My MP-30 Build Disaster: Don't Let This Happen to You.

So. I took this issue back to the Weapons Guild Forum. There was a lot of squabbling. The convo was heavily censored on one side. I snapped at some people, some people snapped at me. Boring and unproductive for the most part.

Eventually Karvasale showed up to answer though. Here is his statement.


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« NITEGUNNER - Reply #25 on: Today at 08:32:49 PM »


I will make one post statement about this build.


I received this kit without and information from Craig on fit and finish of the MP 30. He sent the parts shown and I used all of them to build his MP 30.
That meant the receiver was demilled and became a reweld not a machined repair section so he could have his original parts. Rewelding will have blemishes as most builders know. Also with the different metal used in welding, bluing is hard to match. The receiver pieces were bead blasted like most welding pieces and demilled edges clean. BTW the bolt and striker system with the striker recoil rod and spring have been used in all my MP34 conversion without any complaints on looks or function.


The top cover is original from his kit and as most MP30 have no crest or J hook safety at the rear.
The trigger guard was original and like a MP 30 has a safety latch that blocks the sear for the safe position thus no J hook on the top cover was needed.

The shroud was intact with a barrel and a 9X23 magwell. Since I had no instructions on finish I also bead blasted it for refinishing. Marking the weapon with the caliber is an ATF requirement so I marked it on the magwell so the correct caliber was used. Later on I ask him if he want to use 9mm Luger instead of the 9X23 and said I can shim the magwell to fit 9mm Luger magazines. He agreed and I modified it.


On the stock. I received the stock as shown in the lower picture he posted. I did not touch the stock in anyway except to remove the butt plate for refinishing. I told him he had a crack in the stock and I was not going to mess with it because it was a beautiful fishtail stock. He told me he believed the formal owner tried refinishing to clear up the scratch and nicks.


About the bolt handle. I reweld the cocking handle in after semi auto conversion of the bolt and striker system. Most of you know that bolts are hardened and even after annealing sometime the weld do not hold. That was the case here. I did a couple magazines of test firing which most likely weakened the weld. The MP30 ran with no problems.


I did refinish it in DuraCoat semi satin black. The pictures of the MP 30 he posted show how he scraped off my finish looking for bluing and making it look like that. I asked him to call me so we could talk about all this and he refused.


That's my side of the story and will not get into anymore of a pissing contest. He can still contact me and my offer to him on refinishing still stands. Bluing is not an option.

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Here is my reply.

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SCRATCH - « Reply #28 on: Today at 10:59:25 PM »

Note: I have attempted to change my profile according to Pryotex' instructions, but cannot seem to find the "Look and Layout" tab described. We'll have to make due.


Nitegunner. So your defense of what happened to my original parts...I'm just going to take your word for it at this point because they have been so drastically altered that I have no way of saying at this time whether or not they actually are...is because I did not give you instructions otherwise.

You beadblasted off my original blued finish because I didn't tell you not to?

Did you also cover virtually every part of my kit with bogus and incorrect arsenal marks because I didn't specifically tell you not to?

Why would I ever think I needed to tell a supposed professional not to take a ridiculous and destructive action against the parts he has been hired to work on? If you take your car to the mechanic to have the transmission worked on, do you feel you have to explain to the mechanic not to do rudimentary and obviously destructive things to it, such as not crack the engine block, or run your car without oil, or go over your hood with a belt-sander? And if your mechanic does these things, does that absolve him of the responsibility of damaging your car, just because you never imagined he would do something so unprofessional and destructive?

We specifically discussed the things I wanted done with this gun. I wanted a barrel replacement. A semi-auto conversion, including reweld receiver and bolt modification. A caliber conversion from 9 Steyr to 9 Luger. That's it. That's all I asked for, that's all I paid for, and that's all I expected to be done.

Nobody said anything about stripping off the bluing. Nobody told you to cover my gun in bogus markings. Nobody asked you to hose it down in spray paint. We never talked about that. I didn't pay you for any of that. You just took it upon yourself. Those actions are entirely your responsibility.

And in truth, if you had not done those things, we wouldn't be here right now. I'd have been disappointed by the quality of the work, yes. But that, at least would have been a thing I might have worked on remedying. The bolt appears functional, and the handle can be fixed by my own local gunsmith. The disk shaped recoil rod platform looks janky as hell, but my smith and I could easily make a better version to replace it that will actually lock into the receiver. The receiver itself...I don't know what can be done about that, but even that isn't the end of the world. As I said, for $1250 I expected higher quality, but I'm not angry about it.

