vermilionbird
Marksman
This is a cautionary review about a northwest Indiana shop whose name rhymes with cryptic booty gunsmithing. I want to make it clear that I get no joy from posting critical reviews about any establishment and this isn't meant to be punitive or retaliatory in nature. It's just that the quality of work I saw worried me and I felt you all deserved to know as you decide how to spend your dollars.
Earlier this year, I dropped off a batch of guns I’d been working on to get refinished - 2 to get parkerized, and 1 to get matte blued. I also wanted the triggers and stainless parts to get bead-blasted. A few weeks later, I came to first pick up the parkerized guns and I saw that only the slides and frames had been refinished (decently, I’ll give them that). None of the small parts had been refinished. The slides and frames of the two guns I wanted parkerized were also mismatched. This wasn’t a particularly easy thing to mix up either - one was a railed 1911 with ball cuts on the slide and the other was a mil-spec style 1911. But most worryingly, the sights on one of the slides were completely trashed.
This is not normal. Roll pins should not be JB-welded into place, sights should not be drifted off with steel punches to the point of peening the sights, and destroyed sights should not be expected in the regular course of taking them on or off. When I requested that the small parts be refinished, he agreed. However, when I came back, most of the major small parts had been refinished but none of the pins were refinished and one of the two triggers were not bead-blasted. I don’t understand why the work only keeps getting part-way done.
The blued gun fared no better. Their bluing service was advertised as “traditional salt bluing” and they described their process as being akin to parkerizing. During the wait, the gunsmith called to inform me my grip screws were not taking on a finish because they were “titanium.” These grip screws were blued, carbon steel screws when they went on the gun. When I finally arrived to pick up the gun, I realized what went wrong.
The frame and slide were “blued” with a Birchwood Casey perma-blue kit. All of the major small parts were parkerized and not blued. Once again, none of the pins were refinished. What I wanted blued and parkerized were separated into different bags in different boxes and clearly labeled. I don’t know how I could have made it any easier.
The continuous mistakes just makes me worry that there’s a level of carelessness going on that prioritizes getting work out the door rather than getting it right from start to finish. I’m not going to leave a nasty review on Google or anything but I decided that you all deserve to know. The mistakes - ranging from the ruined sights and wrongly finished parts - have cost me time and money to correct and I'm still not out of the woods just yet. I just hope this is an anomaly and not the norm.
To cap it all off, he tells me the next time I want to embark on any projects, that I should come to him, “a qualified gunsmith”, first...
Earlier this year, I dropped off a batch of guns I’d been working on to get refinished - 2 to get parkerized, and 1 to get matte blued. I also wanted the triggers and stainless parts to get bead-blasted. A few weeks later, I came to first pick up the parkerized guns and I saw that only the slides and frames had been refinished (decently, I’ll give them that). None of the small parts had been refinished. The slides and frames of the two guns I wanted parkerized were also mismatched. This wasn’t a particularly easy thing to mix up either - one was a railed 1911 with ball cuts on the slide and the other was a mil-spec style 1911. But most worryingly, the sights on one of the slides were completely trashed.
This is not normal. Roll pins should not be JB-welded into place, sights should not be drifted off with steel punches to the point of peening the sights, and destroyed sights should not be expected in the regular course of taking them on or off. When I requested that the small parts be refinished, he agreed. However, when I came back, most of the major small parts had been refinished but none of the pins were refinished and one of the two triggers were not bead-blasted. I don’t understand why the work only keeps getting part-way done.
The blued gun fared no better. Their bluing service was advertised as “traditional salt bluing” and they described their process as being akin to parkerizing. During the wait, the gunsmith called to inform me my grip screws were not taking on a finish because they were “titanium.” These grip screws were blued, carbon steel screws when they went on the gun. When I finally arrived to pick up the gun, I realized what went wrong.
The frame and slide were “blued” with a Birchwood Casey perma-blue kit. All of the major small parts were parkerized and not blued. Once again, none of the pins were refinished. What I wanted blued and parkerized were separated into different bags in different boxes and clearly labeled. I don’t know how I could have made it any easier.
The continuous mistakes just makes me worry that there’s a level of carelessness going on that prioritizes getting work out the door rather than getting it right from start to finish. I’m not going to leave a nasty review on Google or anything but I decided that you all deserve to know. The mistakes - ranging from the ruined sights and wrongly finished parts - have cost me time and money to correct and I'm still not out of the woods just yet. I just hope this is an anomaly and not the norm.
To cap it all off, he tells me the next time I want to embark on any projects, that I should come to him, “a qualified gunsmith”, first...
)but yeah I completely get where you're coming from.
