Hi John,
Sounds like you experience what some have called "hard to reach".
Looking back over the years and years of brochures, I note that almost all the SMW-San Diego catalogs had a place to note the delays for various major items such as complete reloading tools, tool heads, etc. Some were as long as 18 months!
Most everyone would like to see the communication easier or better and e-mail works so fast to let people know what's going on, when it shipped, when it should arrive.
I will be curious about the reply to this from other people that ordered items. Is this a typical turnaround, typical communication gap that is just part of doing business or a worst case scenario?
Hopefully we will all know.
THE MOST IMPORTANT PART:
How are the parts? Do they fit? Are they working as expected and of the quality you expected, better, worse?