PVA Black Friday Barrel Lead Time

Man, I got mine in December.

I ordered mine November 24th. A 6 cm and 223 tl3 barrel. At the time I ordered it was quoted 10-12 weeks. Contacted pva and no update yet

Waiting since september 9th on a Tikka 223 barrel.

i emailed PVA a couple weeks ago inquiring about the shouldered Tikka pre-fits that they are now offering. I have yet to get a response. From everytimg I am seeing in here with their leadtimes not even being close and they dont even bother to update customers on the fact is reason enough for me never to use them on anything. Maybe everyone else should do the same. The only way for them to learn is to hit them in their pocketbook.

If I did what PVA and others like them do, I would be out of business. I dont understand why this is accepted in this industry. Its not accepted by me and I will not use them. Cancel your orders and do the same. Let them no why. Its not the lead times. Its the misleading of customers and lack of communication.

wade2big said:

If I did what PVA and others like them do, I would be out of business. I dont understand why this is accepted in this industry. Its not accepted by me and I will not use them. Cancel your orders and do the same. Let them no why. Its not the lead times. Its the misleading of customers and lack of communication.

Click to expand...

To be fair to PVA here, it's not like they're standing around twiddling their thumbs and they've actually been one of the most consistently updating companies as to their current production and lead times (just check out the PVA Status Update thread). I've had good luck contacting representatives from the company, but I know my isolated experience isn't indicative of the whole picture.

The problem is the same as any other gunsmith: they're popular. In PVA's case, very popular because they're offering a quality product at an attractive price point. Each barrel takes a fair amount of time to machine, largely due to setup since the barrels have to be indicated to a very precise round before you can start cutting profiles, crowns, or chambers. This isn't exactly a standard CNC operation where 1-3 thousandths out of round isn't really an issue (that kind of tolerance is fine for many other items), because if you're 1 thousandth off round the gun isn't going to shoot as well as one that's indicated to within a couple ten thousandths.

@ThePretzel
I understand they are busy and I understand that they put out a good product.

It is not just PVA, it seems like most popular gunsmiths completely get their lead times wrong. Makes you think its intentional after a while. A company should know about what they can put out in a day whether its barrel chambering or building fence. Lead times should be close if not right on most all the time.

Edit: i rewrote the post to better get my point across.

I've talked to or texted Josh many times. He started out as a small company part-time
and has grown into one of the top smiths around, due to his quality.
His lead times are pretty consistent with other builders out their.
He has expanded a couple of times recently to keep up with the demand
because of his quality. He would rather be a little late in shipping a quality product
with his name on it than putting out a piece of crap. If you don't want the product
then go some where else, it's a free country, but if you think far enough in advance
( 16+ weeks for barrels ) of what you might need then order it, you'll be happy you did.
He only takes a down payment, and the rest upon completion of product.
If you don't want to wait, he will refund your money. He didn't ask for your business.

I got mine last week from the beginning of September.. About 25 week wait.

I’m coming up on 21 weeks for a prefit. Josh has a lot of rods in the fire and if I needed the barrel sooner I would have ordered it sooner. I’d say cut the guy some slack, he’s building high quality stuff for a reasonable price. Keep up the good work @bohem

Curt1521 said:

I got mine last week from the beginning of September.. About 25 week wait.

Click to expand...

What was your quoted time?

Ranger188 said:

I've talked to or texted Josh many times. He started out as a small company part-time
and has grown into one of the top smiths around, due to his quality.
His lead times are pretty consistent with other builders out their.
He has expanded a couple of times recently to keep up with the demand
because of his quality. He would rather be a little late in shipping a quality product
with his name on it than putting out a piece of crap. If you don't want the product
then go some where else, it's a free country, but if you think far enough in advance
( 14-16 weeks for barrels ) of what you might need then order it, you'll be happy you did.
He only takes a down payment, and the rest upon completion of product.
If you don't want to wait, he will refund your money.
So stop your bitching, your to blame, he didn't ask for your business.

Click to expand...

