OK, I am going to try this one more time before taking more serious action. If anyone knows the whereabout or has contact information for Bill Soverns, please either contact me, or have him do the same. The most recent # I have for him is 605-456-1942. Most recent address I have for him is 109 5th. St. Newell, SD. Bill has had a rifle and $ for over a year. Phone calls and e-mails have gone unanswered for about the last 8 months. This on a finishing and checkering job that he was to knock out in a few months.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
John Holliger
john@whiteoakarms.com
309-376-2288

In addition, approximately 4 years ago, Mr. Soverns posted here on AR for donations to be used on a charity rifle. He was to do the stockwork. Somebody here donated a Montana action. I donated a new Douglas barrel in 7mm caliber.


Wondering where that is at.

(I know that Jim Dubell completed the metalwork on it)

I could add to this, but I won't.
Butch

I donated rings and bases for that same charity rifle - doubt anyone will ever see any results from their donations.

My dealings with Soverns left me with not great feelings about the guy. I was able to get my projects back before he completely dropped off radar. But it took some serious threats of legal action to get him to take care of business. I think you will find there are more than a few guys here who he burned.

Glad I was advized about a year ago not to send him any of my stuff to checker.

right before he was admitted into the guild he was doing economy checkering jobs. the first one was real nice and on time. the second two took well over his projected time and were not up to the skill level of the first one. in fact the one was so bad i bought the stock off my client and got him a new stock to satisfy him. my e-mail went unanswered to bill.

Bill completed a custom M-70 for me this past spring. Workmanship was uniformly excellent, the rifle shoots in the .2s with Berger 130 VLD. That having been said, the project took 8 months longer than we had agreed to, which was not a huge issue. The missed deadlines and lack of communication were. According to Bill, he had some rough luck during the completion of the project, which I fully accepted. My only issue was that after each missed deadline I would wait a few weeks and then have to calll him for an explanation. Not once did he initiate contact with an explanation. If one was not in a hurry, I would recommend his work. This thread give one pause, however.....

This is his info off of the Guild Memebership list.

Soverns, William PO Box 233 Newell, SD 57760 605-456-1942 bsoverns@sdplains.com

Tough way to make a livin'.

He checkered a stock for me just before he became a Gild member. He took about a year. The work was certainly not Gild quality. Never again.

Thanks for the replies and phone calls everyone. Looks like I am not the only one. I am not to worried about the delivery time, if it takes longer than estimated that is fine, I'd just like to know that he is working on it and intends to finish it up. Gets a little unnerving after 6 months of not getting a response.

John

here, as mentioned above, is a photo of the metalwork that was done by Jim Dubell.

Jim hasn't lost his touch has he.
Butch

a close up. M1 Tanker, Do those rings and bases look familiar?

I too donated to that rifle. Sling swivel bases I think.

Bill also checkered two stocks for me. Took forever and he lost a skeleton grip cap for me. This was right before he was guilded. The job was decent enough though.

quote:

Originally posted by 22WRF:
a close up. M1 Tanker, Do those rings and bases look familiar?

That would be them.

quote:

This was right before he was guilded.

Some smiths need to be gelded not guilded..

Is it safe to assume the Guild will revoke his membership? Sad to see such things.

I am a bit pissed off at this forum. It seems that many of you have been mistreated, but have kept quiet until now.

How many fellow forum members would have been spared if you had come forward? It seems all I ever read was "Bill is so great, his checkering is sweet!" etc.

It always amazes me how one person comes forward with a negative tale then the flood gates open. Anyone remember Jack B?

quote:

I am a bit pissed off at this forum. It seems that many of you have been mistreated, but have kept quiet until now.

Jason, while I can understand your frustration. I believe most members try to give the benefit of the doubt and put off raising negative issues.

If your remember 3 recent post in classified where a member asked if anyone had heard from another member because he had been waiting several months for delivery or even contact. That mess turned into numerous pages of name calling and worse.

So far Bill has not had "buds" jumping to his defense saying how he had such and such happen to him give him a break etc. If I remember even Jack B had defenders at first. But, then again I have slept numerous times since then and the memory isn't what it used to be.

Negative against a member can open you up for a lot of things.

I had Bill checker a custom rifle for me a few years ago. I am quite satisfied with the way it turned out.

A few months ago I emailed him about some additional work. Never got a response from him. Sounds like that may have been a good thing.

Lot of people going broke these days.Be very careful where you send your things

quote:

Negative against a member can open you up for a lot of things.

You got that right. It's honest reporting of negative actions of the perp yet the the one getting screwed or commenting on the poor behavior of the perp is usually attacked by the ankle biters.

somebody here must have donated some very nice sights



As for not reporting this earlier, I believe I have been consistent in the theory that every benefit of the doubt should be given to folks who do gun work. Oftentimes a huge part of the delay in doing fine custom gunwork is waiting for parts or services from someone else (if you don't do everything in house) and in turn those folks may be waiting for parts and services from someone else, and so on and so forth on into the night!

