I just saw this and its funny I talked to robert 3 times todya without knowing any of this was going on. last fall I sent my parts into him. I just wanted a barrel install. He got my parts and promptly called me and sent pictures showing my parts were damaged because of my piss poor packaging job, mainly the trigger had poked through the box. At that time he also looked over everything really close and suggested a couple things he thought might be happening with my gun, he said it looked like a stock pillar had been crushed, I look at my stock sure enough its crushed slightly. He also found that a scope base screw had been tightened into the barrel threads.
back then he said the project would take about 6 weeks to complete. So that would have put me sometime in november. I wasn't worried about it so I didn't call to bug him. january rolls around and he calls to say its done he is just going to fix the trigger for me. He said he would call me later that day when he ships it out. I didn't hear back. I still wasn't worried about it.
Then a week or so ago I sent him an email asking about it. He said it has been done for quite a while except for the trigger repair. So today actually he called and confirmed with me every last detail we talked about. He asked me about packaging etc. He called and said he had it all packed up and ready. Later today he called again and said he was dropping it off at the post office and sent me a picture of the tracking label to my phone. He also said to make sure and let him know if there were any problems.
What I think has happened in the guy simply got too famous. I don't think you will find a guy that is more detail oriented than he is. seriously who the hell is going to examine an action and figure out a stock pillar crushed? YES people can get caught up too much in the details. The problem with that is it overwhelms them if they start to get too busy and they kinda shut down. I think he tries to make sure everything works rather than making sure what he does works and to hell with everything else.
a guy like robert simply should raise his prices until he keeps pace with a level of work he is comfortable with. $600 for a barrel install? he doesn't charge that but hell I might have paid that much. I haven't had trouble getting a hold of him, but when I have talked to him he is very through and conscientious about the work being done. I haven't gotten the gun back yet so the real question is how its going to shoot.