Damn. You and Josh text and now yall are best friends.
Its not the product. Its not the timeframe. It is the quoted timeframe being misleading. Josh can easily quote 25 weeks if thats what it will take. Error on the side of caution. It tends to not leave a bad taste in people’s mouth. I would hope that you are reasonable enough to understand that.

Ranger188 said:

but if you think far enough in advance
( 14-16 weeks for barrels ) of what you might need then order it, you'll be happy you did.
He only takes a down payment, and the rest upon completion of product.

Click to expand...

Couple of things, I think everyone here understands the situation with Josh. I've never met the guy but on the forum he seems like a stand up guy who builds great stuff. That being said the issue comes with ambiguous lead times. I'f he would say 20 weeks for a barrel then so be it, I would wait patiently. However it is the new norm for those lead times to pass with no communication. Also, the black Friday sale was pay in full at time of purchase. Some people have excess money to throw around, alot of other guys save for the best and just want to know when they will get their barrel.

This thread was not meant to bash Josh, the OP was just curious if others got their barrel yet. A perfectly valid concern.

Ordered a Origin shouldered pre-fit in 308 during black friday sale and haven't got it.

I kinda agree with OP with better estimate and communication - I'm in the software industry so I know how off estimates can be, but you try your best, keep track and make improvements with your estimates, and more important communicate when dates will slip.

No we aren't best friends, but I do understand this sport is growing at a, hard to keep up rate.
I think everyone of my barrels was over the estimated lead time, after having talked to him about it, I
now understand, this is how it works and just accept it. I now have had close to 10. No it's not right, but when your business
is growing faster than you can keep up, and this is happening to all these shops.
Order way ahead of time, or get a Savage action, call NSS and get a pre-fit barrel, a go, no- go gage
and in two weeks you'll be shooting.
Could it be handled better, yes. But until we stop wanting the newest round, and less people become
involved in this sport, it will continue. Sorry to say, we need to adjust to it.

Not saying anything bad about PVA, but there are certain trends you see with businesses that get a large share of sales via user forums, be it with guns, trucks, or any other hobby.

A business becomes a forum favorite and goes "viral" in a short time, popularity hits a critical mass and something always has to give: be it quality, turn around, customer service, price, or a combination of those.

They haven't been exactly shy about their turn around slipping over the past year, but they haven't done the best job keeping customers informed either.

Ranger188 said:

No we aren't best friends, but I do understand this sport is growing at a, hard to keep up rate.
I think everyone of my barrels was over the estimated lead time, after having talked to him about it, I
now understand, this is how it works and just accept it. I now have had close to 10. No it's not right, but when your business
is growing faster than you can keep up, and this is happening to all these shops.
Order way ahead of time, or get a Savage action, call NSS and get a pre-fit barrel, a go, no- go gage
and in two weeks you'll be shooting.
Could it be handled better, yes. But until we stop wanting the newest round, and less people become
involved in this sport, it will continue. Sorry to say, we need to adjust to it.

Click to expand...

You said it yourself. All 10 of your barrels were over the estimated lead time. I bet these barrels were purchased over a long period of time. With this information I can safely assume that every single one of his customers barrels that were purchased from the day you bought your first one, were also past their lead times. Wouldnt it be simple for PVA to look at purchase orders and ship dates and correct his lead times moving forward and yet he as a business owner chooses not to. Why?

Im glad PVA offers a great product at a great price and people are willing to wait. They would just prefer to know for how long.

Ordered a shouldered 6.5CM barrel for a TL3 during the Black Friday sale. Nothing yet. I hope PVA continues to have Black Friday sales in the future.

I just emailed in to cancel my order placed well before Black Friday sale, like September last year, and my Black Friday barrel. Yes I will be at loss but I will be able to use the rest of money to buy something to continue my shooting. I planned for 4 months ahead, now I am well out of it and need something urgent, on the shelf stuff. Whole reason I switched to Impact so I can buy on the shelf barrel and no longer deal with all these drama. It's not just PVA, it's the whole industry issue which I can see someone is trying to fix, and they have been very successful in attempting.

Plus, hopefully my cancellation can accelerate some of your orders too.

