I believe this would be the time and the place where GS customs officially concedes that the "order direct from South Africa" business model has proved to be unworkable, and to direct inquiries to John at HVconcepts for order fullfillment.... UPS package tracking does work, even if the United Package Smashers don't....... JMO, Dutch.

D HUNTER: You may have been joking, but if you were not, I will be in and around Port Elizabeth this October and I plan on trying to find GSC to buy some bullets for my .378 and .416, and I would be happy to pick something up for you from them. I will send them an email to see where they are located and I will have to see how much I can bring back. I notice from their their reloading data they do not have information for IMR 7828...which is what I normally reload with. Let me know.

Robert Jobson

Andr�
The bullets you're interested in are not in stock. As you know the waiting time is +/- 3 months before shipping. You are more than welcome to place an order on the website.

500grains
We've had several people who received two or more shipments confirmed by SA Post. Only one offered to pay for an extra shipment and his parcel was not lost. It was triple shipped by our previous admin person. As a result, we now wait until SA Post confirms the parcel as lost. We can then claim from insurance and do not wind up out of pocket. The down side is that a full investigation takes about 2 months.

Alf
We've checked our e-mail sent file and see 7 e-mails to you. Two were unrelated to your order. One of the remaining five was our explanation referred to above.

This is not our first venture to the AR forum. We've given the facts around our position here before, but were shouted down, ridiculed and called some pretty ugly stuff. Gerard as well as I have stated here that we will not allow anyone to be out of pocket as a result of dealing with us but eventually one avoids the abuse.

The enquiry we launched to find your shipment is on the link in my first post, and now we wait. What else do you expect us to do? Of course I'll check up as much as I can. Your order has already been rescheduled for production. The moment it is confirmed lost we re-ship again. We'll contact you as soon as we have information.

I have appreciated your business in the past. As a knowledgeable person, a firearms enthusiast and highly experienced hunter, we appreciate what you've said about our products. So once again I am sorry about the experience you had with us. We have fixed what was within our power to fix and we are working around those things we have no control over. With hindsight, we have made some bad mistakes and could have handled many things better. We have also not had the luxury of choice in much that happened. Dare I say we are older and wiser now. Can I ask you to "let it slide", because it has now "come together" or is that just talk? The only way I can attend to fixing what went wrong is if you will allow me to do so. If you want to bury the hatchet, I will dig the hole.

RIP,
thanks for the info above and your e-mail. Glad you like the 510 bullets! While we were still describing contents as bullets, the loss rate was far higher than now that we are describing them as "turned" or "machined parts"
The safe route for USA orders would be HV Concepts but we all need to assist them in the choice of items to keep in stock.

LHowell
We went to our local customs head office and described the difficulty we had with parcels going missing and the confusion caused when we state "bullets" and the customs official thinks "ammunition". We had parcels confiscated by our own border police in Cape Town. Internationally, the customs tariff code covering everything we manufacture goes under the heading "Machined, Non-Ferrous Components". So our description complies with the legal requirement and avoids the attention of tree huggers in the system.

Dutch
You are right. At this stage we feel that SA Post gives a better service than USPS. When we order from USA or Europe, SA Post is very helpful with giving information and the new tracking numbers parcels are issued with. Seems USPS is incapable of offering such a service.

rwj,
We are always happy to see anyone from overseas, all are welcome to visit us. However, if you pop in on the off chance that we have something in stock, you will be disappointed. Place an order by e-mail or on the website, let us know when you'll be here so we can schedule it for production and have it ready for pick up or shipping to your outfitter. Also give us some time, not today for tomorrow. That would also count for anyone else's orders you want to collect.

On a general note:
I have been searching the forum archives for background and some interesting things surfaced.

We were asked for samples for testing in a comparison with some other brands by a fairly high profile forum member. He claimed to be in a position to write an article for publication in a gun magazine. I see that our free samples were sold some months after we sent them. (The bullets were not FNs)

I noticed a South African claiming he ordered bullets and never received anything. I recognised his e-mail address and checked our records going back to 2000. No order, no payment and only two e-mails asking for technical data.

Another high profile member (going by the number of posts) placed an order including some very slow moving bullets, we advised of the waiting list and he increased the order. When we notified him that we were ready to ship, he insisted on the more advantageous exchange rate of the time he placed the order and we accommodated the request. When we asked for payment, he waited six weeks and then cancelled the order.

Am I complaining about this? No, just getting less gullible.

Finally, note that we have changed the way we handle orders. The vast majority of the difficulties arose from the fact that orders that were paid for automatically upon placing the order, started overrunning our ability to produce. This happened incredibly fast. For the last eighteen months we have only asked for payment when we are ready to ship. This still left us with shipments that were lost in transit and that is now being addressed by the availability of ordering from HV Concepts in the USA.

I wouldn't put up with all of the delays and all of the sundry bullshit that went along with this drawn-out process for any set of reasons. GSC isn't producing anything that more readily-available products that are made right here, in the good ol's U.S. of A., won't duplicate in the way of performance, pure and simple.

AD

Is that so, AD?

Let's see you run a 40gr bullet at 3850fps from a 223 Remington with a 24" barrel. Let's see you shoot 2500 shots from a 220 Swift at 4400fps and still have a throat free of flame cutting. How about a 130gr HV at 4070fps from a 7.21 Lazzeroni? What are you going to use in a 416 Rigby to shoot a 5 ton elephant end to end other than an FN? How about a frontal brain shot on an elephant with 300 Win Mag and a 160gr HV? Any other 160gr 30 caliber you would care to try here? All the above while holding way less than a minute of angle.

.

Allan, thanks for setting us all straight.

With your vast knowledge and wisdom, would you care to elucidate which .284 130 gr bullet I should use to shoot through elk? With a BC of around .4 or more, and no fouling to speak of. Oh, and I'd like to have the bullet beat my best Matchking load for accuracy, without trying more than one powder, and perform flawlessly at impact speeds from 1600 fps to 3300 fps. Of course, at a cost of only a little more than a x-bullet, or a Partition, but that goes without saying.

Awaiting more of your sage advise, Dutch.

Dutch,
I think Allen is spouting off because he doesn't have any HV's or FN's to play with.

Barnes may be approximating the HV with their "Triple Shock" bullets, but nobody on this side of the puddle has done the FN solid concept as well as GSC.

I wonder if Barnes will next move on to four cannelures and call their bullets "Quadruple Shockers?" I think they need to rename the line with an entirely new concept. How about "Triple-X" or "XXX" bullets, then "XXXX" to follow. Obscene!

Glad to see the hatchet hole excavation offered and accepted. Surely "right" will prevail.

It seems that none of the con men who have been caught in their game will step forward to identify themselves or dispute the revelations by Gina. Sheesh! ... Bloody awful abuse of trust by a few low-lifes. Only a few, hopefully.

Alf,
I'm up to my neck in dirt already! We'll keep you informed on any new developments. With the investigation underway, lets hope the parcel shows up.

RIP,
I didn't mention names as it was not my intention to embarrass anyone, just wanted to give some insight into what has happened before and where we're coming from.

500grains
You got a raw deal in all this, therefore the gift packet to say we're sorry and help ease the inconvenience.
Please keep HV Concepts up to speed on what you'll need so they can order and keep stock for you.

Nickudu
Angry? That wasn't angry! When I'm angry I'll come over there, kick you on your shin and smack you in the head when you double over! Thanks for the comment. You must be a father. Only a father would take that tone of voice with a younger lady!

tread lightly, young lady ... it's "Grampa" now!



Best of Luck ... Nick