Lancaster Arms: Still Major Problems

Last time I posted an update in late January, Lancaster Arms and Chet Durda were busy pissing off their retail customers. Since that last post, some interesting developments have taken place with Lancaster Arms:

1. Very recently, Lancaster changed their website and noted that they are no longer accepting credit cards. Gee…now why would a company that mostly sells high dollar-value (over $500+) items, all of a sudden stop taking credit cards?!? If I had to guess, I might speculate that Lancaster Arms lost its credit card merchant account. I know for a fact that several people – me included – had to do a chargeback to get our money back from Lancaster after Chet Durda constantly lied about the shipping dates on products we bought from him. I would not at all be surprised if this is what happened. To be sure, it is strange that a company like Lancaster Arms would just stop accepting credit cards all of a sudden. Real strange. As in, “This can’t be good” strange.

2. Also recently posted on Lancaster’s website is a note that they are stopping production of their “Rough Rider” series of AK-74’s. At first thought this also seems strange, since it sure does appear that many people have purchased this rifle in the last month or two. It’s not as if it was a commercial flop or something. But when you do a little digging, it appears that Lancaster’s “Rough Rider” series is plagued with quality-control problems. There have been a couple of videos posted on Youtube of people who bought Lancaster Arms Rough Rider rifles that literally started to fall apart after fewer than 1,000 rounds! And when I say “fall apart”, I mean exactly that…rivets popping loose, dust covers blowing off, etc. One guy on Youtube even claims that he will be sending his Lancaster rifle back because he is afraid of it! Nice. Apparently Chet Durda wasn’t content to just offer shitty customer service…now quality problems seem to be cropping up on the forums on a more frequent basis.

Google “Lancaster, Rough Rider, problem”, or some similar combination of search terms, and you’ll find a mountain of problems with this particular model of Lancaster rifle. No wonder Lancaster is discontinuing these!

3. I recently discovered a group of people in California who did a “group buy” of Lancaster Draco rifles. As might be predicted, Lancaster screwed them, left them hanging, and to this day continues to give them the run-around (Chet’s specialty) every time they call to see where their rifles are. As of today, they have an Internet thread that is 103 pages long (not a typo), complaining about how bad they’ve been lied to and screwed over by various personnel at Lancaster. A couple guys there are even starting to talk about hiring a lawyer to keep Lancaster honest. And yet, having dealt with Lancaster myself for months just trying to get someone there to give me a straight story, I’m not even remotely surprised.

So there you have it. Now, for those of you who are new to this blog, keep reading. In particular, read the previous posts about all the complaints that have been circulating on the Internet about Lancaster. I absolutely, positively do NOT trust Lancaster Arms or Chet Durda, and in my opinion, doing business with them is AT YOUR OWN VERY SIGNIFICANT RISK! Particularly now that they don’t take credit cards, you are basically going to be screwed if you order anything from Lancaster, and they treat you like they’ve treated so many of their other customers. As Chet proved to me, once he has your money…he couldn’t care less about you or what you ordered. If you’ve read this blog and yet still decide to order a firearm directly from Lancaster Arms, don’t come back here crying if you get screwed. You’ve been warned.