[Shootcraps]

There's a fella who hangs out a shingle at the Tidewater/Richmond shows and does gunsmithing right there for ya. Real nice, silver haired gent. I've chatted with him but never had him do any work. Has anyone had work done by him and what did you think? There's a show this weekend (Happy New Year!) and it would be simpler to have him work on my 1911 than sending it off.

[JohnBT]

I've seen him, but haven't had him do any work or heard any feedback. Please try him out and report back. :)

John

[Shootcraps]

I ordered the following parts from Ed Brown:

Hardcore Hammer
Hammer strut
Perfection Sear
Extended thumb safety


I took them to the gunshow and talked with "John" the "gunsmith". He said $80-100 to install the parts and give it a 5 pound trigger pull. I agreed with that and left him the gun and parts.

Picked up the gun and it seemed allright so I paid him. In the car before I left, I worked the action and discovered the hammer was following the slide. Not good. Went right back in and told him this. He worked the action a few times and said it was following because:

"that sear doesn't work right with that hammer and you need to replace it with another sear".

Huh? I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I told him that the hammer and sear were both Ed Brown products and were manufactured to certain specs to work together. He would not change his opinion, that the sear wouldn't work and had to be replaced. I said this doesn't make sense but he repeated his opinion. I talked with several dealers at the show who are familiar with 1911s and they ALL agreed that the sear should work. When I told him this he said they were all wrong and he was right. I told him I would contact Ed Brown on Tuesday and see what they said and we could go from there.

Stopped by the gun range on the way home and hold the story to some friends there and they all agreed that the parts should work and he's feeding me a line.

Now, I find out that the sear has sheared the half-cock notch off of the hammer. So both the sear and hammer are damaged. I'm not very happy right now.

What do you folks think about this and what would you do next? I am thinking I should go back tomorrow and if he doesn't agree to fix it right, I will request a refund and ask him to pay for the damaged parts.

[Three Man]

If all he did was drop those parts in, the problem could be with the alignment of the parts.

If he did anything else with the parts (prep) then he should own up to not doing the job correctly. It does not sound like he will own up to it. I personally would not trust him to touch the pistol again.

Cut your losses and chalk it up to lessons learned with quick fix it smith's.

:banghead:

Put your original parts back in.

[Shootcraps]

I went back to the show and made a bee line for his table. Boy, did he see me coming. He didn't have a happy look on his face.

Right away, he said if I would bring the gun to him at the next show (in Richmond) he would put another sear in it for me, even though that's an hour and a half ride.

I said that everyone I talked with about it disagreed with him and I would not do that. I paid him $100 for the work. I asked for a $70 refund (since the thumb safety worked right) because he didn't do the action job we agreed on. I also asked him to pay for the Ed Brown hammer and sear ($85).

Without a word he reached in his money pouch, pulled out my check and returned it to me. He then said to take my business elsewhere. I said "I will".

Glad to be done with him. Hopefully Ed Brown will at least replace the hammer because it shouldn't have broken. And I got the name of a top-notch gunsmith in the area.

[greatgoogamooga]

I'm not a 'smith (and I don't play one on TV) but having done the work you mentioned on my own gun, it's not the kind of think I would do in an afternoon at a gun show. Too many distractons, no place to test fire it, and an artificial time limit. I had my first trigger job done by a guy a couple of hours from me. He used my existing parts and reduced the trigger pull down to 3.5# while I waited....and waited....and waited. He figured it would be simple and wouldnt' take long, so I may as well wait. You never know how long it will take, though. Got a great trigger out of it and learned how to do it myself from watching.

Goog