I bought a Faxon barrel in November. After looking around, it had specs I liked for length, profile/weight, chamber and rifling.
Faxon sponsors some credible shows (like the https://primaryandsecondary.com/tag/modcast/ that is generally respected), and I did a lot of reading and checked out reviews. The general takeaway seemed to be that if there was an issue, they would take care of it. When my barrel arrived, the crown was ugly and a half. It's not even close to what I expect in a "Match Series" part, which is how they brand this barrel. The rough concentric groove pattern is not just ugly. In particular, there's a high ridge exactly at the edge of the bore, creating random variation in the geometry of the last surface to be touched by the bullet. Not what could reasonably be expected to give best accuracy.
I can crown a barrel, but was reluctant to sacrifice a cutter on the hard nitriding. Given the universal reports of good customer service, I figured I'd give Faxon CS a chance to address it before I wasted a bunch of time and money building it into a rifle and testing it at the range, making it a used part. I sent the photo above to Faxon CS in early December. It took a week to get any kind of useful response. After calling CS several times, I finally was able to speak with a rep who said at the time he had something like a 400-email backlog to deal with. He found the email, looked at the photo, agreed it isn't ideal, and sent me a shipping label to get it back.
I shipped my barrel back to Faxon more than two months ago. The holidays went by. SHOT Show went by. Still hadn't heard anything. I've been trying to reach them, leaving several voice mails on the CS line and sending emails, and have not gotten a response of any kind in a couple weeks of trying. I've also had a post on their section in the industry forum over at Arfcom for a week with zero follow-up activity.
I'd be OK just walking away and never doing business with them again, but I paid for a barrel, and they have it. At the very least, I'd like to get it back so I can fix it myself if they aren't going to do anything about it. Would also be happy with a refund, but that is likely to be unreasonably complicated, since I bought it from one of Faxon's dealers rather than direct.
Not sure what to do next.
I just did a search here on P-F and all the mentions of Faxon that came up were generally positive. Just thought I'd see if anyone else has had or is having trouble with them.