back and is a pleasure to deal with when it happens.

 

[FlyinBryan]

I wonder how many people choose a particular firearm manufacturer over another based on their perception of how good that manufacturer's customer support is. I can honestly say that CS doesn't enter into my decision process.

cant honestly say its even ever crossed my mind now that you mention it.

i suppose it would only enter into the mix if i'd heard a particular company left folks hung out to dry. luckily i havent been treated badly yet

 

[skibud85]

LWRC Piston Pistol?????????????????????Followup#2

LWRC did leave me hanging out to dry, but they were nice about it: They admitted in writing they had a spec. problem on their side rails, but didn't plan on doing anything about it.:banghead: Like I said, I have a full size AR from LWRC that works great, but then I never needed CS on it yet For LWRC's sake, hopefully I am (like they said) the only person in the world that had a problem they couldn't and wouldn't fix. Do your research, and buy quality... and most of the time you will be OK.

 

[Z-Michigan]

I would rather have a good product where 1 out of 10,000 goes back and have the company be a pain to deal with than a company that has 1 out of 500 go back and is a pleasure to deal with when it happens.

IMHO you need to strike a balance. I won't buy junk no matter how good the repair policy, but if I pay premium prices for something and I happen to draw a lemon, I expect it to be fixed right, immediately, and without hassle.

If a company is truly premium quality, they should get so few returns that anything returned for repair would get immediate attention since there would be no backlog.

Conversely, if a company regularly puts out junk, I would expect its repair department to be massively backlogged and therefore provide slow, poor service.

Using some inductive reasoning, it would seem likely that in most cases, if a company provides prompt, no-hassle repair service, they probably are putting out a pretty good product. And vice-versa.