[GJeffB]

OK, resurrecting the thread to close it out.
Since the last post, I filed a BBB complaint in TX. After attempts to contact Cimarron without reply the BBB closed their file with a "Not Responsive" note for 3 years. Curiously shortly after I received information from Cimarron that my rifle was received from the factory noting 15 minutes of shop time and "barrel retightened." That was around end of March. That was the good news. Bad news was there was additional, new damage to the forearm. Cimarron returned it to the "factory" and we rinse and repeat.

More blah blah, excuses, non-response, etc. Long story short, finally the rifle arrived back to me 5/24/2021. I finally got it to the range a week later, all my reloads chambered but failed to allow the block to close, causing all sorts of bad thoughts. Ultimately turned out to be my error (whew!). Over-crimping causing enough case bulging to cause failure to completely chamber. A second trip a week later after remedying the load problem was successful. All rounds chambered, locked up, and fired. This was a function test only, but the rifle seemed to be reasonably accurate. "Normal" load and accuracy development will follow. This closes out my experience with Cimarron/Chiappa.

Take aways:
Would I buy another Chiappa of any model? NONBFNo [not only no but fersure no]
Would I buy another ANY make/model from Cimarron? Same answer
Not here to bash. It's just that the comedy of errors, failure to answer communication (the snow storm notwithstanding), and the seller's (Cimarron) apparent inability to get satisfactory responses from their own supplier (Chiappa) just doesn't make it worth another purchase. Coupled with the rather poor repair efforts makes it a "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me." YMMV

-jb, expending energy on far more important things