Lyman Breech Plug Failure - The Lyman Recall Is No Joke

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arcticap

New member
Someone bought a new Lyman Trade rifle from Bud's last week.
Yesterday, on the 2nd outing with the gun, the breech plug broke off from the barrel.
Bud's Guns said they didn't know about the Lyman recall.
The recall is serious and the word should be spread before someone gets injured.

Lyman recall notice--->>> https://www.lymanproducts.com/recall/

Original thread:--->>> https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/lyman-rifle-failure.841810/

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Read that on that forum, but not a member.

As to why it got past Bud's, I can only figure it unfortunately fell through the cracks. Bud's does carry a lot of inventory, and I figure that they were most likely contacted, considering where I purchased mine, the vendor was contacted. Perhaps the person contacted at Bud's was un-aware. I do know that inventory was pulled from many sellers.


As to Lyman, they jumped on the problem quite quickly. I had a kit that was effected. A Great Plains .54 cal. flintlock. Lyman sent a pre-paid tube, after I sent my purchase info to them. Somewhere along the line, someone decided they wanted the contents of my tube, during the shipping process. Weeks after sending the tube, I was contacted by Lyman, wondering if I had sent it. About a week later, I got an empty tube returned in the mail, with it's end cut off.


I did E-mail Lyman. They sent a new barrel, with all of the extra parts, including sights. For good will, they sent out BP cleaning kits before hand. I have no complaints about Lyman. I think they did a good job, considering, the problem. As to Bud's, I've only done a few purchases, but they went well. I figure this is a limited problem, as the recall occurred over a half a year ago, and this is the first issue I've read about, when it comes to an effected rifle being sold.
 
Great heads-up

arcticap

Thanks for the heads up and have to admit that I was not aware of this recall. Most of my Lymans are older than this but will certainly have to inform my dealers and shooting buddies of this. Again, thank you very much !! … :)

Be Safe !!!
 
For about four months, the effected rifles were removed from inventories. It was "out of stock" just about everywhere. My 2017 barrel (bought in Jan. of 2018) was replaced with a 2018 barrel. Since I do have a tendency to check a lot of dealers listings, I've seen new replacement stock for the last three months.
 
Gary,
It looks like part of the threaded portion of the cast breech plug cracked off but I'm not positive.
There's photos of another failure on the THR thread.
 
The breech plug fractured.

Those Lyman branded guns are manufactured by Investarms of Italy. The recall includes all the Lyman branded conventional muzzleloaders manufactured between 3/1/17 and 12/22/17, except for left hand guns. The recall involves about 3,060 guns.


Recall includes ALL black powder rifles and pistols (including Deerstalker, Great Plains, Great Plains Hunter, Trade Rifle, Plains Pistol, Black Powder Kits, and replacement barrels; excluding Percussion Left Hand Great Plains and Left Hand Great Plains Hunter models), regardless of caliber manufactured from 3/1/17 to 12/22/17. Serial numbers in range of A595960-A599023 are subject to the recall . If you have one of these items, contact Lyman Customer Service at customerservice@lymanproducts.com
Click to expand...

My burning questions:

1. What changes were made to the breech plug on 3/1/17?

2. Did Lyman request the change?
 
On another forum, it was speculated that when a new lot of parts comes into a factory from a supplier, that new and old parts
can sometimes get mixed up in a large parts bin from which the parts are taken out of for use on the production line.

So it's not that any changes were made to the Investarms breech plug on 3/1/17, or that Lyman requested any change.

That may only be the date when Investarms determined that they had received a new lot of defective breech plugs
into their factory which began to make their way into their Lyman production line.

Or it could be the date when the first gun was made that was included in Lyman's last shipment from Investarms that
contained the defects that were known to be sold to the US public.

Perhaps both Lyman and Investarms stockpiles [Lyman branded] guns until they are eventually shipped.
Who knows how many guns could be involved that were produced in Italy still waiting to be shipped to Lyman in their next shipment,
or how many that Lyman had left over of the defective lot in their warehouse at the time of the recall?

We only know about the guns that were already distributed to the US market by Lyman as indicated in their recall notice.
Any other defective guns left over in either of their warehouses could be closely guarded information between the 2 companies.
Any Lyman guns received could be the subject of negotiation between the companies for reimbursement of additional expenses.
 
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Few things for sure:

1. There was a change that caused guns to blow up.

2. The "recall" failed to find all the defective guns.

3. It's a miracle someone was not seriously injured or killed.
 
What's actually known:

A supply of breech plugs were installed in a known range of serial numbers.

So far, in the last eight months, one known defective gun has slipped past.

,
If I remember correctly, the blown rifles were more of a "what the **** moment", instead of "I could have just died" scenario. Correct me if I'm wrong. I too agree, that they've been handling it well. Since I did own an effected barrel, I've been keeping up on the situation.
 
Cyla, I'm not trying to quibble over the claimed 8 month time frame.
There were 2 reports of failure in one thread on the muzzle loading forum and now this report from THR which makes three that I've read about.
A poster named Sgiles said that the exact same thing happened to him.
The original report of failure there reportedly belonged to 2FG who said that the photos that others posted were his.--->>> http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/fusionbb/showtopic.php?tid/306625/tp/1/

There's really no way to know how many guns have failed. Not everyone visits the same forums or reports it to the public.
Only Lyman would know how many failures were reported [to them].

Even if there were only 3 failures so far, no one may know the full extent for years to come.

Regarding the CVA Apollo recall from the late 1990's, the CVA website states that they recovered close to 97% of all of those recalled rifles that were sold.
And I saw one of those Apollos for sale just recently on a major gun selling website which is ~20 years later.

No matter how many guns with actual defects that were produced and which slipped by the inspectors,
we don't know how many more were stockpiled in the Investarms or Lyman warehouses that weren't distributed to the public.

There's no doubt that this boondoggle is costing Investarms or their insurance company a bunch of money.
To recover, replace, produce & ship over 3,000 barrels and breech plugs across the Atlantic and then back & forth across the country, plus any other additional damaged parts involved,
plus to provide cleaning kits as gifts to some of those affected, and also considering all of the incorrect barrels that were reported by customers to have been received in error, that must be quite expensive.
Not to mention the damage to each company's reputation.

Investarms quality has been observed to have been slipping lately too as someone posted photos about the less than stellar fit & finish of his new rifle.
And when there's one complaint made public it's often considered to be representative of many more complaints not aired in public.

I wonder why Cabela's not only stopped selling Investarms guns under the Cabela's label, but none at all, such as the GPR that they used to?
Cabela's now only sells traditional single shot BP rifles and pistols that are made by Pedersoli & Traditions.
While Cabela's decision may not have had anything to do with Investarms quality control, their decision may have affected the quality of Investarms products since then.
And while this has nothing to do with the recall itself, it still may all be somehow related.
At the very least, it indicates a recent downturn of sorts for Investarms, one of the most popular brands a decade ago.
All companies have their ups and downs, but right now their arrow sadly seems to be pointing down IMO.
 
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