Experience With Legacy Sports Customer Service

[mikehill85]

I am just wondering if anyone has had any experience with Legacy Sport's Customer Service. I sent a rifle into them to them because it wasn't giving me consistent accuracy/meeting their sub-MOA guarantee. It arrived at the end of December 2021 and I e-mailed them around January 20 (a month later) about the status. They told me it had just been received by their gunsmith and that I should contact them again in 90 days if I hadn't heard anything from them. I've never had a gun take 90 days to get looked at by any manufacturer and I figured they were hedging their bets with that. Fast forward to yesterday (the end of the 90 days) and I e-mailed them inquiring about the status. I didn't hear anything from them that day so I e-mailed them again. They got back to me today and told me that it had been "too windy" to do any accuracy testing on my rifle yet, in other words, it has been sitting collecting dust in their shop for 4 months. I'm pretty pissed. I seems pretty apparent to me they just dropped the ball on it/forgot about it (at least I hope so...If it took them 4 months and counting to even test it, god knows how long it will be for them to repair it...I figure they'll just shoot a few 3 shot groups, cherry pick a sub-MOA group, and call it a day but I'd be happy to see them prove me wrong). Anyway, if you have to wait 4 months to get the right conditions to do accuracy testing to meet their sub-MOA guarantee, that guarantee isn't worth the paper it is written on in my book. Anyone have experience with them or advice on what to do? 4 months without even testing the thing is pretty outrageous if you ask me.

 

[bbhank]

Just curious! Is it a Howa 1500? I just recently pulled mine apart and found zero contact between the bottom bolt lug and lug abutment. When I measured the lugs I found a.008” delta from the shoulder to the abutment from the top to bottom.

 

[mikehill85]

Just curious! Is it a Howa 1500? I just recently pulled mine apart and found zero contact between the bottom bolt lug and lug abutment. When I measured the lugs I found a.008” delta from the shoulder to the abutment from the top to bottom.

Yes, it's a HOWA 1500.

 

[bbhank]

My howa 1500 had zero contact between the bottom lug and the bottom lug abutment. I didn’t go through customer service. But I’m not shocked by your claim!

 

[Im2bent]

What ammo were you using? What was the accuracy? Don't say anything about reloads to them not sure about them but some companys void the warranty if you shoot reloads.

 

[mikehill85]

What ammo were you using? What was the accuracy? Don't say anything about reloads to them not sure about them but some companys void the warranty if you shoot reloads.

168 gr Federal GMM, 175 gr Federal GMM, Hornady Black Hills, insert premium ammo here. The gun would shoot 0.3" 5-groups and 1.5"-2" groups on the same windless day with the same ammo. The fact it obviously had really good potential is what made trying to make it consistent so enticing. I spent a lot of time and ammo trying to sort it out and tried enough things that I won't bore you with all the details. Suffice it to say, I tried all the obvious things (e.g. changing scopes, scope rings, change scope bases, bedding the action, trying different action screw torques, changing the stock, changing the trigger, various premium ammos, 8-10 different bullet types with hand loads (which I won't mention to Legacy Sports of course), shooting off a bipod, shooting off of sand bags, shooting off a front and rest and rear bag, etc.,) but none of it seemed to make much of a difference in terms of making it consistent.
The closest thing I found to an obvious problem was that the barrel rubbed on the barrel channel in the stock. I opened it up so it didn't rub and it seemed to improve a bit after I fired more than 3 rounds, compared to how it did previously but it was far from consistently sub-MOA.
I have a Bergara B-14 HMR in 308 which is consistently sub-MOA. Out of the box (i.e. the first range session), that thing shot better than my 1500 did on it's best day with it's best load (I have records of every group I shot with the HOWA and the Bergara...I'm a Mechanical Engineer so I'm into details/record keeping). There's a price difference between the two, I get that, but it wasn't meeting HOWA's sub-MOA guarantee so I thought I shouldn't waste any more of my time (and precious Federal 210M primers) on it. I tried everything I could to getting it shooting and avoid sending it in because I wanted to avoid this type of experience. I have other rifles so I'm not in a huge hurry to get it back but at this rate, I might get it back in time to be a College graduation present for my son who is due to be born this June. Lol.

 

[mikehill85]

My howa 1500 had zero contact between the bottom lug and the bottom lug abutment. I didn’t go through customer service. But I’m not shocked by your claim!

Sorry at first I thought you were talking about the recoil lug. That's insane. Lol. That rifle should never have left the factory! I did the old "black marker test" on mine and I was at least getting contact on both lugs...somewhere along the travel as it turned anyway. I guess I can't be 100% sure if it was actually making contact when in the firing position unless I took it apart...So maybe something like that is the issue. In any case, I don't have to tools required to do that type of work and I guess it's their problem now.

 

[mikehill85]

Update: Legacy Sports finally got around to testing the gun (~5 months after I sent it to them) and they found it shot to 1.5 MOA. They are sending me a new gun.

 

[mikehill85]

My howa 1500 had zero contact between the bottom lug and the bottom lug abutment. I didn’t go through customer service. But I’m not shocked by your claim!

You know what’s funny. I just got a new HOWA Oryx in 6.5 CM as a replacement for my HOWA HS precision in 308 which wouldn’t shoot. Well it shoots quite well but I’m also getting basically no contact with the top bolt lug and recess and, despite lubing it like I lube all my other guns, I have a big gouge on that bolt lug and it is tough to open/close the bolt. I think there is probably a burr on the lug recess causing it not to make contact and creating that gouge. I Googled this issue and I found someone with the same gouge on their bolt lug. It was a HOWA 1500 as well. I am sending it back. Let's hope the 2nd time is a charm.

 

[mikehill85]

Update: I sent my rifle into Legacy Sports due to the bolt lug galling issue and lack of contact with one of the lugs. They sent me an e-mail yesterday telling me they are replacing the rifle and asking me for my FFL information.
It's pretty surprising to me that they would replace the whole rifle over this issue but it could be because this rifle is a replacement for a rifle that didn't meet their sub-MOA guarantee, when they sent the original replacement they sent me the wrong rifle, now I have an issue with the rifle they just replaced. They may be just trying to get it sorted out quickly given this is a replacement rifle already. Last time I waited ~5 months.

 

[Im2bent]

Could be the action was so poorly made they had to shit can it.

 

[mikehill85]

Could be the action was so poorly made they had to shit can it.

Given the fact there was such minimal contact with between the lug that had a gouge in it and lug recess, it is definitely possible. Basically the only contact seemed to be along gouge in the lug. Definitely sub-optimal.

 

[mikehill85]

Update: I hadn't heard from Legacy Sports since I sent them my FFL information two weeks ago so I asked them last week if they sent the rifle out...Dead silence. I e-mailed them again today and finally got a response. They told me that they were waiting on getting a replacement barreled action which wouldn't happen until March.

Well I lost it at that point. This would be the 3rd rifle they've sent me and I'm not waiting another 6 months to roll the dice again on another one of their shoddy products. I told them I'm not interested in anything other than getting my money back at this point. They said they would send my e-mail to upper management. We'll see what happens. This is beyond ridiculous. At this point I wouldn't have one of their products if it were free. It's not worth the ammo or space in my safe.

Thankfully they agreed to refund my money. Now I can buy something for a decent manufacturer (Bergara or Tikka most likely).