Love the rifle, but scared of the company?? lol

Elkwonder said:

Ok, for some weird reason while at my local gun store today a made the mistake of picking up a Christensen Arms MCR. WOW!!! The fit was just great and it felt perfect to me!! To top it off it was in 7 PRC which is the caliber I would want it chambered in as well. I am pretty tempted to take a chance on it, but dang.....I have read a lot of bad about the accuracy and customer service. Seems like you either get a really good shooter or a less than acceptable shooter with them. What a shame to find a rifle I like so much and actually be scared to try it out.
So, if you were in this situation, would you take a chance, or would you give it a pass and keep on moving? lol
It fit me

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I had a CA in 280 AI. Loved the fit and feel. When I couldn't get it to shoot better than 3" groups I sent it back. Service was terrible. Got it back and it still wouldn't shoot. They refused to buy it back, so I sold it at a loss. Years later I bought their new TI action with the FFT stock in 280 AI. Fit and feel was perfect. However there was a bulge in the barrel. I sent it to CA, unfired. They called it cosmetic and resurfaced and finished the barrel. That one shot worse than the first one. When it talked to the dealer I bought it from, he sent me a shipping lable and gave me a full refund. After a lot of waste of expensive ammo and the CA service, I'll never own another. Quantity over quality appears to be their current mission statement.

I have a CA Mesa LR in 6.5prc that shoots incredible. It's my go to rifle for long range hunting (over 500yds). That said, I had a hankering for a chasis gun a couple years ago and after a lot (LOT) of back and forth i went with the Tikka T3 Tac A1 in 6.5cm. My choice boiled down to the nearly doubled weight of the Tikka making it much easier to steady for accuracy. It was definitely the right choice for me personally but dang it's heavy.
The MPR is a sweet rifle. I have a CA Ranger 22lr carbon that is a dream to carry in the squirrel woods and plenty accurate enough the job.
Good luck with your decision!

I have had one CA that would not shoot. Of course it was their Summit TI at around 6k. I have a 308 and a 6.5 CM that are way less than .5" guns. I had a 300 WSM that was .75 or less. The 300 Win Mag was 2" all day, all ammo and multiple scopes. Took a trip to CA to say it was in specs and down the road it went. I have a CA AR10 that is the most stupid accurate AR I have ever shot.

Take a chance and see.

Elkwonder said:

Ok, for some weird reason while at my local gun store today a made the mistake of picking up a Christensen Arms MCR. WOW!!! The fit was just great and it felt perfect to me!! To top it off it was in 7 PRC which is the caliber I would want it chambered in as well. I am pretty tempted to take a chance on it, but dang.....I have read a lot of bad about the accuracy and customer service. Seems like you either get a really good shooter or a less than acceptable shooter with them. What a shame to find a rifle I like so much and actually be scared to try it out.
So, if you were in this situation, would you take a chance, or would you give it a pass and keep on moving? lol
It fit me

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I'd pass. Their reputation for bad rifles would put me off.

I have had friends burned by their terrible customer service. There is enough bad feedback out there besides my personal knowledge for me to say that I would NEVER give Christensen Arms any of my money. Isn't worth the gamble. Juice ain't worth the squeeze.

The easy solution to me would be to just buy the chassis and buy a different action, trigger and barrel. You get the look without the worry. I take PayPal for my wisdom

I have owned (4) to date and I was able to get everyone of them to shoot at least MOA if not considerably better. The problem is that you pay so much money for a factory rifle these days and then when it doesn't shoot it makes you feel like you could have built something and been way happier. If it fits you and you like it buy it, I bet with a little work you can get it to shoot. Like I said I have had the pleasure of owning four of them and I never had an issue. Maybe I was just lucky.

I would buy it!

