And that's why I'm done with PTG.....

[yorketransport]

I feel like everyone who's done business with Pacific Tool and Gage in the last 10-15 years has at least 1 story about a time where PTG messed up an order. Whether that's a reamer cut to the wrong specs, wait times that are actually 3x longer than quoted, having the wrong item shipped, orders lost, or billing errors. So far, I've had them all. They've all been taken care of with a phone call or two so I've been pretty good about letting it go. Plus, Dave Kiff is an amazing resource to bounce ideas off of.

Well here's the most recent adventure.


That was my 270 Boondoggle reamer and that's my 1-7" twist K&P barrel blank after it got "sodomized" by the bad reamer. If you look close at the barrel you can see where the reamer flutes "grabbed" just as the shoulder of the reamer hit the barrel. Before anyone points at the smith, I can say that this is an "A List" smith who knows exactly what he's doing. We've pretty much decided that the flutes on the reamer were the wrong pitch. Now to see how PTG wants to handle the reamer. Fortunately the smith doing the work has a good relationship with Dave Kiff so I'm hoping for a decent outcome.

Given the options of waiting another 10-12+ weeks for PTG to cut a new reamer or just changing the chambering, I took the easy way out and decided to just go with the 27 Nosler. I'm not crazy about the Nosler case just because the wider diameter (.550" instead of the .524" of the 8x68s case I started with) rebated rimmed case doesn't feed as well as other designs. It's the same issue I have with the RUM cases. I'll play with it and see how it performs, but I think I'm ready to move on from this project. Oh well, on to the next one!!!

[MtnMuley]

That is pathetic at very best.

[BULLBLASTER]

Wow. That’s nuts. Hopefully they make it right for you.

[Jason]

I called there last week to get a turn around time on some parts, and the lady said she couldn’t give a ship time and she wouldn’t tell me if the items I wanted were in stock or not. Worst customer service ever. Sorry man. Good luck with them.

[NWShooter]

I switched to JGS, three reamers ago. PTG has done many reamers for me in the past. The delivery dates are never as quoted. Some 4 months late. Orders lost, wrong items shipped.  DONE! JGS has worked out well, so far. Grant with JGS has been very quick and accurate getting reamer prints and quotes to me after receiving dummy cartridges to work off of.

Sucks to have that happen. Especialy when your looking forward to working with a new wildcat and barrel/action combo.

[carpsniperg2]

I quit using them as well. Always one problem or another most the time things were made right but just added huge amounts of wait time.

[Crunchy]

That looks horrible.  Glad I never purchased anything from them.  Reviews I have read about them are pretty bad.

[yorketransport]

I'm a slow learner! I should have given up on PTG years ago after the first time the sent me a reamer with zero freebore instead of the .215" I ordered, and that was 6 reamers ago!

The up side to this is that if I decide to just give up on the barrels and move on, they can easily be set up to work on a Savage action since the barrel threads are the same.

[jasnt]

What a bummer.  And now your going to slum it with the nosler

[bullfisher]

I've had good service from Manson reamers so far.

[yorketransport]

What a bummer.  And now your going to slum it with the nosler

I already thought about having them push the 27 Nosler reamer in about .180" deeper so that I'd end up with essentially a 270/338 RUM. That way I could at least use brass with a 338 RUM head stamp and avoid the Nosler name.

[Jolten]

What's a reamer cost?

[yorketransport]

What's a reamer cost?

That one was about $180

[NWShooter]

What's a reamer cost?

On the average a custom reamer is give or take about $200.00. Depending on the shoulder placement as compared to the parent cartridge it could include the cost of a "Go" and "No Go" gauge. $40.0 or so each.

So to set up to chamber a wildcat could cost you. $280.00 plus just in a reamer and gauges.

The cost of the reamer that broke isn't the issue to the wildcatter. It's the set back! It's the aggravation of some of us do it right all day every frikn day & or close.. Why can't they!? A company can only screw up so much.

[jasnt]

What a bummer.  And now your going to slum it with the nosler

I already thought about having them push the 27 Nosler reamer in about .180" deeper so that I'd end up with essentially a 270/338 RUM. That way I could at least use brass with a 338 RUM head stamp and avoid the Nosler name.

   I would just because of that. 

[CAMPMEAT]

Have they gotten too big for their britches ?

[Jolten]

What's a reamer cost?

On the average a custom reamer is give or take about $200.00. Depending on the shoulder placement as compared to the parent cartridge it could include the cost of a "Go" and "No Go" gauge. $40.0 or so each.

So to set up to chamber a wildcat could cost you. $280.00 plus just in a reamer and gauges.

The cost of the reamer that broke isn't the issue to the wildcatter. It's the set back! It's the aggravation of some of us do it right all day every frikn day & or close.. Why can't they!? A company can only screw up so much.

Sorry wasn't trying to suggest that it was the price of the reamer that caused the issue. I was curious about it as I might eventually want to go this route.

Sorry if I side tracked your post Yorken. Hopefully they make it right with you.

[b23]

Not sure when, but I recall hearing ADG has plans to make 28 and 30 Nosler brass so that should help.

[Reidus]

I think they've just gotten too big too fast and there's some QA issues. People that know Dave say he's great and I'd bet he means well but maybe work on the QA and customer service a little. If they had a better sales system with accurate lead times and less QA issues they could do really well (i'm guessing he's already selling stuff faster than he can make it so there's no changes being made)  I had to pay $25 to change the style of the throating reamer I ordered a couple days before. It's always a gamble when you order something online... whether you get it in 2 weeks or 10 weeks.

Manson and JGS have been great to deal with.

[Tracker0721]

Yeah I’ve never had an issue, told my buddy to try them and he’s been waiting almost a month for a part they said was in stock and still say is in stock, but was supposed to be shipped next day.  Figure they’re just getting swamped with orders. Always on backorder at Brownells and midway too

[Crunchy]

There was a thread on snipershide a while back.  It wasnt pretty especially what the employees of PTG had to say about the operation.

[yorketransport]

What's a reamer cost?

On the average a custom reamer is give or take about $200.00. Depending on the shoulder placement as compared to the parent cartridge it could include the cost of a "Go" and "No Go" gauge. $40.0 or so each.

So to set up to chamber a wildcat could cost you. $280.00 plus just in a reamer and gauges.

The cost of the reamer that broke isn't the issue to the wildcatter. It's the set back! It's the aggravation of some of us do it right all day every frikn day & or close.. Why can't they!? A company can only screw up so much.

Sorry wasn't trying to suggest that it was the price of the reamer that caused the issue. I was curious about it as I might eventually want to go this route.

Sorry if I side tracked your post Yorken. Hopefully they make it right with you.

NWShooter pretty much nailed it. When you spend 14+ months waiting to accumulate parts for a project, there's nothing more irritating than being bumped back again because of bad tooling. Now, it's not just the time to get a new tool made but also getting bumped back on the work list of an already busy smith. Waiting for PTG to crank out a new reamer could set this back another 6-8 weeks minimum.

I spoke with the smith again today and he's already working with PTG to see about fast tracking a replacement reamer. If the time line on that isn't too bad I may still be saved from having to use anything with a Nosler head stamp. It's going to be another example of PTG making an error, and then going above and beyond to do damage control.

In my business experiences, it's always cheaper and easier to focus on getting the job done right the first time. Having good customer service or warranties are great, but if every customer gets to experience it then maybe it's time to step the QC (cough, cough, VORTEX, cough, cough).

[jasnt]

Ouch