Anyone ever have dispute with a gunsmith?

[Pants]

This issue has been resolved.

 

[atilla]

you never should have gone back after the first bad experience. fool me once, etc.

get your money back and take your gun elsewhere, also out the "gunsmith" as a service to the members here so we know to never send him our gats.

 

[Pants]

you never should have gone back after the first bad experience. fool me once, etc.

get your money back and take your gun elsewhere, also out the "gunsmith" as a service to the members here so we know to never send him our gats.

You're absolutely right - I should have done that! I figured he was an honorable guy and would make it right since he did the work.

 

[atilla]

honestly you waited quite awhile after the initial problems. you should have brought it back immediately, 9 months is a long time to go back to the guy and be like "remember me?" and then explain your story.

treat this as an expensive learning experience... we all will ultimately have one, sometimes several when it comes to firearm ownership.

also out the guy. you're putting him on blast right now, so let's know his name.

 

[PATRON]

WHO!

 

[J.A.C]

This thread is all fiction unless we get an actual name.

 

[Pants]

This thread is all fiction unless we get an actual name.

Screw it - I really don't care. It was Greg Derr. Now don't get me wrong, some people may have had a positive experience with him, but mine was less than stellar. It's unfortunate, but a lesson learned.

 

[JCV]

uh oh

 

[Tallen]

oh boy...

 

[jbrunel]

I guess what they say is true that your only as good as your last job

 

[DW357]

uh oh

yep...

 

[Romokid]

uh oh

Pass the popcorn.

 

[drgrant]

He cerakoted the controls? Maybe I'm off base, but that should be a warning sign right there. I've never heard of people having that done on purpose. That stuff strikes me as being ill suited for most controls. I thought that was something the gunsmith is supposed to tell you "this sucks and will make you unhappy, so I'm not cerakoting the small parts, for your own good".

-Mike

 

[Pants]

yep...

Exactly the reason why I didn't want to name names. ha

 

[J.A.C]

Screw it - I really don't care. It was Greg Derr. Now don't get me wrong, some people may have had a positive experience with him, but mine was less than stellar. It's unfortunate, but a lesson learned.

Props for giving the name.

 

[Pants]

He cerakoted the controls? Maybe I'm off base, but that should be a warning sign right there. I've never heard of people having that done on purpose. That stuff strikes me as being ill suited for most controls. That's something the gunsmith is supposed to tell you "this sucks and will make you unhappy, so I'm not cerakoting the small parts, for your own good".

-Mike

I didn't even care about them being cerakoted either. I could just look at the safety and it would just flake off. I don't use any harsh cleaners either.

 

[drgrant]

I didn't even care about them being cerakoted either. I could just look at the safety and it would just flake off. I don't use any harsh cleaners either.

What kind of a gun are we talking about here? One thing I noticed about your post is although it's long, it's lacking in a lot of detail. I think I read it three times and I still only get "I had someone work on it for 9 months, and it kinda sucks" out of it... but nothing about what the gun itself actually is, what it's used for, etc.

-Mike

 

[slugworth]

Exactly the reason why I didn't want to name names. ha

Nothing wrong with saying who it was....

 

[BattleSnail]

He cerakoted the controls? Maybe I'm off base, but that should be a warning sign right there. I've never heard of people having that done on purpose. That stuff strikes me as being ill suited for most controls. I thought that was something the gunsmith is supposed to tell you "this sucks and will make you unhappy, so I'm not cerakoting the small parts, for your own good".

-Mike

He built a custom 1911 for me out of a new run series 70 Colt (below just cuz I love showing pics of this beauty). and I had asked him about cerakoting the controls and he said he wouldn't advise that for obvious reasons. I ended up going hard chrome anyway. Every step of the process working with Gregg was a pleasure and the finished product is heirloom quality IMO. My son will inherit this one day.

When I got the gun, I fired it a few times and the front site fell off. I called Greg, he had me ship him the slide and he fixed it immediately and it's rock solid now.

Honestly shocked to see a negative review of Derr's work. Guy's a god damned genius IMO.


Porn:

 

[Pants]

What kind of a gun are we talking about here? One thing I noticed about your post is although it's long, it's lacking in a lot of detail. I think I read it three times and I still only get "I had someone work on it for 9 months, and it kinda sucks" out of it... but nothing about what the gun itself actually is, what it's used for, etc.

-Mike

Well, that was on purpose. It was a 1911 for carry and range. I bought the gun and it was really beat up. I had him refinish it and replace pretty much everything in it.

