Reasonable gunsmithing timeframe?

[Conqueror]

Hi all,

I'm building a 6" STI limited-style 1911. I dropped off the complete box of parts with the local gunsmith nearly 4 months ago. Since then I've spoken with him on the phone once, about 2 weeks after that date. He is reputable, but he's not Yost-Bonitz or anything, and the most frustrating thing is that I've left him 3-4 phone messages since then asking for an update and gotten nothing back. He told me he generally does projects in about 2 months when I last saw him. I've been completely civil in my messages and never given him anything to be angry about. I leave messages at roughly 1 month intervals saying "Hey, still haven't heard from you, would like an update on my pistol's status."

The barrel I gave him was an Ebay purchase which had been "home gunsmithed" and may or may not be usable - he won't even get back to me as to whether I need to provide a new barrel! If it's not usable, then what the heck has he been doing for the last 4 months? Am I being unreasonable? Even if he just leaves me a message that says "Hey, I'm about 50% done, I'll call you when it's finished" that would be better than what I have now.

Has anyone else waited this long for a local smith to simply assemble a complete set of parts into a gun and do a trigger job?

 

[41magsnub]

Hell.. I tried to have an old shotgun just checked out at a local gunsmith. 8 months later with weekly phone calls saying "we're about to get to it" when hunting season was about to start I finally got fed up and went and took the gun back and never went there again. They were actually pissed about it... Can't in 8 months take an hour to do a full function check on a shotgun my ass!

 

[olyeller]

I think the smith is being unreasonable,
but in his defense, you providing all the parts doesnt really up the ante as far as him wanting to work on it, compared to other pistols that are being built with parts bought from him. He realizes a decent amount of cash from parts.

 

[Conqueror]

He doesn't stock parts though and about 50% of the parts on this gun are custom-order-only from the manufacturers. My providing the parts cuts way down on the extra work for him. If I bought everything from him he'd have spent hours on the phone just to order the parts, and it would be unreasonable of him to expect me to pay him $60+ an hour to make phone calls I could make myself for free.

Since I gave him everything, all he really needs to do is fit the slide, barrel, and sights, and do a trigger job. That shouldn't take 4 months, and if it is going to take 4 months, it's definitely not unreasonable to leave me a phone message with a brief update.

 

[gunsmithgirl]

I think that is way too long. I am real busy here but I make it a point to have 1 week turn-around time for most repairs and bluing.The only thing that takes longer than that is stocks, and repairs where I need to make or order parts, but I have never kept anything more than 1 month and that was a full custom stock,checkering,bluing and machining.

 

[1 old 0311]

Cylinder & Slide STARTS at 6 months. ALL the good ones are backlogged. Get comfortable, the wait is worth it to have it done right.

 

[Conqueror]

Cylinder and Slide is a nationally-recognized, ultra-premium shop. Of course they have long waits. This is a local gunsmith, you're comparing apples to oranges.

 

[jwr_747]

is this the only gunsmith in the area ? he may be back logged.may be the only one doing work in the shop,has to run shop and gunsmith when he can. bad business practices but lots of times thats the way it is.I ordered a custom made holster from a local maker.couple weeks turn around.his help up and left,3 months and "it's still in the works".stuff does happen.do a face to face,see whats going on than decide what to do. jwr

 

[Conqueror]

He's one of the better smiths in the area, but by no means the only one. There are at least 2-3 others that I can think of just off the top of my head. I'm sure he's backlogged, but he estimated his backlog at 2 months when I gave him the parts and it's now twice that.

 

[Conqueror]

Jeez, I just looked at the receipt, it's actually over 5 months.

 

[rcmodel]

We had a local gun-shop here like that once.
The whole gunsmith area was full of guns left for simple cleaning, recoil pad installations, scope mounting jobs, etc. The "gunsmith" had a real job, and did gun work in his spare time. Some of those guns had been there so long they had cobwebs attaching them to the wall.

Then the shop locked the door, declared bankruptcy, and a lot of folks couldn't get their guns back until the legal dust settled a couple of years later. By then, they were in sad shape due to rust and handling dings from being moved & stored so many times.

After 5 months, I would go to the guy, and either get a firm commitment in writing as to a finish date sometime in the very near future, or get my gun back while the get'n is good!


rcmodel