My experience with CA has been limited to less than 10 Ridgelines and Mesa's. Every one I managed to get to shoot to an acceptable hunting accuracy for the capability of most shooters. Every one of these required rebedding. The factory bedding jobs are of the assembly line quality and could be a place for better qc at their home facility. Some of these rifles got new stocks which made those much better to shoot. One thing I've noticed is that these rifles are often hard for some shooters to shoot accurately because of how light they are. Some inaccuracy claims could be rightfully attributed to bad shooting techniques as well. CA has certainly had some issue's but for the amount of rifles they sell I suspect satisfaction is better than most of the 50/50 claims. If a guy likes his rifle, he's never gonna get online and complain about it. And there's probably a lot more of those guys than there are the guys online who are upset, even though they have legitimate reason for their complaints. Most of the CA carbons I've worked with I've managed to average 1 moa or slightly better with a few 1/4-1/2 moa shooters. I'm by no means a CA fan. Most of my rifles are full customs. I did however recently acquire for cheap off of my local classifieds a 20" CA fft in a 6.5 Creedmoor for my youngest daughter. I surmised off of the price I got it for that perhaps they couldn't get it to shoot. First thing I did was tear it apart and noticed that the bottom metal was severely binding on the magazine box. I corrected that and went out and shot it at 100 yards and immediately was shooting sub MOA of the bed of my pickup with Hornady 143 EDX ammo. This rifle is now getting a makeover with a Manners collapsible stock, suppressor mount, and some hand loads. With the current popularity of the 7prc my local sporting goods store is not selling many 28 Noslers so I also recently picked up a significantly discounted CA Ridgeline in 28 Nosler. I couldn't pass up the deal. Im going to see how this one goes. It's immediately getting overhauled. Fit into another Manners stock, different muzzle brake, bolt knob, and possibly a lighter trigger. Should be a good adventure. Best of luck with your decision.

FireFlyFishing said:

I have a 7 Mag that shoots amazing. They're not all bad.

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Here's a CA Ridgeline 7 Rem mag after a full action rebed.

I have a Ridgeline in 6.5 PRC I bought new about 5 years ago. It shoots 5 shot 3/8 in. groups with a load I have with RL26, ADG and 156 Bergers. I love the rifle. I'll never be able to afford another C.A. rifle so guess I'm happy I got a good one .

I've bought three of them, two Ridgelines, one Mesa.
All have been perfect. All shooters.
I've heard about the issues with this company for some time now and I get it, if you spend that much money and get a bad product you will have a bad taste in your mouth for them from now on, and nothing will change that.
But think about the thousands of fine rifles that get sold that work just as the owner hoped for.. You never hear from them.

cajun said:

I think the seekins is less of a crapshoot.

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Oh Heck yes!

Companies that realize that Customers are the Key to their business have stellar customer service, especially after the sale.

Elkwonder said:

Ok, for some weird reason while at my local gun store today a made the mistake of picking up a Christensen Arms MCR. WOW!!! The fit was just great and it felt perfect to me!! To top it off it was in 7 PRC which is the caliber I would want it chambered in as well. I am pretty tempted to take a chance on it, but dang.....I have read a lot of bad about the accuracy and customer service. Seems like you either get a really good shooter or a less than acceptable shooter with them. What a shame to find a rifle I like so much and actually be scared to try it out.
So, if you were in this situation, would you take a chance, or would you give it a pass and keep on moving? lol
It fit me

Click to expand...

Late this summer I have a buddy who bought a CA in 300 PRC. About the same time my father bought a Seekins in 7PRC. I was super excited for both of them and couldn't wait to see them shoot. Out we went for a range day and the Seekins shot great from shot 1. I'm really impressed with what they've built in this rifle. Side note I've been working up a load for dad in this gun and it has already shot a 1/4 MOA group with 175 ELD-X and Ramshot Grand. I plan on posting more details in another post when we're all finished but that's another topic. The CA was a little different story. My buddy really struggled to make it group. It was rough. Like 8" groups. Three of us shot it with the same results. We were frustrated because it was a brand new scope and all the screws were torqued right etc. We took it out of the stock to check if anything was out of whack there but all seemed fine except the magazine box for the drop box fell out when we took it apart. Didn't think much of it at the time because that could be expected when disassembled. So we reassembled it with the magazine box properly in place and my buddy took the gun back to the store. They said CA would warranty it but he needed to try at least 3 different ammos and go through their fairly regimented break in process. So back out we went to the range and it shot better right away. Did the break in process and the gun is a shooter now. My buddy loves his CA. I won't discredit the break in process but I don't believe that was the reason for taking a gun from shooting 8" groups to sub MOA. My theory is that the magazine box was cockeyed when the action was torqued into the stock which caused some weird stress in the action. It's all fixed now and quite a nice rig. Kind of learning moment for all of us involved. For what it's worth based on this experience and having shot both guns I would lean towards the Seekins but if the CA is what you're looking for and fits you good then I wouldn't be afraid to give it a go. I will recommend you check out their break in process. It's on the Christensen Arms website.

On one of my CA,s it shot two inches until I'd put about fifty rounds down the tube. Then it was very good. I wish companies would lap the rough spots out of their rifle before it's shipped. But that would cause extra expense that they think you can take care of by shooting it.
Some of my first patches from the carbon barrel looked like a disco ball glittering in the sun from metal particles. But following the break in, it shot amazing.
PS, I just loaded for and sighted in a Model 48 Nosler for a friend. That rifle requires a break in program that is exactly like the CA .
The rifle cost $3800.00