Turbulent Turtle
F-TR competitor
It has long been recognized in firearms circle, that excellent customer support and service is virtually the norm from various companies such as RCBS, Redding and countless others. We are used to reading stories about how one company or another provided exemplary support, and that’s how legends grow.
Well, it’s my turn to add more fuel to the legends and what makes this one interesting is how easily and quickly it all went down.
Let me set the scene for you. I speced out my current F-TR rifle back in 2012 based around the superb Kelbly Stolle Panda F-Class action. I got the rifle built and finished about a month before the 2012 Nationals in Raton. Since that first baptism of fire, so to speak, the rifle has seen several barrel changes and a riflescope swap. I also had the original PR&T stock completely refinished, and the bipod went through some changes also.
Two things that remained constant were the Kelbly action and the Jewell trigger. In preparation for the approaching Nationals, I cleaned my rifle thoroughly in early September and greased the bolt lugs and so on. I attended a local match to put 20 rounds downrange after the deep cleaning and discovered that sometimes the cocking piece would not catch when closing the bolt thus rendering the rifle into an expensive scoped oar. After a few cycles the cocking piece would catch and the rifle could then be fired normally. It happened a couple of times but I did finish the string with no issues.
During the very first match of the MR championship, the rifle started doing the same thing. I would close the bolt and the cocking piece would not engage. I would cycle it a few times and then it would be fine. At one point, I was unable to get the cocking piece to engage. I started to be a little more forceful and holding the rifle with my left hand, I firmly opened and closed the bolt several times and on one of those cycles the rifle discharged as the bolt was closed. My left hand had started slipping and was now wrapped around and into the trigger guard. I looked over to my scorer and told the young lady that I had just experienced an inadvertent discharge. She asked me what she should do, should she score it? I told her she had to score it; the rifle had fired and whatever came up was the score for that shot. I braced myself for a miss or a very low value. She sang out: “10, seven on.” I guess the habit of aiming before closing the bolt was a good one to have acquired.
After that one incident, I had no more problems with the rifle for the rest of the competitions in Raton. I always expected it to not engage the cocking piece, but it did, every time.
When I got back home, I sent an email to Jim Kelbly along with a close-up picture of the bolt, showing the notches at the rear; whatever that piece is called. I figured I had put north of 20 or 25,000 rounds through the rifle at scores of matches over the 6 year period, along with countless dry firing. The firing pin spring had been replaced several times during that period. Jim himself did it for me at Lodi 2016.
The next morning I got an email from Jim which said to send him the bolt with a sawbuck to cover return postage and that they would inspect it, clean it up and fix anything that might be a problem. I asked him if they would replace the spring also while they had the bolt open, if I added another sawbuck to cover the cost of the spring. Jim agreed and I dropped it at a local UPS store on Friday afternoon.
The following Thursday, I got an email from Jim Kelbly in which he said they had received the bolt and had cleaned it up and even though the cocking piece did not seem to be abnormally worn, they had replaced it with a new one which was nitride and harder. They had inspected it and everything was in spec and they were shipping it back to me that day.
On Saturday, I received the bolt in the mail and it looks like a work of art. The silver cocking piece has been replaced with a new one, all black, and the bolt face, along with the rest of the bolt, is sparkling. I placed it in the rifle and ran several dry fire cycles and it works perfectly.
This is truly customer support and service above and beyond. This is the stuff of legends.
Well, it’s my turn to add more fuel to the legends and what makes this one interesting is how easily and quickly it all went down.
Let me set the scene for you. I speced out my current F-TR rifle back in 2012 based around the superb Kelbly Stolle Panda F-Class action. I got the rifle built and finished about a month before the 2012 Nationals in Raton. Since that first baptism of fire, so to speak, the rifle has seen several barrel changes and a riflescope swap. I also had the original PR&T stock completely refinished, and the bipod went through some changes also.
Two things that remained constant were the Kelbly action and the Jewell trigger. In preparation for the approaching Nationals, I cleaned my rifle thoroughly in early September and greased the bolt lugs and so on. I attended a local match to put 20 rounds downrange after the deep cleaning and discovered that sometimes the cocking piece would not catch when closing the bolt thus rendering the rifle into an expensive scoped oar. After a few cycles the cocking piece would catch and the rifle could then be fired normally. It happened a couple of times but I did finish the string with no issues.
During the very first match of the MR championship, the rifle started doing the same thing. I would close the bolt and the cocking piece would not engage. I would cycle it a few times and then it would be fine. At one point, I was unable to get the cocking piece to engage. I started to be a little more forceful and holding the rifle with my left hand, I firmly opened and closed the bolt several times and on one of those cycles the rifle discharged as the bolt was closed. My left hand had started slipping and was now wrapped around and into the trigger guard. I looked over to my scorer and told the young lady that I had just experienced an inadvertent discharge. She asked me what she should do, should she score it? I told her she had to score it; the rifle had fired and whatever came up was the score for that shot. I braced myself for a miss or a very low value. She sang out: “10, seven on.” I guess the habit of aiming before closing the bolt was a good one to have acquired.
After that one incident, I had no more problems with the rifle for the rest of the competitions in Raton. I always expected it to not engage the cocking piece, but it did, every time.
When I got back home, I sent an email to Jim Kelbly along with a close-up picture of the bolt, showing the notches at the rear; whatever that piece is called. I figured I had put north of 20 or 25,000 rounds through the rifle at scores of matches over the 6 year period, along with countless dry firing. The firing pin spring had been replaced several times during that period. Jim himself did it for me at Lodi 2016.
The next morning I got an email from Jim which said to send him the bolt with a sawbuck to cover return postage and that they would inspect it, clean it up and fix anything that might be a problem. I asked him if they would replace the spring also while they had the bolt open, if I added another sawbuck to cover the cost of the spring. Jim agreed and I dropped it at a local UPS store on Friday afternoon.
The following Thursday, I got an email from Jim Kelbly in which he said they had received the bolt and had cleaned it up and even though the cocking piece did not seem to be abnormally worn, they had replaced it with a new one which was nitride and harder. They had inspected it and everything was in spec and they were shipping it back to me that day.
On Saturday, I received the bolt in the mail and it looks like a work of art. The silver cocking piece has been replaced with a new one, all black, and the bolt face, along with the rest of the bolt, is sparkling. I placed it in the rifle and ran several dry fire cycles and it works perfectly.
This is truly customer support and service above and beyond. This is the stuff of legends.
