Problem with Brand New LMT Upper

Last week I ordered, and received, a brand new 10.5" LMT upper for my SBR from a major AR parts supplier and sponsor of this forum. However, the second I took the upper out of the bubble wrap, I saw a very obvious problem, which apparently slipped right by LMT's allegedly thorough QA process. Here's a picture of what I saw:



Anyone with any experience in ARs will pretty quickly notice that the barrel nut isn't properly aligned, and whoever assembled the upper at LMT forced the gas tube to fit across the nut and into the upper by bending it into place. And since the barrel nut isn't properly aligned, the plastic handguards (and probably the KAC RAS that I have ready for an upper) will not fit into the delta ring, since the rear of the handguards also rely on the barrel nut being turned to the proper alignment.

What's worse is that every LMT upper comes with a final QA check sheet, which is sent along to the end user with the upper. There's a box on that check sheet that says: "Check straightness of gas tube." This box was checked.

I'm not sure what "Inspector 6" at LMT was doing that day, but he/she apparently was not actually checking the straightness of gas tubes. I'm wondering how many other faulty uppers were passed through the final QA process. It's seriously disappointing to think that a major government contractor with a reputation of building high-quality products could miss such an obvious problem with an upper and pass it along to the consumer. It's also disappointing to think that whoever put that upper together initially HAD to know that they had to bend the gas tube to make it fit across the barrel nut and into the upper, and did nothing to correct the problem. Then the final "quality" inspector didn't bother to actually check the product.

I emailed both the vendor that I purchased the upper from and also LMT. I heard from the vendor the next day, and the upper went back for exchange. Unfortunately I found out from the vendor that it takes TWO WEEKS to process a return, and in the meantime I noticed that the 10.5" upper is now out of stock on their website. So I'll either be stuck in backorder purgatory since it seems that most places are out of stock on that upper, or ask for a refund so I can just build the upper myself, which is what I should've done in the first place. I think I know which one of those options I'm going to take.

As for the email I sent to LMT...well, I never heard back from them.

-Phillip

pretty crummy maybe not as tight as it should be and got mis timed somewhere after assembly?

i suspect you should get a pretty quick return they'll just pop off the old tube and retime the nut and put a new one in.

keep on both of them

may try resending to LMT, it could have gotten caught in a spam filter...
might as well call them too... let them know issue & to look for email

tag for updates

Obo2, that's what I was hoping the vendor would do, since they also sell their own uppers which I assume are built in-house. I would much prefer that, than waiting 2 weeks for the return process (dunno why that takes so long...) and then waiting and waiting for a backordered upper.

d13s3l, I thought about the spam filter too, but then I remembered that the message was sent from the contact form on the LMT website and didn't actually send from my email address or email program.

-Phillip

you right, thats poor quality control. almost like the BOTH of them(the one whom did assembly and the one doing QC) were new on the job and were dozing bad.your forced into letting them handle it.

OR.....there is another option if you have the tools! thats what I would do myself,just to make it easy for me time wise and I am impatient.yeah, I know you should not have to deal with it yourself,thats for sure.

but regardless they did screw up and should be made aware of it.

I would say this is pretty much impossible. If it was loose enough to move, not that anything else requires that type of movement in the assembly process, it would be too loose to bend and hold the tube that way. That is poor workmanship, and subsequent QA, plain and simple.

As far as your second statement, I bet they wouldn't even replace the tube. The tube is bent in the loosening direction. Anyone with a tool could just tighten that down further, provided they have not hit high torque yet, and the tube would just straighten out. They feel pretty rigid, but they have a bit of give.

,

stuff slips by, there was a thread where a colt LE6920 blew apart after firing honady ammunition after 300 rounds, theres also threads where 5000 dollar SR25 had issues as well as LWRC.

while i have never had any issues with any of my LMT stuff, they have never been difficult to get on the phone, ask for gene

Yes, but something that is specifically called on an inspection sheet should not slip by. That is the reason for the sheet. You look at, or measure, or use whatever means you are supposed to use to inspect it, and you check it off on the sheet. That tube is very obviously and excessively bent. That tells me someone is just checking off boxes. Probably because his buddy is the one building the parts.

Give LMT a call. You have the inspector number and date.

It happens, but that's definitely toward the lazy end
Of the spectrum.

I'll say. That's more on the negligent end. Their inspector wasn't actually inspecting....just checking boxes, as mentioned before. I'd hate to think that this same inspector is "inspecting" uppers that are being sent to our troops and just checking off boxes to get through the day...

The barrel nut was also tight. That's one thing I checked for myself. It was definitely snug, but I wasn't going to screw around with it, because I wanted it to go back to the vendor, and then probably back to LMT.

