I ordered a barrel from savage-barrels.com on Feb. 22 and the site stated there was an 8 to 10 week lead time, not a huge deal. On May 22 I sent Savage-barrels.com an email to them asking about the status of my barrel, and I got this back from X-Caliber Barrels LLC.....

"I just got off the phone with McGowen and they said that the first barrel that they made for your order was rejected and that the replacement is now in their lapping department, should be in gunsmithing within the next week."

While I am glad that any defect was caught in QC it makes me wonder what went wrong. So while I am waiting on the second barrel I recieved this email from Savage-barrels.com yesterday June 16.

"According to McGowen your order was to be shipped yesterday, then they informed me that they had used the wrong material on the muzzle brake. Your barrel is blued and should have received a chrome moly muzzle brake, but according to them they didn't discover that it was stainless until they blued everything and the brake being stainless won't blue. I can ship it out with the stainless brake or it could be next Friday before they are ready to ship it again as they only blue on Fridays. I saw the barrel with the stainless brake on it and it actually looks okay, kind of a two toned affect. Let me know what you would like to do."

At this point I am getting frustrated but replied that I would wait for them to get the blued brake done. I am in no way trying to "Bash" McGowen, Savage-barrels.com, or X-Caliber Barrels LLC. I am a little confused on the variety of companies that seem to be involved though. Has anyone ran into anything like this before. Would love to hear some input.