Yup they were taking orders in Dec 2022 and took 9 months to get them to market. and maybe i understood wrong but i thought the barrel wasnt thick enough where the collar needs to be? therefore unfixable/

100% sticking with Compass lake. My 15.1 from them is perfect and shoots so damn good. i got it off the shelf too!

Lilja is retarded

Sounds like Lilja owes you a new/correct barrel or a refund.

Where do these companies get off on promising a good or service and then saying ‘too bad, pay me’ when they fuck up the good or service?

What sucks about that is a new barrel will take months before it’s done. I ordered his because it was in stock (and because it’s supposed to be the “right” barrel but that’s another story) Not because I wanted to wait 6 months for a barrel.

While I'm no barrel manufacturer, if I did that I would immediately begin turning a new batch regardless of what others are being run. That's a bad business practice to say "we fucked up so you have to wait another 6 months".

I just can't wrap my head around how they could fuck this up.

Someone like TBA can get it right and one of the largest barrel manufacturers can't. That's like ford forgetting to put a bed on an F150.

Luckily i never ordered one. and have zero plans to now. My CLE is perfect. Has like 2500 rounds on it and shoots sub moa.

apparently someone sent in an "original" lilja recce barrel and he just copied the measurements. Thats what Carson Lilja says anyways, he clearly didnt double check anything lol

Shit. Someone send me an original.

The custom cut barrel lengths you see on all the dev guns (15.1 recce, 416 recce/ops, 417 14", etc…) we're all done at crane/dev, not by the manufacturers/suppliers.

See below



Yup. To drop a "sorry about that. Welcome to the back of the line" is total bullshit.



I'll keep CLE in mind should I go down the Recce Clone route. Thanks

Makes sense. Still crazy that this situation happened with lilja.

right? idk where he got the specs from.


did you guys see the email they sent out?

Nope. Mind posting it here for the sake of posterity?

I've got neither the infamous email or a response from the one I sent yesterday. I'm set on a refund though.

Maybe they’ll offer to shave down your MK12 RAS by .75” for free?

Clearly they can't be trusted to cut anything

Good morning,



I am sending an email out to all customers that ordered the recce barrel over the last month or so. I’ve been sent some screen shots, and have seen some info posted on Facebook, so thought it best to officially send an email to let all know some updates. I absolutely hate facebook/social media, so I will not be posting there.



Ok, to start. About 4 weeks ago, I was first made aware that there was an issue with the profile we made, and it would not fit the standard collars. I immediately contacted Alex with Trajectory Arms, and contracted him to make me a special run of collars that will fit these barrels. They are at coating as we speak, and as soon as I have them in my hands I will start shipping them out. I of course will be covering the costs on those.



The second issue, which I was made aware about a week and a half ago, is the barrel lengths. One thing to keep in mind, is when we contract these barrels with Crane, we have never done the finish work. We supply them with barrel blanks, and they do everything else themselves. So, this was the actual first time we made a Recce barrel. I was going off of a customer supplied barrel, and will 100% admit I did not do enough research, taking the supplied barrel as enough and copied it.



So, here’s what I can come up with. I will leave you with 3 options.



1. Some have already spoken with me on the phone or through email, and are still able to use that barrel as is. If you would like to go that route, I will offer you a 50% discount on purchase of the correct Recce profile when I make another run of them, and do them correct that will fit all the standard specs.



2. Some have asked about swapping a 15.1” barrel out for a 16” barrel. I am more than happy to exchange them.



3. Exchange the barrel you currently have, with a correct length barrel when I do another run. Again, I will make sure this new run is to the correct specs.  



Lead time on new barrels is difficult for me to determine, but I will start work on those shortly. My best guess would be after the new year.



I will be out of service for about a week on a back country Elk hunt in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. Take your time making a decision, and let me know what you’d like to do.


I did not get this email. My buddy who ordered a barrel less than a week after me did and he forwarded it to me. I sent them an email and have yet to receive a response.

Everything but a refund. What a joke. "The last month or so". Yea ok, 10 months...."Take your time with the decision". Yea ok, AKA I'm in no rush to refund your $560 investment.

What barrel did they get a hold of? Who sent them their barrel?

What a mess….almost as bad as Dead Air….

Right.  

If they spun barrels that were cut by Crane how did Lilja figure that the barrels they sent out to Crane were shorter than 15.1”?

Maybe they thought Crane welded 2 barrels together, then cut to achieve the desired 15.1” length?

And also, this dude really just said there was a problem with the profile and wouldn't fit original collars? Did the person who convicted this guy to advertise and sell these barrels not know that the lilja m4 profile doesn't work with original collars? They of course would have to be custom on that thin of a barrel.

The WORST part about this is a person profiting off of something they know nothing about. A worker must be the driving force behind this as the owner knows nothing about this configuration.

I think it’s one of the kids that set this up.  Funny that he said he doesn’t like facebook in the email, as it appears this project was kind of started by him on facebook.