 

[mac1911]

I wont discredit you or Greg...he did a few small jobs for me and was very patient with one project that had some issues. He took care of it. He offered to cerakote my botched DIY repark attempt while the gun was in pieces.. long story short....it got scratched in the process. He gave me options that where very reasonable. I didnt care about the scratch and chose not to wait for a redo. in the end we where both happy?
its tough when there is time between picking it up from a gun smith and returning months later.?

I go through these things myself. sometimes communication is lost completely no matter what.

Just follow up on your post when a solution is finally reached.

 

[DW357]

What kind of a gun are we talking about here? One thing I noticed about your post is although it's long, it's lacking in a lot of detail. I think I read it three times and I still only get "I had someone work on it for 9 months, and it kinda sucks" out of it... but nothing about what the gun itself actually is, what it's used for, etc.

-Mike

I assumed it must be a 1911 (make/model don't know obviously) due to him mentioning Wilson Combat and thumb safety etc. But I could be wrong.

I will say that Greg did a trigger job on my Ruger GP100 a number of years ago and did a great job.

 

[Pants]

He built a custom 1911 for me out of a new run series 70 Colt (below just cuz I love showing pics of this beauty). and I had asked him about cerakoting the controls and he said he wouldn't advise that for obvious reasons. I ended up going hard chrome anyway. Every step of the process working with Gregg was a pleasure and the finished product is heirloom quality IMO. My son will inherit this one day.

When I got the gun, I fired it a few times and the front site fell off. I called Greg, he had me ship him the slide and he fixed it immediately and it's rock solid now.

Honestly shocked to see a negative review of Derr's work. Guy's a god damned genius IMO.


Porn:

I mean, that's mainly the reason I brought it to him to begin with. At first it was a pretty positive experience until I started having issues with the gun.

 

[BattleSnail]

I mean, that's mainly the reason I brought it to him to begin with. At first it was a pretty positive experience until I started having issues with the gun.

That sucks man... I honestly don't know what to say. I hope you guys can work something out and move on.

 

[Pants]

I assumed it must be a 1911 (make/model don't know obviously) due to him mentioning Wilson Combat and thumb safety etc. But I could be wrong.

I will say that Greg did a trigger job on my Ruger GP100 a number of years ago and did a great job.

It was a Colt 1911. Listen - with new Wilson parts the gun functions flawlessly. No issues at all! I'm just not happy about the sights. If the front sight I wanted installed wasn't going to fit, I would have liked to know ahead of time. Like I said, I would have kept what was on there as much as I dislike the XS Big Dot sight he installed.

 

[AntiHippie]

I don't know that I'd call it a gunsmith, but I did have a problem with work done by a Cape Cod gun shop years ago. New sights on a 1911. After about 50 rounds the front sight was loose. Brought it back in and they immediately fixed it, no questions asked.

 

[costac]

Sounds like you need business end customs to come rescue you.

 

[one-eyed Jack]

I just welded the front sight on my 1918 Colt 1911 to the slide. That stays put. Jack.

 

[Rockrivr1]

I'll be interested to see how this turns out as Greg is one of two gunsmiths I was considering to build out a 1911 for me.

 

[drgrant]

Well, that was on purpose. It was a 1911 for carry and range. I bought the gun and it was really beat up. I had him refinish it and replace pretty much everything in it.

On purpose? To deliberately remove context to make your post harder to process?







When you do stuff like that people will take a jaundiced view of your post. It's like saying a body shop did a shitty job on your car but you omitted the fact that it's a Ford Pinto and it was involved in a 10 car pileup.

Also, if you communicated with him like the way you wrote your first post, I'm not surprised that you had problems being satisfied. I'm not trying to be a dick here, just that I read it about 4 times and finding the crux of the issue was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. so let me get this straight, you have a problem with some work the guy did, some of which involved parts you provided (and not him) and you're complaining because.... it just is bad and you don't want to make waves with the guy, so instead, you decided to post about it on the internet as though it would somehow magically fix it? Maybe I'm confused. BTW I don't have any real skin in the game here.... it's just that I've seen this movie before and I know how it usually ends. Communication issues occur and one bad tolerance stacks into another and then bad things happen. I have used Greg's services in the past to do some work and haven't had any issues, but I never asked him to do anything fancy, either.

I read the post over and over again and my gut reaction that keeps coming back is "we're not being told something here, something is being omitted".

Maybe I'm different though, usually if something is that big of a deal I print out a hard copy of the stuff I want done with the gun, what I want on it for sights, etc. I also usually let the gunsmith procure that stuff unless told otherwise, makes my life a lot easier because if there is a part conflict it will get resolved without me having to be involved, etc. I have had stuff go off the rails with smiths before but usually I bring the gun back and they fix it and everyone is happy. The only "really bad" gun smithing experiences I've had are with people not in the business anymore.

-Mike