In this particular case, Mr. Soverns had to wait for metal work to be done before he could begin to do his stockwork and then get the thing on here for an auction or sale. It is my understanding that the metalwork sat for quite some time becasue Mr. Soverns took an inordinant amount of time to pay for Mr Dubell's services. I am kind of confused about that since Mr. Kobe offered to donate his services.

I bring this up not becasue I want to see Mr. Soverns crucified here on AR. Rather, I would be delighted to see the project finished and the money donated to the good cause for which it was intended (helping orphan children)!!! It was so much fun watching the Cheryl Searcy Memorial Rifle project come together, and even more satisfying to hear that the money from it went to a very good cause. Ditto the Maurice Ottmar rifle completion project!

Maybe this project could be resurected!!!

Damn, this is a shame, Bill seemed like one of the good guys
I sent something for that project, but being old,I forgot what it was and this was a long time ago.

I bought the .270 Bill stocked for one of his projects for admittance to the ACGG... Jim Dubell did the metalwork. It is a very nice piece. I am saddened to hear things fell apart for Bill. I hope he gets his life back in order and makes everyone whole!

took me awhile to find it, but here it is.

http://forums.accuratereloadin...=979107722#979107722

Looks like ForrestB donated the sights and Customstox donated an english walnut stock blank. And lo and behold it was Gasgunner, the owner of this thread, who donated the Action!!!!

Bill could be in an awful lot of trouble over this. The BATFE gets invcolved when firearms cross state lines and are "misplaced". I hope he can get this fixed.

Rich

I see he has a facebook account. Send him a message through facebook

quote:

Originally posted by SDH:
Tough way to make a livin'.

Do you know an easy way?

I have found out that his address is not the one in the first post, but is now 111 7th St., Newell, SD.

Thanks,
John

quote:

Originally posted by 22WRF:


As for not reporting this earlier, I believe I have been consistent in the theory that every benefit of the doubt should be given to folks who do gun work. Oftentimes a huge part of the delay in doing fine custom gunwork is waiting for parts or services from someone else (if you don't do everything in house) and in turn those folks may be waiting for parts and services from someone else, and so on and so forth on into the night!

Such delay's are easily explained and very readily understood by people. What is never understood is ducking the issues and being uncommunicative.

quote:

I think the current thinking among folks who advise people on this sort of thing (damage control people) is to admit it and then hope that it goes away, as for example Tiger Woods.
But where there is money involved bad tastes linger for a long long time.

For folks that have money to spare,TRUST becomes the more valued.
TRUST cannot be purchased no matter how much money one has.
Money can be replaced much easier than can the loss of trust.

Gunsmith or Golfer , neither are out of the woods...

I was one of Bill's first customers. At the time I felt like a true patron if you will. Over the years and through his troubles I never bitched, hemmed or hawed, I had/have plenty of rifles. Never really cared if someone bumped ahead of one of my projects.

A coupla years back, he had some $ woes and I gave him a coupla-three blanks of mine to sell as I knew he was in dire straights, even gave him a G33/40 action to sell.

I hope he resurfaces, he still has 2 scopes, 2 barreled actions and 2 stocks.

Man,,,, I need to get into the gunsmithing business! People will just send you rifles, walnut blanks, bunch of other neat parts, and you can just keep them.

I hope he's okay.

He has small children, if I remember correctly.

Right now a pile of previously middle-class folk are on the street after having lost their jobs and homes.

And not just those with bad mortgages.

It's hard to counsel, but I suspect those disappointed should just let it go.

Anger will burn a bitter vitriolic hole in your soul.

Didn't somebody write

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us?

flaco

I'd have to disagree STRONGLY flaco. Not that I wish him to die in the streets of a bad economy. It doesn't cost much to pick up a phone, send an email and if his business is truly dead ( it probably is now) send back everybodys stuff. One can still act honorably without a penny in his pocket.

quote:

Originally posted by dempsey:
I'd have to disagree STRONGLY flaco. Not that I wish him to die in the streets of a bad economy. It doesn't cost much to pick up a phone, send an email and if his business is truly dead ( it probably is now) send back everybodys stuff. One can still act honorably without a penny in his pocket.

I agree with you except that I don't believe his business is "dead". It sounds like he has cash paying jobs collecting dust on his bench.

You know at a younger age I had the wolves at my door and I had 3 small sons. I worked 2 full time jobs and mowed lawns on the weekends. I swallowed my pride and paid my bills. I did not hide from anybody and they worked with me until I was caught up.
I have feelings for people with problems, just not for them that refuse to face their problems like a man.
Butch

The problem with most of these people which fail to keep a good customer relations is no sense of a business operation.

Look back to Mar. 5, 2006 when Bill asked for advise on going into business. My post to him was that I had reservation about him going into business.

After he made the move SD and started checkering jobs at $85 I knew he was in trouble. You can't eat and furnish a place for a family on that kind of pricing. It is hard to build up customers working only on custom stocks. I would tell anyone starting out to do general gunsmithing and work up to the custom jobs. It ain't easy!!!