None of us have an original dev barrel in our possession to know what the original collar setup was. I do have some strong evidence that the 416 versions were not using OTS collars, so if Crane was already turning custom collars for these projects, it stands to reason that it’s in the realm of possibility this profile they made *is* more correct. Plausible anyway.

On the length issue there really is no excuse. Dude fully admitted to not doing enough research which is pretty inexcusable for a project that took this long and was this expensive. Also claims he was templating off some customer’s barrel… who the hell sent him a 14.35” barrel as an example lol. Sounds like BS especially since he knew the desired length was 15.1.

Either way super unfortunate for the people that took a chance and bought em. Sorry dudes.

Exactly. Since he knew they were chopped after they made them, it should be obvious that his profile would need a custom collar. That should have been sorted before he offered them.

I guess that's what happens when you put something up on your website that hasn't even been made yet.

The ONLY thing I could think of is that they used the A1 or flash hider mount that @into_the_void used to get his 14.5 barrel to flush fit an AEM5. Even then It doesn't seem right as some of them had a pretty good size gap between can and rail.

Either way shitty this happened.

If Lilja fucked up measuring 15.1", I can assure you they weren't smart enough to notice the FH mount has more threads.

Attached File

Attached File

Looks perfect!

Thanks!  Anxious to put some rounds through it and see how it feels and shoots compared to its OG MK12 mod 1 config.  Seems very handy so far.

ETA: I’m using the TAC barrel that I had to send to Adco to have re-threaded as the threads from TAC were garbage.  The barrel in general was just very rough overall.  Adco fixed it up so I’m hoping it at least shoots good.  If not I’ll be going the Larue Adco chop route.  Running a surplus coronet NSW Recce gas block and surplus NF rings that came off a mod 1.  Repro Wilcox/NF Docter mount.  Debating whether I’ll replace the Docter with an Aimpoint.  We shall see

Attached File

So what happened with the Lilja BS?

Anybody noticed all the KAC Rifle Length FF RAS's they have been popping up on GB? Makes me think KAC has been kicking out some new ones, but they are being dumped on GB for 4x-5x retail.

I think it was last month or maybe August that a batch went out to satisfy some of the backorders at at least a couple places. I put my name on a list at one once they started shipping, but I'm guessing not enough made it out into the wild for my name to come to the top.

They made a run for retailers a few weeks ago and sold at $450. Those people who bought them from the retailers are just flipping them on GB.

I agree 100%.

Cloners stereotypically are horrible to each other. It’s sad really. Nothing like a quite wealthy guy jonesing to make $800 price gouging the next guy. All the while complaining the supply has dried up.

Yea all just depends on how bad someone wants something.

A cold 20oz soda is $2 at the grocery store while the warm 2 liter is also $2.


Something is always worth whatever someone is willing to pay.

But to be on a waitlist for something your just gonna flip VS. someone who actually wants the rail is a fuck boy move.

Same shit happened when reloading stuff started drying up. Fudds who shoot 100 rounds a year we're holding 10-20k primers then asking over 10x retail for them.

Anyone have a line on one of the repro Wilcox T1 top caps? I put a line out on GAFS, but it’s such a niche part it feels like shouting into the void.

I could not agree more.

I got one from operation parts a few weeks ago. Retail is $467 now though sadly, still not a bad deal though

Thinking about selling the Centurion 18" barrel and changing my Mk12 Mod 1 over to a 15.1" config.

I see people recommending the CLE barrels. If I plan on handloading my own 77gr ammo, whats the best twist to get, 1:7, 1:7.7, or 1:8?

Anyone got a recommendation between the Douglas or a Criterion? Always heard good things about Criterion barrels.

I've gone with 1-7 for both my CLE NSW barrels. 1-7.7 has always intrigued me.

I'd go douglas. Mine is pretty fast with 24gr tac and a 75 BTHP. 2690fps.

Thats not bad at all.

I figure this may be a stupid question, but will MK12 gas blocks fit under the KAC FF RAS? I didn't see gas blocks on the build lists on page 1.

They had a seal recce block, search ilikebmxbikes seal gas block and it should pop up if he has any. It wasn't as tall as a MK12 block.

Thank you sir

There should be room for about any lopro gas block. I have a clamp-on SLR Sentry adjustable under my FF RAS (which is not the most low profile GB out there by any means) and it has plenty of room.

Thank you my good man

Got out to some distance today, 500m  NSW always brings the heat.

Took a few shots at the 900m plate but no dice. Didn't wanna keep sending them as my spotter only had 15x on his Mk12 and there is no berm at that target to see splash.

That’s a surplus block, there’s tons of room around it inside the rail. The mk12 gas block works, however, it’s extremely tight. And depending on if the block cants or not (almost every mk12 block I’ve ever had has to some degree), it may contact slightly if there’s any barrel movement.

I reached to to him. Those are long gone.  

Anyone have any suggestions for a lowest profile gas block?  Doesn't have to be clone correct.   The mk12 on mine is way to close.

The kac low profile gas block (99204-1) is almost identical in design to the surplus blocks. So much so, I think they may even have been what the surplus block was based off of. Not that that will be any easier to find at this point.