Mr. Scratch
Member
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2014
- Messages
- 11
Longtime lurker here. I'm stopping in to give y'all a warning and tell my tale of woe. Hopefully I can save someone here the heartache I've experienced at the hands of a bad gunsmith.
*cue mournful Country Western music in background
Last year, I obtained an Austrian police MP30 (later to become the MP-34 under the Germans) kit in very good shape with most intact bluing. No real arsenal marks worth noting, nothing to indicate it had done anything more than serve the pre-Anschluss police of Austria. It had been in the US for many decades as a demilled wallhanger (welded barrel), missed the '68 amnesty, and so recently had to have it's receiver destroyed.
I went to the Weapons Guild Forum to get advice about the feasibility of repairing the demilled barrel, and one of the top gurus of the forum contacted me and offered to do the whole semi-auto conversion. I was delighted to say yes, and sent him my kit and a money order some months later. When it was done, he sent it to my FFL.
When it got back to me at the gun shop...my ghod, the horror. The workmanship was awful, everything looked like it had been cut with a hack saw. The receiver appears to be made of sewer pipe and chewing gum. There was a 6' crack in the stock that wasn't there when I shipped it. It was covered in the thick layer of gloss black spray paint.
My FFL, the manager of one of the largest full-auto gun ranges in the state (where they are themselves SOTs, so they have plenty of experience in handing and building NFA weapons) declared it the worst gunsmithing job he'd ever seen. I tried to remain positive; functionality was the ultimate test here. So I closed the top cover, and went to function check it. The charging handle broke off in my hand when I tried to rack the bolt. I was crushed.
But the worst thing of all, is when I got home and started looking closely, I found it was covered in German WWII-era waffenampt arsenal stamps. As I said, my kit had nothing of the sort. And, stripping off the thick paint, I discovered every bit of bluing...of which my parts had plenty... was gone. The whole thing was stripped to bare metal under the paint.
Confronted with this, the gunsmith claimed that he added the waffenampt as a "service" without asking. He had no explanation for the removal of the bluing, but insisted that the thick layer of krylon wasn't to hide what he'd done, but to make everything match the new receiver he'd built. JFC.
I flat-out accused him of stealing my pristine Austrian parts kit, and swapping my parts out for worn-out crap he had laying around his shop, which he vehemently denied. Part of my accusation was based on the fact that these parts had none of the distinctive features of the ones I sent (notably the bluing), and instead had a ton of markings that mine never bore. But additionally, I simply could not wrap my mind around the idea that a professional gunsmith would actually go out of his way to commit such an act of senseless vandalism on such an excellent gun. It simply did not seem possible that anyone would do something that negligent and stupid, and therefore the only reasonable conclusion was that this had been done as a way of absconding with my parts, and covering their true identity.
Further examination revealed that the waffenampt are, in fact, fake. The WaA63 marking on these parts was used prior to 1939 on Mauser Oberndorf, later moved to Zbrojovka Brno in 1940-45. This is obviously not a Mauser product, so that means these parts, whether they were originally the ones I sent or not, are now humped-up bogus fakes, with the fake markings not even the correct markings for the manufacturer of the gun. Like having a genuine antique Colt Peacemaker, and then having someone stamp Winchester proofs on it without asking, because they're both American guns and isn't that sexy with all those markings?
Lets look at some before/after photos.
The mag well has been stamped "6 9x23" (9x23 Steyr was the original Austrian caliber). The gunsmith says he did this to meet ATF requirements (looks like he started off by getting the 9 upside-down), even though I'd stated from the beginning that it ought be converted to 9mm Para, and that conversion did actually take place. Perhaps he forgot that this had already been stated when he stamped it. But why he did this on an original part instead of the new receiver, as that is all that the ATF requires, I have no idea.
Check out that sweet thick paint. The whole gun was coated in this. As per the rest of the gun, the beautiful bluing is long gone.
Then there's the issue of the stock. The gunsmith informed me of this just before he sent back the completed project. He says he received it like this. It wasn't like this when I put it in the mail. Normally, I'd just chalk this up to some gorilla at the Post Office hurling it across the room, but in light of the other destruction wreaked upon this kit, I have my doubts.
I'm totally freakin' heartbroken over this. Obtaining an MP30 kit in the condition I had it is a rare...and expensive...opportunity. I searched and worked hard to obtain it, and I'll never get another one. And now it is ruined because I was mistaken in who I entrusted it to. It makes me sick to my stomach.
Heed my cautionary tale folks. Do not send your kit to some guy on the Weapons Guild Forum with tobacco juice squirting out of one side of his mouth and whiskey out the other, just because everybody on that forum praises him. Trust only those who have been vetted by people in the community you personally know and trust, whose past work you've seen examined in detail. Be prepared to pay and wait for it, but at least you'll only cry once.
