Sadly Cimarron SINGLE Shot

Biker, that's an amazing twist that everyone should be aware of. Back to the beginning:
Rifle is a Chiappa brand, sold by Cimarron, through Midway. Think of Midway as a shooting sports Amazon. Much of what is sold is from other than Midway brand. Up front, Midway is clear "all firearms sales are final, non-returnable." Initially I filed a credit card dispute. But remember where the credit card payment went to - Midway. When I notified Midway of the problem I told them it was a courtesy, my complaint was with Cimarron, but Midway might get sucked in. Midway advised me [ready for this?] that if I filed the dispute, I would be *banned* from ever doing business with them :confused: Since my complaint was with Cimarron I cancelled the dispute. Midway then offered to help remedy. After a hopeful email exchange, they let me know I was on my own, they wouldn't intervene. So Cimarron/Chiappa is effectively insulated from a credit card dispute. Slick, huh?

-jb, pretty much thought of all angles
 
I would file the credit card complaint, get my money back, and happily never do business with Midway again. You're not asking to return a firearm. You are asking that a product THEY sold be repaired, or that you be made whole if your rifle has gone AWOL. If Larry won't stand behind a product he sold, he's not someone I want to do business with.
 
If you ever get your rifle back, seek out a real gunsmith.

A friend had one of those Numrich barrels to convert a Rolling Block .43 whatever to .45-70. It was loose in the action. He would still plink a little with it but it mostly sat idle until we finally got it off to the local shop. The gunsmith set back the shoulder so it would screw in tight with the sights vertical. Then he faced off the rear until the breechblock would close. A rented reamer corrected the chamber, and he cut the extractor notch. It shoots quite well now.
 
Aguila Blanca said:
I would file the credit card complaint, get my money back, and happily never do business with Midway again. You're not asking to return a firearm. You are asking that a product THEY sold be repaired, or that you be made whole if your rifle has gone AWOL. If Larry won't stand behind a product he sold, he's not someone I want to do business with.
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Agreed. There is little that one can get from Midway that cannot be gotten elsewhere for about the same money...

Tony
 
AB and Geezer, I'm not trying to be contrary, but keep in mind
Up front, Midway is clear "all firearms sales are final, non-returnable."
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I love Midway, but regardless of Midway or any other reseller/drop shipper, there's that circular logic that protects them: credit card dispute is just that - a dispute, not a warranty. The credit card dispute goes nowhere because of the No Return/No Refund policy AND the merchandise is warranted by Cimarron, not Midway; and there's no recourse against Cimarron/Chiappa because ... well that's not who the credit card "paid."

To me it sounds like "wah-wah, nothing I can do." In reality, there's nothing I can do, minus the wah-wah :o It would be the same situation if I had bought from GunCroaker, or any other reseller/agent. The total recourse is leaving "feedback." Considering the experience, I REALLY wonder what if I'd bought from ... Cabela's/BPS, Sportsman's Warehouse, etc etc. [not that I'm casting *any* aspersions on any other online vendor]. For that matter, a brick and mortar LGS. At least they don't have that 3rd party intermediary, i.e. Cimarron between Chiappa and Midway. [shrug] In the end, we're really dependent upon the seller's (Cimarron, Ruger, S&W, Jennings, whatever) integrity to properly and completely honor a warranty.

-jb, on the look out for All Sales Final
 
Whether or not the warranty/repair work was done,whether or not the forend was damaged, you bought and paid for a rifle.
You own the rifle.

At some point,regardless of its condition, its been stolen from you.
You might pursue it as a stolen firearm. Someone is employing a thief.

Actually,there is probably some employee who has it stashed under a bench.hoping you will go away. Its not going in any dumpster.

Tell them (whoever "them"is) you are contacting the BATF about a stolen firearm.
Or,don't tell them. Just report it stolen.

Time for being a nice guy is over. If someone gets arrested or loses a job or an ffl, GOOD!!! They earned it. If nothing else,the sn will be flagged. It should come up stolen if transferred. You might recover it.
 
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GJeffB said:
I love Midway, but regardless of Midway or any other reseller/drop shipper, there's that circular logic that protects them: credit card dispute is just that - a dispute, not a warranty. The credit card dispute goes nowhere because of the No Return/No Refund policy AND the merchandise is warranted by Cimarron, not Midway; and there's no recourse against Cimarron/Chiappa because ... well that's not who the credit card "paid."
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I'm not a lawyer, but there is such a thing as an "implied warranty of merchantability." That means when a merchant undertakes to sell something, they implicitly warrant to the buyer that the gizmo is suitable for doing whatever it is that gizmos are supposed to do. Midway is a dealer -- a merchant. They sell things to people, and the people who buy those things expect them to work. For a huge merchant like Midway to sell a clearly defective product and then sit back when it fails on the very first shot is not a good business practice, and it may run afoul of the implied warranty of merchantability doctrine.

A number of years ago, Ciener (the guy who makes the .22 conversions for 1911s and Hi-Powers) was doing some really shady stuff, like taking payment but not shipping, not answering the phone, not responding to other means of contact, etc. I wanted a .22 conversion for my 1911, but I didn't trust buying it from Ciener. At the time, Brownells was selling them, so I bought mine from Brownells. I paid $20 more from Brownells than I would have if I had bought directly from Ciener, but from other reports I knew that Brownells would take care of the customer if there was a problem.