I'll be honest with you. In the current environment with lack of availability, I would have fixed it myself since I have the tools, but definitely raised a stink about it. I have had to send one upper back to BCM, but there was really nothing I could do about that one. The holes for the mating pins were simply to far off to mate the upper to a lower.

As we all know, when its' Bravo Co., Colt, Knights, LMT, Noveske etc it's "one falls through the cracks at any company", if it's Bushmaster "you should have known better"!

Yup. Wonder how it was test fired like that.

Can you even get a bolt/carrier all the way closed in the upper?

What does the end of the gas tube in the upper look like? Burred?

At first, I was thinking the same thing. But I figured, that clover leaf looking area in the receiver where the tube goes through is relatively long. So even though the tube is bent, it is probably straightened back out "under the hood' so to speak.

especially on "TOS".

Personally I would return it and buy something else like a Spikes or BCM. At least you would get a prompt response from the company that made it.

Yes, the bolt and carrier went all the way into battery. I was curious about that myself and put a BCG group in the upper. They closed and locked fine. I think the thickness of the upper kind of straightened the tube out as it went in. If they did fix it, I would want a brand new tube.

But I bet you would never know if they used a new tube or not. I bet if you pulled that one out, it would be straight.

I'd call and talk to a company before I cried about them on the web. Sh*t happens, I have repaired brand new $20,000 Merkels, etc,etc. Plus I'd rather have a bent tube LMT than most any other brand AR with a straight tube

LOL!!, you would?? You are willing to pay premium prices for shoddy workmanship?

Yea he would....because everyone lets a fuck up slip every so often.....let me guess your perfect right? My guess is that LMT if contacted directly will address this no prob.......shoddy workmanship? You put out half the products LMT has tested and placed in the hands of our fighting forces then come back and talk to us

Come on, screwing up an upper like that isn't shoddy because LMT sells stuff to the military? I like my LMT upper and rear sight, even though the first one I bought was out of spec and didn't work, but making a mistake is making a mistake.

Like anything else. It doesn't matter how many times you do it right, until you fuck one up. It's still an example of shoddy workmanship. Nobody said they wouldn't take care of it, or asked how many products they have provided our troops.

Re-Read the entire post..He DID contact LMT as well as the vendor..

Naw, I ain't perfect.... I ain't blind either. Stevie Wonder could see that screw up.... and someone who checked the box on the inspection sheet should have seen it too. If I am paying a premium price for something, I expect that the company not send me such an obvious mistake.
If they can't, why pay the premium?? "USUALLY" when someone pays the big bucks, they are paying for attention to detail and proper assembly.

Curious if they "straightened" the bent tube inside the receiver so it would work.

If you have the tools pull it apart and see how bad it's bent up.

Yes, I contacted both the vendor and LMT. The vendor was the only one to respond and address the problem. LMT was a no-show.

Having a very obvious mistake like this pass through several hands at LMT is a bit frightening for a company with a reputation of top of the line equipment. First the assembler who had to knowingly bend and force the gas tube into the upper (I can't think of a way where you could make this mistake and not know it). I don't know if the person who test fires the upper is the same as the person who fills out that final "quality assurance" check sheet that comes with the upper, but there's at least one, possibly two more people who overlooked such a glaring problem.

Like I said...the worst part of the whole thing (aside from the faulty assembly...) is that line item on the check sheet that instructs the final inspector to check the gas tube for straightness. On the check sheet that came with that upper, that box was checked. Obviously that inspector wasn't actually doing their job, or they would've very quickly seen this problem. I've always thought that properly installing and timing the barrel nut so that the gas tube will go straight in without bending was covered in chapter one of "Building AR-15s for Dummies" (if there was such a book).

I thought that by purchasing an assembled upper instead of individual components and rolling my own, I would be saving a little time and money. I may end up asking for a refund, and I'll just purchase a bare CMT upper receiver and a Daniel Defense 10.3" CHF barrel and put it together myself. And you can bet that I'll be able to get that barrel nut timed properly the first time...

It's already been back at the vendor for a couple of days now. I was told it would take two weeks to process the return, for some reason. Meanwhile, they've gone out of stock of the LMT 10.5" uppers on their website...

I've called LMT several times in the past couple years. I was always able to get someone on the phone.

Yeah, you earned an "I told you so"

Had I known that thread existed prior to a few minutes ago you could tell me that, however I did not as I'm usually at work for endless hours every day and don't have time to read through countless threads.

I will say though that I have an LMT 14.5" upper that I purchased several years ago for one of my two SBR lowers. It's run perfectly for several thousand rounds and is very, very accurate.

