When I took my HTR out of it's stock the other day to install a new trigger, I noticed that the finish on the inside of the bedding surfaces was nothing short of rough and haphazard.
Course grinding on the alluminium surfaces and stock material spilling over onto it in places.
Where the two front sligh studs have been fitted the material has busted away forming rough, chiped holes, which alough of no consequence, is messy looking.
I baught the HS rifle with the intention of getting a rifle that would need no further gunsmithing work to get it up to scratch, but the finish on the inside of the stock is something I would expect from a mass production Remington.

The Price I paid for the rifle, at todays exchange rate in USD is $3,431.80USD so I would expect a near perfect rifle.
Unfortunatly this is representative of what we end up paying for anything imported here from the US.

I want to write to HS and send them some photos of the stock, but at the moment I can't find an e-mail link on their site, so I'll have to wait till this afternoon to be able to call them.

I will have to get a smith to skim bed the stock if I want a smooth bearing surface now, and that will cost me a further 130EU ($155USD)

Am I being unreasonable? The rifles does shoot well, after the first range session I got groups in the .3's so the roughness is probably not all that detremental to the rifles' accuracy.
I just would have liked to expect more in the finer details.
Does anyone else have any experience with these rifles and want�'s to comment on this?

At the moment I don't have a digital camera so I will have to get some prints developed before I can demonstarte what I am talking about.

Without seeing the stock I can only offer an opinion. The standard stock that comes out of H-S usually looks as you describe it in the inletting. They do paint over some of the bedding area, but not to worry. The internal bedding block secret is sort of a modified "V" block. The front and rear action screw areas rest on two small ridges on either side of the action screws. If you remove the barreled action from the stock after it has been fires a few times, you will notice an area on the underside that has some "wear" points where the action rides on the stock. As a matter of course, I always bed any H-S stocked rifle I build; it takes it one step further in the equation. As for the sling swivel studs, That don't sound right and should be corrected by them. Knowing the hesitation toward the return shipping, I guess I would talk to them about it Here:
http://www.hsprecision.com/index.html
Could not find an email address however.

Express, sorry to hear this. I have owned and used several H-S guns and all of mine were finished well. They do look somewhat unfinished in the bedding area but as Jim stated I to always skim glass bed them. I would call them about the area of the sling studs. Good luck and let us know how it turns out for you.

I got to speak to them over the phone, the guy said that it is quite normal to have a rough finish inside the bedding area and that it is not consequnetial to the rifles' accuracy.
That much I knew already. Well he was very nice and quite helpful, I said I would e-mail some pics and if the finish was any worse than what is considered normal that he would send me over another one.

I'll update here if there is anything to comment on.

BTW: Most people probably know or would naturally assume this, but he did say not to skim bed it since that would void the warrantee on the stock.

That is a good point but if it means that I can get a new stock out, maybe in another colour, then I'll wait and see what they have to say.

I have another HS stock on a Remington LTR which is going to get the skim bedding.

If I bought a rifle that shot in the .3s and functioned well...extracted, fed, ejected flawlessly.....presented a good external appearance and fit me well.....I'd not care what it looked like after the barreled action was removed from the stock.....

I understand your point and it's a reasonable thing to say.....however it's borderline in my opinion. The sling swivel issue however I agree with 100%

Express, I would have to agree with Nebraska that if it shoots in the .3's I wouldn't touch it. Wait to see what H-S says. I had a takedown in 30-378 and 257 wthby and the 30-378 would hold 1/2 all day long and the 257 was also a .3 gun. The 308's I have had were all 1/2 or better. They do wonderful work to get these guns to shoot as well as they do but they lack smoothness as far as I'm concerned.

Nebraska, have you ever spent $3,400 on a factory rifle that was supposed to offer custom grade finish?
I do realize that I'm being nitpicky and I was the one who first said the rifle shoots just fine, but I do get shitty when I see lazy workmanship after spending that kind of money.

And have no fear, a 300% mark up respective of what you pay in the staes is just what we get here.

I got the scope for this rifle and apid 832EU for it in the States. It costs 1,900EU here. Woudl you like to do the maths on that one?
The laser max system for handguns cost 690EU here. That's $816USD.

If you want to know more about the prices of US imports I'm only too happy to give you the sources.

I'm with you on this one Express. I can have a smith put together several variations of different rifles that shoot just as well for allot less than $3400. In that price range, I would expect great accuracy, fantastic build quality, and near perfection on finish. When you get to that level, it's more than just accuracy that you're paying for.

However, if that is a $1000-$1500 gun in the states and you willingly chose to pay the enormous import fees, I would say what you got should have been expected. If that's the case, I think I would have had something custom made over there and put the money into the gun and not the pockets of customs, tax collectors, etc.

Not quite Jethro, the HS Precision HTR cost about $2,100 in the States.

But I agree with your thinking. I would expect a Remington to have a few such imperfections, and didn't buy one to customize because I figured I would end up spending the same kind of money and would save myself the hassle, plus have re-sale value in a known brand like HS.

This isn't really that big a deal, like I said the rifle shoots .3 for now and there is the possibility for improvment, if the test target I got with the rifle is anything to go by.
I spoke with HS, they said that if the crudeness is anything out of the ordinary they will send me over another stock. Great, I might not even go so far.

I spoke to a certain Tom at HS Precision again after testing the rifle and he seemed very concerned and said he would speak to Bignami to find out what happened.
He spoke of getting the rifle back (unfortunately via Bignami) to their facility for evaluation of the problem and eventual resolution.