September 9th 2018 and still waiting

Just looked up my last one. Ordered Sept. 7 Shipped Jan. 9th 17 1/2 weeks
HH barrel 8 tw. Med. Palma 26 in. Chambered for a 6br TL2 action

I Go my 6br barrel last week. 25 weeks.

Curt1521 said:

I Go my 6br barrel last week. 25 weeks.

Click to expand...

Well hopefully my barrel comes soon, I’m about the same.

Monday marks 16th week. 6.5cm shouldered for a barloc / nucleus

bornhunter04 said:

Monday marks 16th week. 6.5cm shouldered for a barloc / nucleus

Click to expand...

Only another 14 weeks to go! Lol ?

Ranger188 said:

I've talked to or texted Josh many times. He started out as a small company part-time
and has grown into one of the top smiths around, due to his quality.
His lead times are pretty consistent with other builders out their.
He has expanded a couple of times recently to keep up with the demand
because of his quality. He would rather be a little late in shipping a quality product
with his name on it than putting out a piece of crap. If you don't want the product
then go some where else, it's a free country, but if you think far enough in advance
( 16+ weeks for barrels ) of what you might need then order it, you'll be happy you did.
He only takes a down payment, and the rest upon completion of product.
If you don't want to wait, he will refund your money. He didn't ask for your business.

Click to expand...

I placed a barrel order oct 25 and was charged in full. Lead time quoted 8 weeks, they will not respond to emails or voice mail.
Just saying

rgrizzard said:

I placed a barrel order oct 25 and was charged in full. Lead time quoted 8 weeks, they will not respond to emails or voice mail.
Just saying

Click to expand...

Completely unacceptable.

cageli said:

Plus, hopefully my cancellation can accelerate some of your orders too.

Click to expand...

Did you get charged 25% for cancelling?

rgrizzard said:

Did you get charged 25% for cancelling?

Click to expand...

Surely, they won't charge you if they missed their estimated lead time? I would challenge that through my CC company.

rgrizzard said:

Did you get charged 25% for cancelling?

Click to expand...

Something like that. At this point IDFC...

patriot07 said:

Surely, they won't charge you if they missed their estimated lead time? I would challenge that through my CC company.

Click to expand...

It's a shitty business model and extremely unfair to customers, I've learned many lessons in my life and consider this being a cheaper one.

Another to mention. I'm not associated with McGowen barrel. But when they take new order for full custom barrels, they only ask for 50% deposit. In this way, they are motivated to fulfill the order to get the rest 50%, while they are not going to be hurt too much if customers back out. That's much more fair.

And their barrel looks great and shoot awesome too, for the ones I got.

When you paid in full like this, you're completely fucked as they (PVA or someone else does not matter) have all your chips.

The opposite extreme is Manners. They only ask us to pay when product is ready. In my view, it is very unfair to Manners, they really should ask for some type of deposit. Guess that's why everyone loves them but the model can be a problem in long run, just my opinion though.

Ordered an AI prefit 10/18 and no update yet with multiple emails, the last two about trying to cancel the order and still no response. A bit frustrating.

Same here, ordered an AI pre-fit first of December with an estimated 8-10 weeks. Called Friday (because my emails weren’t getting answered) and was told 2 more months before it would be done. Also got an email a week ago about reviewing my purchase......

I really wanted a barrel from them setup for flat line bullets but I think I will pass on that.

Paid in full September 9th. $400. Still no barrel.

If it wasn't for this forum I would have ordered at least 2 barrels from. Not being able to contact them after payment in full has been made is unacceptable.

Habituallinestepper said:

Damn. Pre-fit or shouldered? Maybe I'm the unicorn with 6.5CM Origin shouldered.

Click to expand...

I was totally off. Ordered 9/5, shipped 11/9. Savage prefit, 6.5 PRC.

The dangers of growing so fast because you’re good is growing too fast to keep up.

I’m occupied with my Hancock but a big appeal was the “we will always have Hancock barrels ready to go on the shelf” information that was given out, that’s starting to seem unrealistic given their backlog.

