Lyman quality control heads up!

[FrontierMuzzleloading]

Not sure whats with lyman lately, but already we've seen on here where one barrel/breech split right in half and could have injured or killed the shooter due to poor quality control.

This popped on facebook where the guy was having pure hell getting a GPR flinter to fire off reliably. He found a still attached chunk of metal blocking inside the breech area.

"A friend was having trouble with a new Lyman miss firing,we put a new RMC touch hole liner in, helped a little, drilled the touch hole with a # 52 drill help even more but it just wasn't right. I decided to use a modified breech scraper in the Patented Breech and found a small piece/burr from the threading of the touch hole was down in the patented breech blocking the powder from getting to the touch hole.Got the metal piece out after a little working it back and forth to get it to come lose,and now the gun fires fast every time.So if anyone is having trouble,I would look into this.Just a case of poor workmanship on the part of Lyman."


Now a member over at my place has been having issues with his GPR stock as well. He wasnt happy with the sloppy metal to wood fit and to top it off, a crack in the stock. He got the ok from lyman to send it in for replacement. Low and behold, he gets the rifle back and they did not do a thing to it! same stock and everything!

Lyman agreed to send him a replacement stock this time and he could do the work since he was not happy with the first go around. He got it and boy oh boy! Its really worse than the first! Not cool considering the tang screw goes through this area, or close by this area.


Replacement stock ( #3 is currently on the way )


When it comes to buying a new sidelock, you may want to reconsider lyman. The quality has greatly dropped over the past 5+ years. Now we are seeing barrel failures, stocks cracking, huge chunks of metal being left inside the barrels. This is not good.

[triggerhappy243]

Lyman's are made in Spain. hmmmmmmmmmm

[FrontierMuzzleloading]

Lyman is made in italy.

[triggerhappy243]

close.........lol

[FrontierMuzzleloading]

They used to do a solid job. After seeing some of what they are turning out now... I'm sticking with my made in Spain guns lol.

[triggerhappy243]

american made for me .... all the way or I do without.

[FrontierMuzzleloading]

Good luck with that. Tc arms no longer warrants their sidelocks.

[triggerhappy243]

hahahaha, these will out last me.

[charlie b]

M Lyman's have never needed anything done to them, but, I've only had three of them in 30 years.

FWIW, a few cases of issues would not dissuade me from buying another one. And many things I've had that were made in the US were worse than overseas mfg products.

[HangFireW8]

OK, so it's good to go over any new purchase and look for flaws, and maybe Lyman's OEM is suffering from some QA issues.

But stock cracks... can happen any time, to any stock. There is an "infant mortality" rate with rifle stocks just the same as electronics (more likely to have a problem early on). The reason is simple, it's made from a natural product (wood) with variable characteristics, and as the wood dries out and cures, cracks can happen. Not every manufacturer ages their wood the proper amount of time, 7-11 years. Most go through a steam and kiln process that cures them "mostly" very quickly.

Remington 700 wood stocks for years (haven't tried them lately) had a pre-repair done on that little bridge of wood ahead of the trigger, and behind the magazine. You can see it as a little brass dot on one side of the rifle.

This kind of repair is easy to do, Brownell's makes a kit for it. You just need some threaded brass rod, a matching drill bit, and some epoxy. Careful file work and finishing and you'll just have a little brass dot on the surface, that often looks like it belongs there.

[Rick Hodges]

OK, so it's good to go over any new purchase and look for flaws, and maybe Lyman's OEM is suffering from some QA issues.

But stock cracks... can happen any time, to any stock. There is an "infant mortality" rate with rifle stocks just the same as electronics (more likely to have a problem early on). The reason is simple, it's made from a natural product (wood) with variable characteristics, and as the wood dries out and cures, cracks can happen. Not every manufacturer ages their wood the proper amount of time, 7-11 years. Most go through a steam and kiln process that cures them "mostly" very quickly.

Remington 700 wood stocks for years (haven't tried them lately) had a pre-repair done on that little bridge of wood ahead of the trigger, and behind the magazine. You can see it as a little brass dot on one side of the rifle.

This kind of repair is easy to do, Brownell's makes a kit for it. You just need some threaded brass rod, a matching drill bit, and some epoxy. Careful file work and finishing and you'll just have a little brass dot on the surface, that often looks like it belongs there.

The "brass dot" is where they hung the stock when it was being sprayed with the glass like gloss finish...the brass rod was then cut off and buffed flush when the stock dried. They used to have a video showing them being made. Not a repair, but a production aid.

[triggerhappy243]

Frontiers comments about the barrel machining snaff-foo, well that is a q/c-qa blunder. I have no answer as to why it is happening.

The wood issue, well..... Hangfire nailed that one. I do not know how these rifles make it from italy to the u.s. Mainland, but if it is by ship, than their is a humidity issue to contend with.

[sharps4590]

Lyman hasn't been the company they used to be for several years from my experience. I had a GPR and it was a pretty darn good rifle. However, that was probably close to 30 years ago.

[silly goose]

I'd buy a lyman or pedersoli before I bought any other production mz.

[charlie b]

I would not hesitate to buy a Traditions. The ones I have seen shoot well.

[rfd]

any production gun can have issues, particularly of offshore origin. it's also important to add in how the guns are used, and then beware of people with agendas.

lyman doesn't make trad ml's, neither does traditions - they both use rebranded arms from either italy (investarms rebranded as lyman, dgw, cabela and others) and spain (i think it's BPI, branded as traditions, cva and others).

one thing that i'll do with any offshore muzzleloader that's new to me is check out the breech by taking it off. with the right tools, piece of cake with investarms guns, but impossible for me with any spanish built guns (the last literature i had with a traditions gun - a crockett .32 - expressly stated that any attempted removal of the breech plug would damage the barrel). inspecting the plug, chamber and barrel may yield production issues, which i have yet to find with the dozen or so investarms trad ml's i've had in both kit and already built form, but it also allows proofing residue cleanup and anti-seize plug and bolster lubing.

a good gun is a good gun, don't matter where it was made or who made it. this could easily be an offshore gun from italy or spain or elsewhere. these guns have been in the same production for decades and i seriously doubt than any of these manufacturers are bent on making bad guns. quality control is another matter, and they (whomever the gun originated from) don't do it, or is suspect, the onus is on the buyer. look at all the big time centerfire gun manufacturers with gun recalls.

i only prefer the investarms guns because they're easier for me to work on. and as such, i've put together 3 or 4 GPR kit guns last year alone, and each was as good as they get, which is a good thing. i love an onshore built trad ml, i have more than a few, and yet i still have a GPR kit gun that's just as good. there is some measure of subjectivity to guns, mostly aesthetic in nature. objectively, these italian and spanish guns are by and large very good values.

[FrontierMuzzleloading]

Well, the gentleman received his second replacement stock.... There are NO EXCUSES now. What a joke

[triggerhappy243]

frontier, this stock looks like it is drying out.

[FrontierMuzzleloading]

Brand new replacement from lyman

[trapper9260]

That is sad for what it going on with Lyman. The side locks I got are all used and no problem like that. They are not Lyman ,but still ok for what the way they where made back then.