I have also finally been contacted via e-mail so I have an easier method of corresponding with them.
The email I got was from Todd, the man I dealt with from the beginning and I have written a lengthy response entailing what I feel and what I would like.
He also mentioned he was disturbed I didn’t call him about the rifle once it came back, which I did, and we spoke about it at length.

Here is the letter I wrote them;

Hi Todd,
I have recieved your e-mail. I would like to hear what Bignami has to say about the rifle never being sent to you.
I find it disturbing that you do not recall our phone conversation. I called you immediately after receiving the rifle back from Bignami and explained to you that it had not in fact come back to HS. I also explained that via the repair receipt that I was able to speak to the smith who carried out the reparation and that he had only screwed the barrel back in, without checking the threads, headspacing or testing the rifle. You suggested I try it out and hope that it might shoot well once again.
I called back after testing the rifle. Now that the rifle doesn’t hold your .5MOA guarantee, while you may remember that previous to the incident it shot much better than .5MOA with a test target of .178MOA and my best being .25MOA.
After speaking to Tom he suggested I try it once again with the Federal Gold Medal Match 168gn ammunition but since I have now dismantled the scope and mounts that may take more time again, time I am not willing to waste.

As you know well I am not happy at all about this situation.
I purchased this rifle around October of 2004.
I started shooting it in April of 2005 when I got the rings, bases and scope.
It was around August 2004 that the barrel came loose.
I got it back around April 2006.
I got 4 months of shooting out the rifle in two years.
This is not reasonable.

In this time I have made numerous phone calls, sent e-mails, (never answered because I was always told “that e-mail isn’t workingâ€) sent faxes (told the fax form the site doesn’t work) and for all this had absolutely no satisfaction.

Honestly I do not have much faith that Bignami will send the rifle back, if they are prepared to simply replace the rifle that would suffice in solving the problem for me, leaving the problem to them to deal with considering that they were the cause of all this aggro and the two companies (HS & Bignami) can work who went wrong.

Even in the event that they do agree to take the rifle in and send it to you, going on experience I know I will not see the rifle for many months or possiblly a year taking into account the export/import/export/import procedures as well as the Italian testing bank on it’s re-entry not to mention repair times and dead time in transit and processing.

From the very beginning, from when the rifle arrived to me I have kept a sort of diary on various internet forums. I have been very fair and objective giving praise where due and criticism where deserved.
I think you should have a look for yourself, there are many thousands of views and replies, around 5000 last time I counted. Not to mention that my signature line contains the links to each thread with the phrase “one very DISSATISFIED customer of HS PRECISION†this means that it appears in each and every post and reply I have ever posted, also prior to changing the signature line and in unrelated threads. This in turn means that the number of people who have seen this story unfold is many, many thousands.
Many of them are understandably negative toward HS and many people in the market for firearms stated they would not be buying form HS in light of what they have seen happen.
This record of all that has occurred can work to you favour.
It is also a good record of each of our phone conversations, which you may have forgotten over time. I supply you with the links so you can check it out of yourself and refresh your memory and see what people are saying about HS Precision quality control and customer service.
HS Precision or Bignami are in the position to make good on all of this and I will dutifully post all positive and negative results there.
Please read all of the links carefully, you owe it to me to at least take the time to read everything considering how much time and money I have wasted on this matter.

Good day to you,

Attilio Marra.

1st range session-
http://longrangehunting.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat...earch=true#Post45057


Range session –
http://longrangehunting.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat...earch=true#Post45192

1st quality control issue –
http://longrangehunting.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat...earch=true#Post45112

read the last post of the page - http://longrangehunting.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat...2&page=&fpart=3&vc=1

http://longrangehunting.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat...2&page=&fpart=4&vc=1

quality control thread -
http://longrangehunting.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat...page=&fpart=all&vc=1

Quality control revisited -
http://longrangehunting.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat...arch=true#Post120830

quality control rant -
http://longrangehunting.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat...page=&fpart=all&vc=1

quality control rant and history -
https://forums.accuratereloading.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/...=953101145#953101145

quality control rant and history -
http://longrangehunting.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat...226&page=0&fpart=all

You ask if you are being unreasonable, and to me, yes, you are being very emotional and unreasonable. The rifle does exactly what you want it to do. So why mess with it and take a chance on messing it up. The problems you have are "inside the stock" as you describe them. They in no way affect the function of the gun.

You are very fond of throwing around your payment to HS. Would you please show us where for this price they guranteed you certain finish standards on the inside of the stock, or where you told them you would pay extra for an upgraded finish on the inside of the stock.

You are straining gnats here. I wish my life was going along so well that the finish on the inside of a stock (in a gun that performs BETTER than guranteed, I might add) causes me so much greif that I could divert time away from the other issues going on.

Is Walex your brother? H&S has nothing to do with the exchange rate.
Butch

Marc, I fear that you did not get the gist of all this. The problem is NOT a messy bedding finish. It is a barrel that came unscrewed while shooting.
HS promised they would fix it personaly, as I had requested and they didn't. It was repaired by a gunsmith in thier Italian distributers workshop.
The rifle now doesn't hold their .5MOA garantee so it's fair to say he ruined it.
It seems like you didn't read the rest of the thread.

Butch, if the money issue seems very prominent, it isn't a point I'm trying to make about the rifle or HS. Of course they have nothing to do with what I paid for it. It's just a common frustration coming out that we pay so much more here for firearms related goods.

Ok. It's partly my fault that you guys haven't gotten the proper gist of this. Checking this thread from the top I only now realize that it doesn't contain enough information unless you go clicking all the links. There is a lot of information missing that you can find in other threads, mainly on the American big game forum.