After I get my Tikka barrel from them it’ll be a good god damn long time before I order anything that doesn’t show in stock. It’s not personal and I’m not mad but I accepted all the reasons the Hancock was so late... but dang 7-ish months for a barrel is too much considering the amount sitting on shelves from others.

I'll probably get flamed by the fanboys but... you guys know there is more than 1 gunsmith capable of producing top end barrels and rifle packages right? Do people really justify waiting half a year (OR MORE?!?) for a prefit barrel by telling themselves its a better barrel than the dozens (hundreds?) of other gunsmiths out there that can make the same thing in 2-6 weeks?

I'm sure Josh is incredibly smart, an excellent engineer, and an experienced gunsmith, but he is using CNC, like many other gunsmiths. High quality machines, tooling, and attention to detail are not qualities that only he has in this industry.

I haven't posted on the Hide in quite some time, but it is absolutely crazy to log in here and see the same old threads at the top of the forum... PVA lead times, update threads, nucleus issues, etc., the list goes on. I remember clearly, over 1 year ago when the Nucleus/John Hancock pre-orders were just beginning and I was very seriously considering jumping on board... needless to say I am heavily relieved that I avoided that.

I will end my rant with a recommendation. Check out Greg Young at Southern Precision Rifles, aka Bugholes.com. Excellent communication, straightforward and accurate lead times, and the barrel is still going to shoot better than most of us.

No one should bash you for posting your thoughts. We might agree or disagree. It's great we have other great smiths out there and they should be all
talked about. Everyone here has a positive or negative view on a lot of topics and we should hear them all
so we can make a informed decision on our own, on what we want to chose or not to chose. That's what great about living in
the best country in the world. Never take that for granted. Keep bitching.

I've been fairly understanding through this whole thing, but now PVA is bragging on social media about experimental muzzle brakes? I understand they may not be the same machine as barrels, but if they have the time to mess around with the muzzle brakes then they have the time to sit down and update customers on their overdue orders.

Its frustrating for sure, but they have to keep interest up on their entire product line. I'm sure there is more profit in a muzzle brake.

Valued customers,

We have received some feedback that our targeted updates are not reaching everyone. Sometimes they are landing in the recipient’s “SPAM folder.” We’re working with our Email provider to see id there’s a way to alleviate that specific issue. In the meantime, we’ve elected to send this status update to all customers with outstanding orders of any kind.

We know many of you have been waiting for barrels purchased during our Black Friday barrel sale. The volume of orders generated during that sale forced us to shut down the sale early and change our projected lead times for fulfilling all barrel related orders from 10 -12 weeks to 14 -16 weeks.

Since that time, our barrel supplier has lost a portion of their workforce. This has impacted their ability to fill our orders, which in turn, has impacted our production schedule and ability to meet previously posted lead times. We have recently experienced similar delays for some of our other components, such as chassis, as well.

We are working with our suppliers to remedy the situation. As we get a clearer understanding from our suppliers, we’ll endeavor to do a better job of contacting customers directly with updates. We are also going to begin emailing a weekly production schedule to customers so they will know + or – 1 week when their barrel will ship. Specific orders for John Hancock Rifles will continue as usual.

Moving forward we are also working to better synchronize our production schedule with barrel shipments by running selected calibers and contours in batches once we have barrels in hand. This will help us move more efficiently with the materials we have available and fill your orders as fast as we can while ensuring the quality you deserve.

Thank you for your continued patience. We sincerely appreciate your patronage.

I would settle for a refund!

I received an update also I had to contact Josh thru the forum to get it. So at 6 weeks in I was told the barrel had been started and the batch process of manufacturing was explained to me. Now at 18 weeks in I was told my barrel has just been received and will be 4 to 6 weeks more to complete. The only reason I haven't become unhinged about the issue is that I took a barrel I had to Accurate Ordnance and low and behold in 8 working days I have a rifle that shoots .3 at 100 yards. The only reason I say this is PVA wants me to wait 4 to 6 weeks for something that took AO 8 days, it remains to be seen if the pva product will be better but lets be real how could it be.
Just sayin

shooter65 said:

I would settle for a refund!

Click to expand...

I checked on a refund and was told it would cost me 20% to get a refund.