Atomic Nerds

With the mad rush of Pres. Barry’s economic stimulus in the form of firearms and ammo purchases finally winding down a little, I decided it was time to get off my ass and finally put the last touches on the slowest AR-15 build ever, and pick up an upper.

After much hand-wringing, wailing, and agonizing over the roughly four hundred billion possible configurations and permutations of AR-15 uppers, I finally bit the bullet and broke out of my option-lock to settle on a model from C.M.M.G. Inc.. It had enough of my “want this” options at a good price point, so on the last day of August this year, I hit “submit” on their checkout page, and prepared to wait. Their site at the time said that because of the flood of sales that started in November ’08 (they didn’t say the when part, but c’mon), order times were on the long side. An email would go out when the order was entered into production, which could be up to three weeks.

The next morning, September 1st, I got an email that my upper was in production. Customer service win number one.

Checking back, they said orders would take four to five weeks to build, and because of the rush, we’re sorry but we can’t offer status updates until you’re past that period. Today, fourteen days after the order went into production, our UPS fatass came waddling up the driveway and chucked a box rather longer than it was wide in the general direction of our door. Open the box, and bam:

(click for big)

Customer service win two: Product here in half the minimum time expected? Yes please!

Only, wait a sec. Um, ok, there’s the flip-up rear. There’s the gas-block I picked… yeah, this is the right length, but anybody seen my front sight? A2 post dealie? No? Drat.

Figuring on modern standard customer service just by force of habit, I started browsing Midway for options while trying to get through the busy signal on their contact line. Once I did, I spoke to a very pleasant young woman, explained the situation, provided order number, and sat on hold for a bit. When she came back, she said they checked the order and would have the sight I originally ordered sent out on the UPS truck for me today. All righty, simple and easy and agreeable, customer service win three!

What, you think it ends there? Hell no, we’ve got MORE WIN COMING!

About ten minutes later, I’m futzing around trying to find where I stashed all my magazines. The phone rings.
“Hello?”
“Hello, my name is Kent, with C.M.M.G., I’m calling about a problem with the front sight on the upper you ordered from us?”
“Yessir, I spoke to you folks just a while ago, and the lady said she’d have the A2 front on its way. Is anything wrong?”
“No, I’m just trying to make sure we get you the correct sight this time. Which was it you had specified?”
“Well, I was after the YHM flip up rear with a double picatinny gas block and a standard A2 post. Got two out of three, but no front sight at all.”
“Wait, really? No sight what-so-ever?”
“Not unless I’m really confused about how the flash hider works, I’m afraid not.”
“Wow, I have no idea how a mistake like that happened. Well I tell you what, tell me what front sight would you’d like on there, anything we have is fair game, and I’ll get that to you tomorrow.”
“Wow, cool! Um, er, what all have you got?”

So we talked things over a bit, considered uses and accessories I had in mind, and settled on a nice Troy flip up on his suggestion and endorsement of the one on his personal rifle. Beats the hell out of a plain ‘ol fixed A2, I’d say. Customer service win four: We made a mistake, we’re going to make it more than right.

After seriously exceeding my expectations at every step of this process, I cannot endorse C.M.M.G. Inc. heartily enough. Buy from them, they’s good folk.

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