1911 maker... "debating telling the rest of the story "
Dec 24, 2020 23:03:58 GMT -5
dougader likes this
Post by cas on Dec 24, 2020 23:03:58 GMT -5
I have my reasons for splitting this from the other thread, so forgive any confusion a new thread causes.
Two friends with 1911's made by mentioned elsewhere company. Gun number one I genuinely have no details. All I know is he listed it for sale and when I mention that I might want to purchase it, he basically told me.. "no, no you don't". And when he did sell it, he told me he was glad it was gone.
Gun number two is a longer story. A friend decides he wants to build a 1911, something he'd never done before. He knows a fair deal about them. works on them himself, so he purchases all the parts he needs from said company. Frame, slide, barrel, everything, soup to nuts. Once he gets them and really starts looking into the job at hand, the tools, jigs and what have you, he realizes he's in way over his head.
He contact the owner of the company and tells him this and inquires about having them build it. No problem, a deal is struck, a price set, he sends them all the parts and a check and after the expected wait time +/- his gun arrives.
He has feeding trouble with it, lots of rounds crash and burn on the feed ramp. He struggles with the gun a while, has conversations about it with the owner of the company. (now I don't remember if he sends the gun back at this point or not. Either way he still has the problem.) At some point my friend realizes what's wrong by eyeballing and measuring and comparing it with other 1911's he owns. Something's been machined wrong on the frame. I remember him calling me one night and asking what I thought, if he could fix it himself re-contouring and polishing things with basic tools. He really didn't think he could, I agreed so he didn't try.
What he does do is buy a trick mag release that someone sells that holds the magazine up higher in the frame. This solves his problem.
He shoots the gun that way for maybe a year? He's a bit of a flavor of the month guy, loses interest quick and turns things over fast. So he gets bored with it and puts it on consignment at a local shop.
Someone buys it and has some sort of issue with the gun. They end up sending it back to the company. Once there, they must look the gun over, look up the serial number and see the frame was sold just as that, a frame. Owner of the company then tells the new owner, basically... "Who build this gun? They didn't know what they were doing! This is wrong, that is wrong, they screwed this up... we're not working on it, sorry" and they sent it back.
So the new owner is obviously pissed. He gets ahold of my friend via the store and is livid! "What kind of junk did you sell me!?"
My friend is kind of stupefied. So he calls the company owner and says "What are you talking about? YOU BUILT THE GUN!!! What are you telling this guy?" In the end, they were no help.
My friend ended up refunding the guy his money and taking the gun back. (Major hoop jumping here by the way.) The whole thing ended up costing him a good deal of money (transfers, shipping, store kept their consignment percentage) Now he's stuck with it. He's afraid to sell it and is soured on it, so he doesn't use it.
So yes the company and the owner were great, friendly, helpful... until they weren't.
Two friends with 1911's made by mentioned elsewhere company. Gun number one I genuinely have no details. All I know is he listed it for sale and when I mention that I might want to purchase it, he basically told me.. "no, no you don't". And when he did sell it, he told me he was glad it was gone.
Gun number two is a longer story. A friend decides he wants to build a 1911, something he'd never done before. He knows a fair deal about them. works on them himself, so he purchases all the parts he needs from said company. Frame, slide, barrel, everything, soup to nuts. Once he gets them and really starts looking into the job at hand, the tools, jigs and what have you, he realizes he's in way over his head.
He contact the owner of the company and tells him this and inquires about having them build it. No problem, a deal is struck, a price set, he sends them all the parts and a check and after the expected wait time +/- his gun arrives.
He has feeding trouble with it, lots of rounds crash and burn on the feed ramp. He struggles with the gun a while, has conversations about it with the owner of the company. (now I don't remember if he sends the gun back at this point or not. Either way he still has the problem.) At some point my friend realizes what's wrong by eyeballing and measuring and comparing it with other 1911's he owns. Something's been machined wrong on the frame. I remember him calling me one night and asking what I thought, if he could fix it himself re-contouring and polishing things with basic tools. He really didn't think he could, I agreed so he didn't try.
What he does do is buy a trick mag release that someone sells that holds the magazine up higher in the frame. This solves his problem.
He shoots the gun that way for maybe a year? He's a bit of a flavor of the month guy, loses interest quick and turns things over fast. So he gets bored with it and puts it on consignment at a local shop.
Someone buys it and has some sort of issue with the gun. They end up sending it back to the company. Once there, they must look the gun over, look up the serial number and see the frame was sold just as that, a frame. Owner of the company then tells the new owner, basically... "Who build this gun? They didn't know what they were doing! This is wrong, that is wrong, they screwed this up... we're not working on it, sorry" and they sent it back.
So the new owner is obviously pissed. He gets ahold of my friend via the store and is livid! "What kind of junk did you sell me!?"
My friend is kind of stupefied. So he calls the company owner and says "What are you talking about? YOU BUILT THE GUN!!! What are you telling this guy?" In the end, they were no help.
My friend ended up refunding the guy his money and taking the gun back. (Major hoop jumping here by the way.) The whole thing ended up costing him a good deal of money (transfers, shipping, store kept their consignment percentage) Now he's stuck with it. He's afraid to sell it and is soured on it, so he doesn't use it.
So yes the company and the owner were great, friendly, helpful... until they weren't.
