Simmons Gun Repair of Olathe, KS is the premier place to get your model 12 worked on and they do great bluing and have in the past been reliable and trustworthy. However, in June I was on a trip to Kansas City from Norman, OK and dropped my Merkel 47E of to be re-bored and re-blued. At the time ( and actually, now still do) I had a real problem with the safety it was very hard to get off and I asked the man at the desk, an affable and knowledgeable fellow, to fix the safety as well. He said, "Well let's just go ahead and do a disassembly and cleaning--every older gun needs one of those..." Convinced I agreed and figured out that he would fix the safety and do the cleaning. Anyhow last week I got the shipped back and it looked great--the bluing matched the original and the choke showed signs of being opened up, but damned, if the safety wasn't still stiff as a board and unusable for a field gun. I called and the fellow said just drop it by and we'll take a look at it. I live 350 miles away and that is not convenient by any stretch of the imagination. He said they had test-fired the gun after reassembling it and, if they did, they should have noticed that the safety require both hands to take off. It has an automatic safety so they would have had to disengage it to test-fire it. I had hoped that they would offer to pay for the shipping and repair resulting from their mistake. The total disassembly and cleaning was $125 and it done to that gun and another Merkel S/S, so for spending $250 I ended up with nothing to two supposedly clean shotguns, one of which is of no use. I am just bitching and I know they do great work but damn, now I have to let some local guy of lesser reputation open my "clean" shotgun and do the work at as additional cost and inconvenience. There I feel better. Caveat emptor.