HowlingRaven is a company that has taken me to both ends of the spectrum when it comes to products. From the giddy elation of a child at Christmas to a doctor telling you that you have terminal cancer. The one thing that has impressed me, beyond all else, is their dedication to customer service.

My story goes back 6 years or so. There was an extremely talented steampunk artist who went by the name, Datamancer. In a calguns.net forum post that spanned 3 years, Datamancer blogged about his development of a magazine extension to the point where he had a working model and was ready to work with a manufacturer and go into production. Sadly, this never came to pass as he died, tragically, in a car accident. The concept was very much alive, a few people were making one-off’s by themselves and having moderate success. Brass Stacker was slated to be the manufacturer that continued on Datamancer’s design, but to date they have still not brought anything to market. Then, about a year ago, while looking to see if anyone had come up with a functional product, I came across this video from Howling Raven, demonstrating what I had been waiting for for years.

I was excited, to say the least. Here they had a working production model for $40 and I could get one in my hot little hands as soon as I forked over the cash. I made the order and they shipped the same day. Once I got the package in, I tore into it and got working on installing it. There were a few things that threw up red flags right away. The first was that the magazine body was made out of a very thin plastic. This wasn’t confidence-inspiring, but considering the wide variance in Mosin Nagant parts dimension, it was understandable that a product would have to be made that could be ‘altered’ to fit those differences. The other part that I thought was going to be an issue (and it did turn out to be) was the spring and follower. Well, the follower IS the spring. The magazine body, I think, would be workable, but the spring/follower design, because there was no anti-tilt mechanism, caused the rounds to bind up after the first 5 were loaded. This made it so that I had to completely uninstall the magazine from the rifle to un-jam the rounds and pull them out.

Many tears were shed, but I made sure to write Howling Raven and relate my issues. To my surprise, within 30 minutes of sending the email, I had a phone call response directly from the owner saying that he wanted to make it right and so they would be sending me a replacement magazine body, which he felt was the primary issue. Hopes were raised and then dashed, soon after. The problem repeated itself and I consulted with the owner, saying that, at this point, I would rather return the items for a refund or I would be interested in exchanging them for the twist on muzzle brake that they had advertised. Without hesitation, the owner said that I could keep all the contents they had already sent over AND he would be shipping the muzzle brake, free of charge.

I want to point out that the Howling Raven website says the following: We are 100% committed to providing THE BEST customer service in the industry. If you ever have any questions, comments or concerns feel free to contact us 24/7. We will get back to you within 24 hours at the absolute latest. Click here for our team’s contact information . We also stand behind our products 100%. We don’t take anyone’s patronage for granted. Our busines model is built on word of mouth advertising. Satisfied customers are paramount to our continued success. And it also has the added benefit of being the right thing to do. Never hestitate to contact us! I have found that statement to be absolutely true and they definitely deserve to be commended for it. While it could be that my Mosin is a unique snowflake, and I think we can all agree that it is, I also think there are still some inherent design issues that need to be worked on. Be that as it may, it seems to work in other rifles, so it may work in yours. I really hope that they are able to get it figured out. Now let’s move on to the fun stuff!

Read More Courtesy of We Like Shooting...