*cue mournful Country Western music in background
Last year, I obtained an Austrian police MP30 (later to become the MP-34 under the Germans) kit in very good shape with most intact bluing. No real arsenal marks worth noting, nothing to indicate it had done anything more than serve the pre-Anschluss police of Austria. It had been in the US for many decades as a demilled wallhanger (welded barrel), missed the '68 amnesty, and so recently had to have it's receiver destroyed.
I went to the Weapons Guild Forum to get advice about the feasibility of repairing the demilled barrel, and one of the top gurus of the forum contacted me and offered to do the whole semi-auto conversion. I was delighted to say yes, and sent him my kit and a money order some months later. When it was done, he sent it to my FFL.
When it got back to me at the gun shop...my ghod, the horror. The workmanship was awful, everything looked like it had been cut with a hack saw. The receiver appears to be made of sewer pipe and chewing gum. There was a 6' crack in the stock that wasn't there when I shipped it. It was covered in the thick layer of gloss black spray paint.
My FFL, the manager of one of the largest full-auto gun ranges in the state (where they are themselves SOTs, so they have plenty of experience in handing and building NFA weapons) declared it the worst gunsmithing job he'd ever seen. I tried to remain positive; functionality was the ultimate test here. So I closed the top cover, and went to function check it. The charging handle broke off in my hand when I tried to rack the bolt. I was crushed.
But the worst thing of all, is when I got home and started looking closely, I found it was covered in German WWII-era waffenampt arsenal stamps. As I said, my kit had nothing of the sort. And, stripping off the thick paint, I discovered every bit of bluing...of which my parts had plenty... was gone. The whole thing was stripped to bare metal under the paint.
Confronted with this, the gunsmith claimed that he added the waffenampt as a "service" without asking. He had no explanation for the removal of the bluing, but insisted that the thick layer of krylon wasn't to hide what he'd done, but to make everything match the new receiver he'd built. JFC.
I flat-out accused him of stealing my pristine Austrian parts kit, and swapping my parts out for worn-out crap he had laying around his shop, which he vehemently denied. Part of my accusation was based on the fact that these parts had none of the distinctive features of the ones I sent (notably the bluing), and instead had a ton of markings that mine never bore. But additionally, I simply could not wrap my mind around the idea that a professional gunsmith would actually go out of his way to commit such an act of senseless vandalism on such an excellent gun. It simply did not seem possible that anyone would do something that negligent and stupid, and therefore the only reasonable conclusion was that this had been done as a way of absconding with my parts, and covering their true identity.
Further examination revealed that the waffenampt are, in fact, fake. The WaA63 marking on these parts was used prior to 1939 on Mauser Oberndorf, later moved to Zbrojovka Brno in 1940-45. This is obviously not a Mauser product, so that means these parts, whether they were originally the ones I sent or not, are now humped-up bogus fakes, with the fake markings not even the correct markings for the manufacturer of the gun. Like having a genuine antique Colt Peacemaker, and then having someone stamp Winchester proofs on it without asking, because they're both American guns and isn't that sexy with all those markings?
Lets look at some before/after photos.
The mag well has been stamped "6 9x23" (9x23 Steyr was the original Austrian caliber). The gunsmith says he did this to meet ATF requirements (looks like he started off by getting the 9 upside-down), even though I'd stated from the beginning that it ought be converted to 9mm Para, and that conversion did actually take place. Perhaps he forgot that this had already been stated when he stamped it. But why he did this on an original part instead of the new receiver, as that is all that the ATF requires, I have no idea.
Check out that sweet thick paint. The whole gun was coated in this. As per the rest of the gun, the beautiful bluing is long gone.
Then there's the issue of the stock. The gunsmith informed me of this just before he sent back the completed project. He says he received it like this. It wasn't like this when I put it in the mail. Normally, I'd just chalk this up to some gorilla at the Post Office hurling it across the room, but in light of the other destruction wreaked upon this kit, I have my doubts.
I'm totally freakin' heartbroken over this. Obtaining an MP30 kit in the condition I had it is a rare...and expensive...opportunity. I searched and worked hard to obtain it, and I'll never get another one. And now it is ruined because I was mistaken in who I entrusted it to. It makes me sick to my stomach.
Heed my cautionary tale folks. Do not send your kit to some guy on the Weapons Guild Forum with tobacco juice squirting out of one side of his mouth and whiskey out the other, just because everybody on that forum praises him. Trust only those who have been vetted by people in the community you personally know and trust, whose past work you've seen examined in detail. Be prepared to pay and wait for it, but at least you'll only cry once.
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