In a post several months ago, I mentioned that a group of people from the Calguns.net forum had placed a group buy order of Dracos from Lancaster Arms. This was back in late August of 2009. True to form, Chet Durda of Lancaster Arms LLC promised these guys the sun and the moon. As is typical of Mr. Durda and his toadie Shane, these guys told the members of this group whatever they thought the group wanted to hear in order to get the sale. And of course, Lancaster required the money up front.
From what I read, this group was initially told they would get their Dracos within a couple weeks. They did get a few of the pistols after a month and a half. I’ll spare you all the details of what happened after that since, if you’re a regular reader of this blog, you can probably guess how this ended. After about two months, people started growing impatient and suspicious. Lancaster missed several delivery deadlines, employed their usual arsenal of stall tactics and excuses as to why they hadn’t delivered, and to this day – over a year later – Lancaster has STILL not delivered all of the Dracos for which members of this group have paid.
If you have an hour to kill, the entire fiasco is laid out in great detail here.
If you’re one of the victims from Calguns.net and you’re reading this right now, understand that if you haven’t received your gun by now, you never will. You have essentially been defrauded by Chet Durda and Shane. Lawyer up or, better yet, just file a theft report with the Goodyear, Arizona Police Department. And if you’re not willing to do this, then just kiss your money good-bye, and understand that your failure to take action will only embolden Durda to do this again to someone else. In other words, if you have not received your gun, you have an obligation to take action so that others are not conned by Chet Durda like you were. If you need help finding a lawyer or dealing with the Goodyear Police, contact me and I’ll be happy to assist.
For everyone else, yes…this is typical of how Lancaster Arms operates. I don’t know of a more shady, dishonest seller of AK rifles out there than Lancaster Arms. Chet Durda’s refusal to run his business in an honest and ethical manner is now common knowledge amongst the firearms community. If you need other reasons to avoid Lancaster, just read the rest of the blog to learn about the dozens and dozens of people Chet Durda has conned and/or ripped-off.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Monday, November 8, 2010
Lancaster Arms No Longer Selling To Public?
Lancaster Arms recently announced that, as of January 1, 2011, they will no longer be selling firearms direct to the public. Whether this is actually true or not remains to be seen, since - as those of you who follow this blog already know - you can't really believe anything Lancaster says anyway.
But if it is true, one can only wonder: "Lancaster, what took you so long?"
Those who have had the unfortunate experience of dealing with Lancaster Arms during the last two years are keenly aware that Lancaster was never set-up or equipped to do business with the public; a point enforced by the fact that even though Lancaster Arms' victims were often promised ship times measured in weeks, in reality it often took months to get a rifle shipped. The buffoons who work at Lancaster Arms, headed by Chief Buffoon Chet Durda, couldn't seem to do simple stuff like, oh, I don't know...remember to actually build and ship the rifle after they were paid for it?
This new situation at Lancaster (again, assuming it's true) should solve one of Lancaster's problems. That is, the problem of pissed off retail consumers who were systematically lied to by Chet Durda. Now, Chet will have to lie directly to FFL holders, who I suspect (and hope) will be less tolerant of his mountains of pure, unadulterated bullshit.
Does this all mean I might now by a Lancaster Arms AK rifle?
Not just "No.", but "Hell no!" With this change, I still expect that Lancaster will continue to over-promise and under-deliver. The only difference, is that there will just be a new middleman (the buyer's FLL or dealer) involved now. I still don't trust Lancaster's products, many of which have proven to be shoddily built. And I for certain still don't trust Chet Durda. He is in this business strictly for the money, and if that means you might get a crappy AK because he doesn't want to spend the money on building it correctly, he doesn't care. (Those of you who want an example of this, need only look at the post below, where one of Lancaster's AK's blew itself apart due to sub-standard build quality.) As far as I'm concerned, doing business with Lancaster Arms is still a huge, huge gamble and mistake .
Lancaster Arms has essentially lost the trust of the AK community, and if you doubt that, just go to any of the major AK forums and mention Lancaster Arms. On nearly every forum, you'll hear variations of the same thing: "Those guys went downhill bigtime!" "They have a history of ripping people off." "Don't believe a word Lancaster tells you!" "Lancaster's guns are bottom of the barrel, perhaps even worse than Century." "Avoid at all cost!"
Whatever you do, don't be lulled into a false sense of security that because you ordered your Lancaster gun from a dealer, you won't have any problems. The same person is still in charge at Lancaster. As long as he is running the show at Lancaster Arms, then a Lancaster Arms rifle simply won't be worth owning. Any questions?
But if it is true, one can only wonder: "Lancaster, what took you so long?"
Those who have had the unfortunate experience of dealing with Lancaster Arms during the last two years are keenly aware that Lancaster was never set-up or equipped to do business with the public; a point enforced by the fact that even though Lancaster Arms' victims were often promised ship times measured in weeks, in reality it often took months to get a rifle shipped. The buffoons who work at Lancaster Arms, headed by Chief Buffoon Chet Durda, couldn't seem to do simple stuff like, oh, I don't know...remember to actually build and ship the rifle after they were paid for it?
This new situation at Lancaster (again, assuming it's true) should solve one of Lancaster's problems. That is, the problem of pissed off retail consumers who were systematically lied to by Chet Durda. Now, Chet will have to lie directly to FFL holders, who I suspect (and hope) will be less tolerant of his mountains of pure, unadulterated bullshit.
Does this all mean I might now by a Lancaster Arms AK rifle?
Not just "No.", but "Hell no!" With this change, I still expect that Lancaster will continue to over-promise and under-deliver. The only difference, is that there will just be a new middleman (the buyer's FLL or dealer) involved now. I still don't trust Lancaster's products, many of which have proven to be shoddily built. And I for certain still don't trust Chet Durda. He is in this business strictly for the money, and if that means you might get a crappy AK because he doesn't want to spend the money on building it correctly, he doesn't care. (Those of you who want an example of this, need only look at the post below, where one of Lancaster's AK's blew itself apart due to sub-standard build quality.) As far as I'm concerned, doing business with Lancaster Arms is still a huge, huge gamble and mistake .
Lancaster Arms has essentially lost the trust of the AK community, and if you doubt that, just go to any of the major AK forums and mention Lancaster Arms. On nearly every forum, you'll hear variations of the same thing: "Those guys went downhill bigtime!" "They have a history of ripping people off." "Don't believe a word Lancaster tells you!" "Lancaster's guns are bottom of the barrel, perhaps even worse than Century." "Avoid at all cost!"
Whatever you do, don't be lulled into a false sense of security that because you ordered your Lancaster gun from a dealer, you won't have any problems. The same person is still in charge at Lancaster. As long as he is running the show at Lancaster Arms, then a Lancaster Arms rifle simply won't be worth owning. Any questions?
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