Not really sure, the vender list was put together about 3 or so yrs ago by the MGB group. It was transferred here (along with many of the members here) when MGB shut down his forum. Company’s do change, get new management, modify processes etc… if our community is pleased with a vender; the status can change. I’m happy to make modifications to the vender list to help the group get good products and not have to deal the hassle returns or of getting money back for poor quality.
This is an important topic.
I've been busy and laying low, but I believe
THE major reason folks come to this site is for building tips and vendor recommendations, so I thought I would chime in.
I've bought from Delta Team Tactical including all of their sister websites excluding Omega. Delivery speed was virtually the same for all of their online personas. The websites are one in the same to me and I've never had an issue and products were shipped timely and delivered promptly. Some of the fastest in the industry. I have heard they suck though if you have to deal with their customer service, but I cannot attest to this because I've never had issues with a purchase. And, I've bought a lot of stuff from them. And so has my friend and neighbor at my recommendation. He has also never had an issue that he's reported to me The only issue with Delta and their sister companies is their sales emails are spammy. Each of their sites can send 1-5 email messages a day. If it's near Black Friday, Veteran's Day, Memorial Day, or any of the important sales holidays, they tend to email a lot. This definitely sucks.
Further to Delta, I do believe P80 executed a distribution agreement with them back in the hey day of the frame rule litigation. The same one that is now gonna be hung up in the Supreme Court and why we have a frame drought with vendors. I would buy from Delta LONG before I would buy from P80 Direct. And, that's a fact!
Bear Creek, I have also bought a decent amount of stuff from them too. The only issue I had from them, is a hand guard nut where the threads were not accurately machined so it came very close to stripping an upper that I had. It was very temperamental, so I ditched it, but never called them about it. I could not rectify the thread issue with anti-seize lube and trying to clean up and match the threads with a fine file. Bear Creek's glock barrels work good. They used to be really dirt cheap, but have gone up in price, but are still reasonable based on the market.
I also have AR uppers from Bear Creek. Some I haven't fired yet, but plan to do so after the deer season so the shots don't scare off the deer that are here right now. This will be late January when I test those builds and I will report back if I have an issue. However, those AR uppers all went together fine and married fine with a collection of lowers. I did not check head spacing yet on a couple of htem.
At this stage, I would not hesitate to purchase again from either Bear Creek or Delta Team Tactical.
To give you some perspective, there are folks in this room that would buy from Glockmeister, P80 (Direct) and a couple of other vendors I won't bother mentioning, but I can tell you that my experience with both Delta and Bear Creek are light years better than these companies.
I believe many folks will look over this list and see one issue with a vendor and possibly boycott them just based on them being on the list. Most of these folks are probably new to building. Even if it's for a narrow singular reason like the 22 Cal issue with Bear Creek. I believe that issue was real, but they do sell a shit load of uppers and styles, so that one issue would not give me pause from ordering another style upper from them.
Right now, overall, I don't feel Delta Team Tactical or Bear Creek should be on the list based on my experience. However, I"m only one person and there may be other folks that had terrible experiences to offset my opinion.
I do give companies another shot from time to time and KM Tactical is one of the one's I gave a second chance. And this also worked out. The one issue with KM Tactical is buying Glock parts. KM Tactical edges on the side of being sketchy here, and implying the parts may be Glock OEM in some situations. This was the primary reason I boycotted them for over a year. The upside with KM is they are reachable by phone and happy to share technical input if you have a question. They answer the phone and give you answers straight away.
I will give one other tidbit before signing off. JSD got a bad rap in one of the other threads about a Patamos Arms firing pin hole being drilled off center. I have a slide form them and looked at mine after reading that thread. My 40 Cal slide and firing pin hole is drilled dead center and also fires with no issues using all OEM parts. However, I did not like the coating quality on the slide. It has a phosphate-ish texture and was matte gray. So I sanded off the coating and just finished polishing it up to a shiny stainless slide last night. (Thanks
@Michele influence here!) It's now shiny and looks 1000% different compared to the stock slide they sell. You would probably never guess it's a G27 Patamos.
Back to lurk mode and I hope I didn't bore folks with my novel above.
