Food for thought, here's a list of problems I've had with various gunsmiths. A lot of the problems were from gunsmiths recommended in this thread (to be clear, NOT Jim Borden). These issues are off the top of my head, I'm sure I could come up with more. I've had to ship the completed rifle back to the gunsmith (or to another gunsmith due to total lack of confidence in the first) to fix some boneheaded oversight more times than not.
Paid for the action to be trued only to later discover that it had not been touched
Burs in the chamber causing sticky ejection (requiring the use of a rubber mallet to open the bolt)
Barrel grossly off centered in the barrel channel
Trigger grossly off centered in the trigger guard
Absolutely no fitting of the trigger guard in the stock, just drop it in and if it doesn't fit....oh well!
The barrel action not oriented correctly in the stock (ejection port aligned with cut out in stock, tang not buried in the stock nor bedded to high, etc.)
Trigger firing upon bolt closure
Magazine not clearing the stock (rifles are bedded without the magazine box installed and when everything is put back together the box bottoms out in the stock causing all sorts of tension in the arrangement)
The floorplate catching on the bottom metal thus not seating completely down in the belly of the bottom metal and not allowing the last round to be shoved down into the magazine
The bolt handle recess in the stock not being properly relieved causing the bolt to no fully close
Sloppy bedding with an unbelievable amount of tension
Sloppy coating of metal. Finish pealing off even before I take it out of the box.
Sloppy painting of stock like my 5 year old did it
Barrel cut to the wrong length, wrong contour, wrong twist
Wrong stock and wrong LOP
Stock broken in the recoil lug area because they cut away to much stock material when relieving the lug area for bedding
Returning the rifle with a scope mounted that was not mine
Caliber spelled wrong on the barrel
To have those problems with what sounds to be semi-customs, synthetic stocked rifles is ridiculous, even more ridiculous if they were with wood stocked customs.
You really should put up the names..........I'd never again use anyone who did any one of those things, so I'd feel not compunction about listing the names.
MM
