Is this chain ring faulty?

This is a close-up of a brand new Sram S350 chainset, cost about £100. Cheap, but we couldn't find too many in this crank length (165).

Looking at the outer ring (the inner ring appears to be ok): Roughly 20% of the teeth are cropped off - blue arrows. Also, on the left hand side between 4 teeth there appears to be wear (orange arrows). It is random throughout the rest of the ring.

What appears strange to me, is that the damage (if it is damage) has occurred before the final surface processing, there are no post surface treatment scratches or breakage signs.

My gut feeling from an engineering quality perspective, is that I shouldn't accept this as a brand new piece of metal, but am I expecting too much? Is this normal for cheaper chainsets? should I send it back, or is this just the way things come? Any advice much appreciated.

It's to aid shifting.

Its some kind of ramping, no?

Ah - I can understand the marks between the teeth aiding shifting - I will check to see if that is a regular pattern. I don't understand the irregular teeth though - there is definitely no pattern there.

i think rjw might be right.
i think the sram red casette has teeth missing, not really related to this, but somewhat similar.

Its a way to aid clean indexed shifting. Modern campag chainsets have similar short teeth and chamfered teeth.

yep, it helps with chain pickup

nice diagram though :)

I've just noticed, your chainring is faulty, it's a compact.

Wimp.

L&W, it's fine.
All the geared chainrings these days have pins and ramps and shortened teeth and other crap to make shifting quicker and smoother.
But Tommy is also right. ;)

Wimp .... you callin' me a wimp? (goes get sabres out of attic).

Cheers folks :-)

I dremel ALL my chainrings to look like that.......

^ Beware.. this man brushes his teeth with a dremel.