Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Shady Gunsmith

Ok folks I need some advice on how to handle a bad situation with a gunsmith please.
I live in Texas and sent all the components to have a custom Remington 700 built by a gunsmith in Colorado.
I chose the gunsmith due to his supposedly 2 week turn around time.
It’s been over 2 months now with the gunsmith promising weekly that the rifle would ship next week.
The last promise was stated to be shipped today.
Well now he won’t accept or return my calls or text messages.
What can I do to get my completed rifle or my components back?
Thanks in advance

Drive to Colorado. 😬

Caveat emptore when it comes to gunsmiths and quick turnaround claims, it pays to do your due diligence. Someone who is a member of the American Custom Gunsmith Guild would have the business ethic to deliver work when promised. There are also several 'smiths who post here on the 'Fire who deliver on their turnaround promises. I have been in your situation on more than one occassion, file a complaint with the Colorado State Attorney General's Office although two months overdue isn't likely to get much attention. In the situations I was involved in I eventually got my gun/parts back no money though and it took more than a year. There are some so called 'smiths out there who are nothing more than crooks.

Actually here on the forum is where I made my original contact with him 😁
I’ve been told to contact the ATF.
What’s your thoughts on that?

Say it isn't so! LOL

Seriously doubt that will help. They might wanna come “inspect” your other guns, though.

ATF won't do anything about the gunsmith, neither will they come to inspect your guns. That's the most azzinine statement I've ever heard. The long and the short of it is that basically you're stuck. The case I was referring to involving the State Attorney General Office took quite a while, they were well aware of the individual who was the topic of my complaint. There had been many other complaints, eventually they filed a class action lawsuit. Several months after that my shotgun showed up unannounced, it was still in the same package I had shipped it in. Never been opened much less worked on in spite of the fact I had been lied to regarding the status of the job. When communication ceases you're in for a real hassle, sorry to be the bearer of bad news but I have BTDT.

I agree with this

What is the screen name so the rest of us can avoid him?

+ 1

For the life of me I can’t remember or find any of my correspondence with him here.
I’m still trying to find it.
The conversation originally was here and the we went directly to text and phone calls.

You don't have a "ship to" address ?

Yes but how will that help?
I know the business and owners name just not his screen name here.

Someone will. Post his name

Knowing the personality of some of the "Crusty Old Fahrt" gunsmiths, the more he hears from ya, the further back you job gets.

Others are just bad businessmen and can afford to get bad press.

I have dealt with 5 gunsmiths over the years and 2 of them were absolutely horrible. Seems to be a profession where time and promises mean nothing. I have heard every excuse you can imagine and I did my due diligence. Sometimes it is partly a crap shoot.

In some forty years of shooting in Australia I found one who was excellent...I mean absolutely magic to deal with, then he retired.

All the rest were either crooked, incompetent, or believed their own bullshit and erroneously believed they were Da Vinci reincarnated.

I try to avoid dealing with that sort now.

I think it is time to throw the bull [bleep] flag on this post.

What you say above is hard to believe. Plus you will not send the shipping address either.

I really don’t care what you think!
I have the shipping address and the company name and his name.
You should probably pay more attention to what you read and read everything in its entirety but I’ll spell it out for you.
“I don’t remember his screen name for this site”.
I asked for advice on what to do about the situation nothing more nothing less.
So unless you have some useful information on what can be done legally to get my $1500.00 worth of parts back you can keep your “I think “ to yourself!

Legally you can sue him but good luck doing that across state lines for an item worth $1500. In two or three years you might get your parts back.

People have already given you good advice but apparently you balk at taking it. Identifying him here and putting public pressure on him is your best bet to get things moving, plain and simple. His screen name would be useful but isn't necessary, just post the company name and address. As noted, someone will know him.

Doing that still isn't a guarantee of getting the rifle completed or getting the parts back but at this point it should be clear that the guy is a liar and makes commitments he can't keep so you're not going to be any worse off.


My experiences with gunsmiths are the same as jmp300wsm and JSTUART. A good one who knows his stuff and meets his commitments is a rare find, I've only known four in the last 40 years. I have known a couple who really were good gunsmiths in that they knew their craft, but one loved his beer more than working on guns and the other thought he was P.O. Ackley reincarnated but wouldn't take one shred of responsibility for commitments and was a self-centered, vindictive prick. The others just put a shingle out that said "gunsmith" but they knew as much about gunsmithing as I do about brain surgery.

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.

I wouldn't say bad gunsmiths are the problem. There are definitely some real hacks out there plus a lot of times these days any guy who can put together an AR-15 calls himself a "Gunsmith", but the more prevalent issue I've seen is people who are really good at their craft but absolutely suck at running a small business.

They can't plan their time, there's no boss telling them to get to work so they waste half of each day BS'ing with customers, all kinds of things. So they get into a hole and their customers start complaining about missed deadlines or work done poorly since it was rushed at the last minute. They get flustered or their egos won't let them believe it's their fault so they just make more and more promises to get past the immediate irate phone call, or some will dig their heels in and get more and more obstinate.

With some rare exceptions the best gunsmithing operations I've seen are where a front person takes the orders and handles customers and the skilled craftsmen are in the back turning out 8 hours of quality work each day.



Added: or they marry a good woman and let their wives handle the business while they work. My cousin went to school to be a diesel mechanic and opened his own shop. He hired a couple of guys as helpers but all he did was work in the shop. His wife ran the front desk and did all of the bookkeeping, scheduling, billing and such. Didn't take that long and they had a thriving business with lots of referrals and repeat customers.

