Inert dummy replicas are useful teaching and training aids. To help me practice my reloads, I wanted to get some weighted magazines. Ring’s Manufacturing makes a wide variety of replicas, including weighted magazines. However, to obtain weighted magazines apparently requires a custom manufacturing run because I tried obtaining through a retailer, but that had unfortunate results.

I phoned Rings, put in an order. They were very polite, friendly, took my order, made things, shipped it… and that’s when the problems began. You can click the link to read what happened.

So I spoke with Rings, eventually the order was able to be shipped back (and they paid for that) so things could be corrected.

Then the order was returned, and things weren’t much better.

Finally this past weekend I was able to give the 3rd guy in the order his part of the order. We tried things out in his guns, they still stuck, so Karl pulled out his Dremel and files and cleaned it up. I know that was a solution to things, but IMHO there’s no reason why we should have to do that. I was willing to send things back a third time, but also I was tired of the whole thing. The 2 AR magazines? They still don’t work 100% right but I can make them work well enough for my needs, and again, I’m just tired of dealing with this fiasco.

I’m very disappointed. I cannot understand how these products could have left the factory in a non-working condition. I cannot understand how these products could have left the factory a second time in a non-working condition! And since this isn’t baseball, there’s no “three strikes”. These products were very expensive (the weighted AR mags were about $60 each, the weighted XD mags were about $27 each), and while I could understand if one or two didn’t work the first time around (ignoring the omission of the mag catch on all 6 XD-9 mags), I cannot understand how they still failed to work the second time around. All I can say is I’m disappointed. Disappointed in the manufacturing, in the quality control, in the consistency. I will say the Ring’s folks were courteous on the phone and at least attempted to do the right thing (e.g. when I requested they pay for the return shipping they didn’t argue), but courtesy with a faulty product is still a faulty product.

Will I buy from Ring’s again? I’m sorry, but hard to say. They make products that few others make, so depending upon my needs in the future I may have to. Best I can say is it’s going to be difficult for Ring’s to earn my money again, but moreso my trust. 😦