On skill? Not many. On wait time? PVA.. jk
I dont know how Tac Ops does what they do for accuracy. My Benchrest friends think he may be trying multiple barrels to get the groups he is. I have no idea.
On quality of rifle(maximum accuracy not accounted for) LRI, Gradous, Tooley, GAP, Beanland, Cresent all come to mind as equal quality even of they dont meet the same accuracy guarantee.
If PVA starts guaranteeing .2 MOA I'll buy a rifle from em. And I'll be ok with a wait.
ETA- I forgot SAC, Area 419and Wade in there. These are all rifles I've handled at matches. GAP is pretty popular in KS. I've only seen 1) Tac Ops ever in the wild.
It's been my experience that "accuracy guarantees" are little more than dick measuring contests and the context of such claims has to be clearly stated at the beginning.
Example:
If I'm doing this as a hobby business and I have an endless source of free time, then its not all that unrealistic to spend however much time/money it takes to get a rifle into the .2's or teens, or whatever. If the barrel won't go there, then get another and keep at it til the gun prints the number.
Now, reality:
The very shops your comments mention all survive on a living wage. A wage earned by doing the best job they can within the confines of what the job pays.
So, unless a guy wants to start paying north of $3,000.00 for a barrel install that is guaranteed to shoot
sub .200" 5 shot groups over a 10 cycle string, we are stuck with the world we all actually live in. If you think that price is absurd, your right. It has to be. Think about it.
5 things immediately come to mind:
1. First, verify its the barrel. ****(see additional comments below) Add that time/wage lost from productive/profitable work on the floor.
2. Order new barrel. Cost of parts plus your time to order it, PLUS again the time you were pulled away from profitable work.
3. Explain to client its being handled. More of your time not on the floor earning money.
4. Install barrel. Time again is having its way with you because your doing a job you already did and its preventing you from circulating cash through your business. You basically subtract that job and the next two for lost wage. Warranty work is at best, 3x times the cost of the original bid.
5. Load workup, testing, evaluation, client correspondence, packaging, administrative work, and finally shipping. Add that time up as well.
Truth be told, I'm probably underbidding it at that rate and I have a pretty efficient/streamlined setup here. I could easily add another thousand to it just to justify the additional phone calls from pissed off people because delivery dates are now being stretched into the next time zone.
-keep in mind those delivery issues are exactly what inspired this entire thread to begin with. . . **** Then there's the side of this where it gets really shitty. If someone is hired to hang a stick and it prints bigger than the claim, but its because all he did was a barrel install and your rifle has other glaring issues, who pays for that then? Poor bedding, shit optics, cracks, receiver issues, etc. . . If I didn't cause that and it was not part of the original bid, is it on my plate to fix it at no additional cost because my claim states .2's or better?
The fine print in this accuracy claim will end up looking like something from an insurance company and that is exactly how you start WWIII on a gun forum. Its about as radioactive a topic as one can host.
Bench rest folk understand a lot of this probably better than just about anyone. The ones I know who do well treat barrels about like tires on a race car. Very, very consumable consumables. In reality it basically comes down to your (client's) level of commitment and disposable income. .2's and teens are attainable, but anyone operating a full time business (with staff, overhead, life, etc... ) that comes out and promises it in writing up front is either sleeping on a mattress stuffed with 100 bills or about to get a very rude awakening to reality.
Just my thoughts after 23 years in this game.