The circumstances were the same. Brownells was not the manufacturer, and Brownells did issue the warranty. But ... Brownells cares enough about their customers that they were willing to either go to bat or absorb a loss if there was a problem. (And apparently there were problems, because not long after I bought mine Brownells dropped the Ciener conversions.)

It wouldn't hurt Larry Potterfield to pick up the phone and call Mike Harvey about a gun that only went bang once. I think Midway has a moral responsibility to help you, and they may have a legal responsibility to help you.

And I second the motion to report the gun as stolen.
 
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Gotta let this go dead, re-flagellating the deceased equine again, and again, and
I'm not a lawyer
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... operative

It wouldn't hurt Larry Potterfield to pick up the phone and call Mike Harvey
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yeah, my whine over and over again. It was actually my request of Cimarron "Mike" to light up Chiappa. Nada, zero, zilch, nada.

And I second the motion to report the gun as stolen.
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[Sleepy Joe] C'mon Man! [/Sleepy Joe]
File a false report for lousy, rotten, stinking service? Not moi :rolleyes:

Amazingly, the day I re- re- re- complained to Cimarron, CSR told me he had *just* called Chiappa the day before. [coincidence number 7,346? <--sarcasm] and miraculously they were done with the gun, after cuddling it for another month+. Thanks for the timely follow up :mad: It would be soon re- re-sent to Cimarron who would then forward it to me. Stolen? nah. Lousy, worthless follow up on a brand new purchase - yeah. As I suggested earlier: Ruger? S&W? Even fleekin' Jennings?

Good luck with your business model Cimarron. Sell a POS, blame it on "the factory," offer no replacement nor refund and blame 3rd party. That's a winning strategy. <-- sarcasm x 10

-jb, out for like the 17th time :rolleyes:
 
One thing for sure, I seriously doubt that any of us that read this thread would ever buy a rifle from Midway.

When I worked in bike shops we were told that a happy customer might tell someone. An unhappy customer will tell every one. I think Midway just shot themselves in the foot on this one...

Tony
 
I can't say this turned me off Midway, because I made that decision years ago. However, this thread did convince me never to consider buying a Cimarron firearm. Somehow, Cimarron got my e-mail address and I've been getting notices when Mike Harvey puts out another of his cringe-worthy firearms history videos. The man sounds senile, but he sure is proud of himself.

If I want an Italian replica, I'll buy it directly from Uberti or Pietta, or from Cabela's. As for Chiappa -- thanks, but no thanks.
 
OK, resurrecting the thread to close it out.
Since the last post, I filed a BBB complaint in TX. After attempts to contact Cimarron without reply the BBB closed their file with a "Not Responsive" note for 3 years. Curiously shortly after I received information from Cimarron that my rifle was received from the factory noting 15 minutes of shop time and "barrel retightened." That was around end of March. That was the good news. Bad news was there was additional, new damage to the forearm. Cimarron returned it to the "factory" and we rinse and repeat.

More blah blah, excuses, non-response, etc. Long story short, finally the rifle arrived back to me 5/24/2021. I finally got it to the range a week later, all my reloads chambered but failed to allow the block to close, causing all sorts of bad thoughts. Ultimately turned out to be my error (whew!). Over-crimping causing enough case bulging to cause failure to completely chamber. A second trip a week later after remedying the load problem was successful. All rounds chambered, locked up, and fired. This was a function test only, but the rifle seemed to be reasonably accurate. "Normal" load and accuracy development will follow. This closes out my experience with Cimarron/Chiappa.

Take aways:
Would I buy another Chiappa of any model? NONBFNo [not only no but fersure no]
Would I buy another ANY make/model from Cimarron? Same answer
Not here to bash. It's just that the comedy of errors, failure to answer communication (the snow storm notwithstanding), and the seller's (Cimarron) apparent inability to get satisfactory responses from their own supplier (Chiappa) just doesn't make it worth another purchase. Coupled with the rather poor repair efforts makes it a "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me." YMMV

-jb, expending energy on far more important things
 
I am glad you ended up with a shootable rifle.

A friend and I went 'round and 'round with Cimarron on the ASM Schofields that an Australian reviewer said were better than Uberti. Wrong. We finally got partial refunds of the wholesale price. Which was not a huge loss, the FFL had not charged us much to put n the order, so we were only out a $20 markup and shipping to return the duds.
 
Thanks Jim.
Hmmm. Another forum post basically said I should have known the "Chicrappa" wasn't the quality of Pedersoli and I should have known or inquired if it was an inferior firearm. I guess I wasn't the only one to have difficulty with the vendor, as opposed to the manufacturer.

As you said, I'm glad you didn't get burned too badly by Cimarron. My assessment stands, I appreciate knowing I'm not the only one.

-jb, shoot straight and safely
 
Even though it's not a great experience, you got it resolved. Cimarron is just a distributor, their rifles are made for them by the lowest bidder, they have marketing types come up with catchy names, and they just sell them and hope nothing goes wrong. Chiappa (Armisport in Italy) is a manufacturer who makes guns to designs. I make it a point to never buy guns made by people who don't shoot guns (shooting is not really part of the culture of most European states any more). Does that make me a gun snob? Maybe, but I don't care.
 
Glad you got it sorted Jeff, what a PIA. I have a Pedersoli Sharps and when doing my research found out about Chiapa and so gave them a wide birth. Mine is a 25 year old second hand rifle and is superb. Cheers from Uk.
 
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