Jim in Idaho is right, when I had my shop my wife handled the customers. Being that she was pretty good looking didn't hurt either.

Was the smith in OZ Bill Hambly-Clark by any chance?

Jim in Idaho is spot on in my book.
I have also seen where the smiths ego got him into a mess. He may be good at metal finishing but sucks at stock work but takes on the work anyway.

i had a similiar problem with a holster maker in Tennessee. got all the excuses you could imagine. i ended up doing some internet research and found out where his wife worked and the name of the local sheriff and DA. i called his wife and told her the next calls were to the law. he started answering my calls and shipped the holster within a week. but it took a year.

I never dealt with Bill, the fellow I had the best run with was Peter from Pro-cal trading at Bannockburn...Peter's word was gold.

Still waiting for the name of the gunsmith, the company name, and the shipping address you said that you have.

In what way is that information beneficial to you Sir?

Maybe he wants to avoid doing business with the gentleman.

Put up or shut up.

A two-week turnaround time is lightning fast for a top-quality smith. Even the two months that you've waited thus far is still very fast. If I got a rifle back from a good smith that quickly, then I'd go out and buy Powerball tickets. A lot of smiths have also gotten covered up with work during the pandemic, so he might have a line of work out the door these days even if he was turning around good work in two weeks before.

I'd be inclined to wait a bit and see what happens. Every minute he spends on the phone or texting is a minute that he's not working on rifles.


Okie John

Folks I started this thread to ask for useful information on what I can do to recover my property nothing more and nothing less.
I hired the guy based on what he sold me on.
If someone makes a commitment and tells you whatever you want to hear to get your property and then has not fulfilled what you were told and just keeps telling you the same thing week after week.
Where do you draw the line?
If he would just be honest and tell me it’s not possible to be completed in said time frame then he should state that and I can and will accept that.
Clearly this has not been the case!
I ran a business for 30 years but I didn’t lie to my customers or mislead them just to obtain their property for an indefinite amount of time!

If you want your stuff back so bad, and right now, you have 2 options. Fly/drive/walk over to his shop and go get it yourself or hire somebody to go get it for you. And Id think it's going to have to be an FFL because he can't turn over a serialized part to just anyone.

A few years ago, I sent some shotgun barrels to a smith renown in quality and reputation. Most of the work was just opening up the chokes. I would email and call and sometimes he would respond, sometimes not. The typical turn around for this individual is less than a month and he told me the same. Two years later, I got my barrels back...no discount. Personally, I was just glad to have the barrels back in my hands again. I never got nasty with the guy and I always spoke to him with respect and courtesy. Needless to say, he will not be getting my business again, but I don't think he was a scheister or a scam artist. Just a man who didnt deliver what was promised. I'm not saying that the same applies to your case, but you may have to wait. I've been told that if you want to request your gun back, to send a certified letter to the smith and ensure they sign for it. Take pictures of the letter and envelope and everything before you send it. Then you at least have some physical evidence if you would like to pursue the law enforcement route. I just hoped and prayed and eventually received my items back. All I'm saying is that I feel for you. If you're concerned that this individual may be scamming you, I would at least list his general location so that you can warn some of the local guys in PM (if you do not want to list his name publicly) and they can avoid using his services. Just my two cents...as I said, I feel for your predicament.

go back to the old adage. if it sounds to good to be true, most likely its not. what I am getting at, any GOOD gunsmith is not going to deliver in the amount of time specified. period. I just got back a full blown custom, 7 1/2 months, when we talked, he thought it would be sooner, covid affected a lot of people in different ways, the guy lost one tech to the covid, the barrel took longer than expected ect., I got really frustrated, that did not help, I just told my self cool down. it was worth the wait., I had hem do a really simple job before every thing went smooth, thats why I used him on the custom build.

I’ve dealt with 3 different smiths so far. Two have been excellent (Shaen and APR). The third who I won’t name publicly took 6 months to deliver on a quoted 5 week rebarrel of a pre 64 model 70. The original action got destroyed in the truing process and the owner replaced my factory magnum action body with a clip slotted target action body off an older 30-06 or similar rifle. Now it functions fine but that’s not how I’d have wanted the situation to be handled. The smith to be a model 70 guru every time I spoke to him on the phone. I should have just sent it to Redneck…

fe1,
My only comment, being in the Memphis area if this smith is indeed in Memphis, It would help to at least know who to avoid. I understand things can get in the way and out of hand with small businesses. Time and lack of communication seems to be endemic. No idea why. I am amused by folks suggesting contacting the ATF as if they care what issues gun owners have. Wish you luck in resolving this.
Pavementends

Two sides to every story, only two people who know the details, and any problems are best sorted out by/between those same two people.

2 months? That's nothing.... my last gunsmith debacle took 2 years. I bought a new gun in the meantime.

So true! -Al

Had a well recommended diesel shop bullet proof my truck recently with an expressed 2 week turn around. Turned into 2 months, and in the following 2 weeks, the rig had to be towed back to the shop 4 times. Three from my driveway and 1 from 60 miles out. Seems they were extremely poor at getting the various electronics plugged back in. Rig runs great now, but mechanics and smiths don't need any certifications or credentials to become professionals in this state.

Two week turn around is the first red flag.