Then there's my 12.5" upper that I built a little less than two years ago ago with a DD barrel, a CMT receiver and an LMT BCG that has also been running like a top, with an even higher round count than the 14.5".

I previously had a CMMG 10.3" upper, but when I was laid off during the height of the recession, I sold it because I needed the cash on hand more than I needed a 10.3" upper. After I went back to work I put the 12.5" together and almost forgot about any other barrel lengths because that thing is just amazing when it comes to the combination of accuracy and handling. But, the "shorter and lighter" bug bit again, so I wanted to get back into a 10.5" barrel.

It was a joke

Ah! Sorry about that...I'm still a bit burnt out from the week!

All I can sais "wow". Well now we know where the guy that got fired from PSA got himself a new job.

You nailed it.

I don't get it. Are you agreeing with him and saying you guys have lowered your standards to get product out the door?

I was agreeing with him because I've noticed it myself with the product we receive from our vendors and government contractors. I will never lower our standards for any reason. I created our "standards" and I plan to stick to them. I'd rather just make people wait longer. I've rejected so much product this year it's ridiculous.

3 minute fix. Needless wait and rant for a simple issue. A single nut is 1/8th inch off. Come on man.

It isn't a 3 minute fix if you don't have the proper tool and a torque wrench. Not to mention, if upper torque has already been reached, one would have to remove the gas tube, which means even more tools and time, and go through the process of re-torquing the nut and hope it settles and is able to turn far enough for the tube to be straight.

Never mind these are things that should have been done by the manufacturer, and checked by the QA person. That is, after all, what they were paid for when you purchased their product.

See that gas tube?? It's probably tweaked.

Exactly, H53!

The time it takes to fix the problem isn't what this topic is about. I KNOW that it wouldn't be a hard fix (even though I lack the action blocks to properly hold the upper in a vice for the barreling process...). This topic is about an EXTREMELY obvious problem that slipped right by several people at LMT, including the person who assembled the upper, who KNEW that they bent the gas tube to get it into the upper. And then the final "quality inspector" (I feel that this title should be used with a lot of sarcasm now...) who checked that box on the check sheet without actually inspecting anything.

There are few things I hate worse than having to fix someone else's screw up, especially one like this that should NOT have happened in the first place. I mean c'mon...anyone who was awake and had at least one working eye should've been able to spot that!

I couldn't help but notice you were all over the PSA upper being off a tad in the other thread, but now in this thread you treat this very visibly obvious problem as nothing? Little inconsistent there friend...

3 minute fix IF you have the workspace, tools (vise, upper rec block, barrel nut, torque wrench, proper moly grease, etc.) and spare gas tube. While the OP's original post may have been a little long winded, he did not make any invalid points. And fixing it is a hassle unless you do this all the time and so is shipping it back/waiting, etc.. LMT is one of my go-to high-end manufacturers. Karl Lewis is a legend in this arena and really prides himself on his and his company's work/products... if he saw this I suspect he'd be having a "chat" with the the crews responsible for barreling the uppers, inserting (not bending.. ever heard it worded as "bend the gas tube into place"? ) gas tubes and especially Inspector #6.

"Thats so far out of spec I wonder how many of those went out the door"send that back to PSA"to 37Bullet how soon we forget the advice weve given...so PSA its out of spec send it back and now LMT makes a real obvious mistake and its keep it and fix it yourself...yea the guy should go out and spend $300 bucks on tools.....LMT should send you out a new upper with return postage that you can put on the box the new upper comes in to send the old one back thats the way that should go.

Nope. You're way off the mark.
That there would be enough to pull a tech off the line for some re-training and would also get a QA inspector a reprimand.
The end user doesn't eat this.....he sends it back for several reasons.

Just call LMT and ask for Gene. They always answer the phone and he is usually there. He will take care of it for you. I have had issues with them and they have been quickly and expertly resolved. However, I have to admit those checklist tags are a real freaking joke! Its a real bite in the balls when your upper comes in with an obvious flaw and you look at the tag and see a check in the box of your fubared part.

The vendor came through for me. They shipped out the new upper this morning, and apparently shipped it next day, because it's scheduled to be here tomorrow.

Will report back if it's a whole new upper assembly or if they fixed the previous one.

I just got my complete SBR I ordered back in Feb from em. So far, I see nothing like this or any issue for that matter, save for some handling marks on the receivers.

This is why I am at the point where I am assembling everything myself during this election year.

Just a follow-up. The new upper came yesterday, and this one is all good, assembly wise. KAC rails installed, Troy fixed rear sight installed, QD sling swivel socket installed.

I'm borrowing the BCG from the 14.5" upper since everyone is out of stock on mil-spec. BCGs everywhere. What's the story with that? Another election year freakout?

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