Saturday, February 6, 2010

Blackthorne Products suck and they lie.

Do a Google search on Blackthorne Products (aka AR/AK parts kits), marketer of AR parts kits and complete AR uppers, and you'll find lots of negative feedback. Apparently quality control is not one of their strong points. However, recently I caught Blackthorne Products in an out and out lie.

On their website, you will find the following statement:

Blackthorne Products sells only the highest quality parts. We do NOT sell "seconds" of any type, Never have, never will.

That is a lie.

A buddy of mine recently purchased a Blackthorne flattop 20" upper. He wanted to mount a scope on it and asked me to replace the tall A2 sight tower with a low profile gas block.

After removing the sight tower, we made a sad discovery. The barrel on this upper was most definitely not a "first".

Exhibit A: Behold the "D" roll mark, indicating the manufacturer to be DPMS.



Exhibit B: Near the gas hole we find a sight tower taper pin cut, off-center. On the topside of a barrel? Also, ahead of the gas hole we see what appears to be the remnants of another welded over and ground down taper pin cut. How interesting? Wonder what we'll see on the underside of the barrel. A welded over gas hole perhaps?




Exhibit C: Indeed. A welded over gas hole. Off-center near the new taper pin cuts.



What is one to make of this? Clearly this is not a "first" barrel. I'm guessing this is a DPMS "second" that was accidentelly "long chambered". Blackthorne then took the barrel, turned it down, plugged up the old gas hole and taper pin cuts, drilled a new gas hole, cut new taper pin cuts and hid the surgery under a sight tower.

But let's not forget. They never sell seconds. Never have, never will. Um ... except for this one time.

BLACKTHORNE SUCKS!!!!

6 comments:

Tam said...

What a mess...

J. "יהוא בן יהושפט בן נמשי" Izrael said...

Not only that - they lie about headspace.

They claim their barrels are headspaced to military specs. This is a lie. They say the barrels are headspaced to 1.4736. This is the longest military field gauge, called "field II". It is absolutely forbidden to outright headspace a chamber to this spec. Max military headspace (NO-GO) is 1.4700, and standard field gauges are 14730. A new chamber must not be reamed over NO-GO specs, yet these crooks sell field-sized chambers. The "field" dimension is only for emergencies.
Stay away from them. Probably barrels refused by other companies.

Julie said...

Blackthorne Sucks, Big Time!

#1 I ordered a complete .308 upper and lower parts kit to match an Armalite lower and was sent an upper that matched DMPS style...

#2 They would not respond to my requests for replacement.

#3 So...I bought a DPMS lower to accommodate their mistake, fired the first round and the bolt jams itself so hard into the breech that it took a screwdriver to remove it...

#4 Gunsmith checked headspace and said it was short chambered by .005 as it wouldn't close on a go-gauge.

#5 Gas port misaligned with gas block and port was .031 forward of the index mark on the barrel step.

#6 Before initially firing the weapon, there was a highly visible bur in the barrel from drilling of the gas port...

#7 When Blackthorne finally responded to me via the Better Business Bureau complaint that I filed, they claimed the malfunction was due to my modification (what modification, changing my plans and buying different lower?) and they LIED, stating, in writing, that the upper had been test fired before shipping...Hmmm, nice bur.

#8 the extractor retaining pin is improperly size and is loose and falls out.

#9 The bolt has crude grinding marks on it to accommodate the misaligned extractor.

#10 Bolt shows chipping near bolt cam pin.

#11 Gas block had punch marks from installation of gas tube roll pin.

#12 Inferior anodizing of upper

#13 Trigger and disconnector were received with mating surfaces that were crudely ground and when lower was tested with another upper, a double fire situation occurred several times.

#14 Their customer service sucks...
Bottom line, never do business with this company...learn from my experience.

Felix Estrella said...

Sorry to hear about your troubles, Julie. Yes, I will NEVER do business with Blackthorne (or whatever they remain their business to) again.

Donny T said...

I bought a m4 carbine upper with a heavy barrel, and the bolt ATE gas rings.......the key also was not staked properly with no loc-tite, the bolt used was a few thousandths off all over, the gas ring retaining edges were machined too small. I had to buy a mil-spec bolt, polish the carrier{to remove burrs}. The barrel was the only thing worth two shits, and it ain't all that. They were no help and since I bought it and sat on it before building, they offered me no response, or any tech help either. I can also attest to a .50 cal upper that was defective as well, as I had to machine the taper on the firing pin more just to get it to make a good primer strike. They were no help there either, never even "pretended" to help, much less care.

mike crank said...

i purchased an m4 upper and the rounds would not chamber, I had to pay the shipping to send this terd back, also had to send them a box of rounds for them to make sure the chamber was f ed up, then they send it back to me stating that they put a chmber brush on a drill and ran it throught the chamber and test fired it with my rounds. then they send this terd back to me and it will chamber a round but it sticks in the chamber because the chambers to tight.
blackthorn will not call you, they will not answer thier phone, and it will caost you to fix thier f up. do not buy from them i know this upper was not test fired because you could not get a round in to fire the damn thing. they suck big donkey.