But the damage to my original parts, damage that you could have avoided by simply leaving them the hell alone? The untouched pre-Anschluss Austrian police gun that had survived nearly 100 years with it's original blued finish almost entirely intact, now reduced to being humped-up phoney-marked piece of bare metal? Destroying the very reason I bought this kit in the first place? That is damage that can never be fixed. That is not acceptable. There is no excuse for it.

And what you're doing is basically refusing to take responsibility for the damage that you chose to inflict on my original kit, unasked. Just an offer to Bondo it up and throw some more paint on it, and when that is refused, oh well. I guess it's my problem.

Is this the way you treat all the customers who entrust their kits to you? Or am I just that extra special?

It is incredibly frustrating to be treated this way. To have worked hard and spent money on some extraordinary piece of history, with the hope of preserving and restoring it to it's former glory, only to have the person you entrust to work on it treat it so flippantly and with such negligence. It's a genuine shame. And even if you don't see why this is a big deal, trust me when I tell you that other people will.

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He's offered to repay 1/2 my build fee to pay for the waffenampt welding and rebluing. I'm just going to take it. The kit can never be made original again, but this will cover the expense of cosmetic restoration, which is all that can be done now. The receiver and internals situation is one I'm just going to have to pay for out of pocket, but it's better than nothing. I can look in the mirror, say I didn't totally get screwed, and get on with my day without any more of this unpleasantness.

Mauser lover said:

However, that's over. And you accepted his partial refund, so legal action is probably not forthcoming. So, what are you going to do now, now that you have to move on? Are you going to leave it as-is, with that paint all over it?

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Thanks for asking this.

The damage to the original kit parts, in terms of financial value and historic integrity, is significant, and I'm not going to recoup my loss on that no matter what happens. A big part of the reason I bought this gun over other options was because of the excellent state of the bluing and it's original preservation as a rare pre-war police gun. The other was the fishtail stock, which is just so rare and graceful. Anyway, that's water under the bridge now.

Leaving it in it's current state is not an option for me. I can't have it around my house like this, as pure dissatisfaction and unhappiness haunting my gun safe. And I cannot stand to pass along substandard guns to others, at least not without listing a ton of caveats that read like the end of a drug commercial, and thereby reduce the attractiveness and value of the firearm to prospective buyers. So the gun must be fixed up before I can even consider either keeping or selling it, even if doing so turns out to not be cost-effective. I figure the refund will go entirely into fixing the external cosmetics. I'll cover whatever work can be done to improve the internals out-of-pocket, and call it a learning experience.

Once the damage has been mitigated, I'll just have to try to shift my perspective on it. and see if I can still appreciate it as a historic artifact of some kind, even in it's reduced state. Externally, it will still be a magnificent looking gun; the MP-30/MP-34 really did earn it's reputation as the Rolls Royce of subguns, and the front end and top cover should still exhibit this quality. If I can't make the transition from regarding it with a head-shake and a sigh, at least it will be saleable to someone who wants a cool-looking historic-y gun, which is not currently the case.

Here's a suggestion, worth about what you paid for it. How about learning to fix it yourself? Do you enjoy metalwork? If you rust blue it, that thing could turn out beautiful. Burrs can be taken care of, and if you are not hurrying to get it done, it will probably be gorgeous. Sure, he should have done that already, but that ship has sailed; what are you going to do now? It won't be original, but it could still be beautiful.

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A week ago, I would have responded to this by saying I believe professional jobs should be left to professionals if you want professional quality.

I'm not saying that anymore, of course.

I'm not a metalwork guy. I do have a local gunsmith SOT whose skills have impressed me and whose work I trust. I'll talk to him first.

I've done rust bluing in the past with nice results, including on an MP-28 I had built a couple of years back. I considered it here, but then it was brought to my attention that if I have the fake waffenampt welded over, it will be a challenge to match the bluing of the repair to the rest of the steel. That sort of job is beyond me. I'm going to have to look into what my options are. It is possible it might get condemned to wearing those bogus waffenampt if the bluing can't be blended. I'm just going to have to consult with people who know better.

And you should keep us updated if you do decide to work on it.

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I'll do so. Hopefully it will be one of those "Wow, what an improvment!" sort of things, rather than a "well, this was the best we could manage under the circumstances."