Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Shady Gunsmith

Yes Sir I’m going to give it till mid week and then I’ll share the name. Actually I’m hoping he sees this and gets him off his arse to do the right thing.

I'm in Colorado.
At least give us the town the guy is in.

I drive to a gunsmith that, in my opinion, is perhaps the best gunsmith I've ever known. It's over a 3 hour drive one way, but his work is in my opinion, perfect. He's in his 90's and keeps saying he wants to retire, but he knows I drive across the state to his shop.
You're damn lucky if you find a smith as good as this guy.

I wish I had known how poor a local smith was - Ortonville, MN. His work seriously detracted from the value of the rifle I took him and he had the gall to charge me money for his damage. He doesn't take work in over the web, so there's no need to drag his name here. If a local person asks me about his work, I'll tell him my experience.

I had another so called smith seriously damage a 1886 Winchester 1 of 500. He's no longer in the business. (South Sioux City, NE.)

I believe you should share this guy's contact information so that others don't be taken by this guy, since he is taking business in over the web.

Friend of mine's dad got scammed by a taxidermist back in the late 70s. The guy literally disappeared with his deer head and money

There's no room for this nonsense! He needs to make it right! That's it! Get his address and send the right collector! If you know what I mean! This is still America!

Had a smith screw up 3 barrels. Same boy had filled out form 4 papers for a can. It took months to get the barrels, Had to have a real one fix them. After six months of waiting on response for my $200.00 stamp, I called the NFA #. I found out they did not send it in. A large buddy of mine and I walked in to his shop early in the morning. I kept my back to him as he came in and greeted us, and locked the shop door. As he walked over to us and I turned around. His eyes said it all. I asked him if he remembered me. It was great. We went in to the office and he wrote me out a check for the full amount. First stop was his bank, cashed the check and spread the word. He is a crook.

If it is Memphis I know who you would be talking about. What a POS this guy was. Lesson hard learned with both money lost and shoddy work. It took me probably 20-30 hours over a month to fix all his [bleep]-ups, but I did the job right.

You might mention you are writing letters to the State Attorney's offices in his and your states.

Lacking all the details, it's hard to say what's going on.

Honestly, the best bet is to just ask for the return of the gun. Keep it positive and out of the mud. No good will come from getting into a pizzing match and dragging stuff like this across the interweb. Give the 'smith a chance to exit the situation gracefully and move on from there.

Being the bigger person in a deal like this is hard but better in the long run.

Hope it all works out for you, sir. -Al

+1

What other details would be helpful?
I’ve gotten it will be shipped next week for 7 weeks. I sent everything needed for the build.$1500 worth.

I have been faced with this same situation twice over the years, once with a stockmaker, and once on a complete build. In both cases the work took maybe 8-10 times longer than originally promised. In both cases the work was being done 1000+ miles away thus visiting them was not really an option.

In both cases, my solution was to make myself so much of a pain in the azz that they couldn't wait to get rid of me: call in the morning, call at night, call at lunch, call on the weekend. Tell them you told me X, please explain again why X isn't happening? In both cases it took me months of effort, but I eventually got all my stuff back, and we are talking about thousands of dollars of potential losses.

Good luck, yes it is very frustrating.

Was there nothing the ATF or Sheriffs department could do?

In most cases, no, what is the charge going to be? Would suggest your odd are better handling it yourself than getting authorities involved.......

This is a bullshit post.. without details. Need to know both sides.

Aside from that, you're [bleep].

g

You should read everything before you spout off!
What details are you referring to?

Any details about the other person and his side of the story. That too difficult?

If you read everything I explained it!

Holy crap.... Apparently there's a ton of really bad 'smiths out there, according to the posts above.. Sure doesn't help the profession..

Deleted at OP request.