I saved up for two years and got all the parts to build a .300 WSM for crop field hunting in North Carolina. I sent it to Jim Boatwright. He sent it back and it did not fire. He did not test fire it before sending it to me. I told him I wanted a minimum sammi spec chamber and that I would be hand loading and cleaning up case necks. I waited a year and gave Dan Lilja $400 for a fluted stainless barrel, and they sent back my gun with a true Sammi spec barrel that was 5/1000ths larger than a loaded case. The gun shot 3" groups with factory rounds. I argued with him about the chambering and the fact that the gun did not fire. He told me that he subbed the work out, by the way... I hand carried the gun to my local gunsmith, who I thought was out of business, and paid him another $500 to fix it. I hand carry all my guns to my gunsmith and go over everything with him. He is good, and I pay him every cent he asks for to do a job in top shelf fashion. I find I have way less issues.
By the way, I drove from Rhode Island to Pennsylvania to bring Jim Borden a rifle he built so he could put a new barrel that he chambered on the gun and test fire it, which he did in front of me on his range before I took it home. Sooo worth it.
