I dropped a 1911 off with a local gunsmith to throat the barrel and polish the feedramp to feed hollowpoint ammunition and to fit a stainless barrel bushing.

He just called up and said to come pick it up and that I owed him $250. Now it's been a few years since I had this kind of work done but my old smith used to charge $30 for throat and polish and $30 to fit a new bushing.

This guy said that it took him another 50 rounds of HPs over the 15 rounds that I gave him to get the HPs to feed.

Does this sound high?

I always look at Wilson combat for info on 1911 work. They are substantially cheaper than what you paid, but you are in the big bowl of granola where EVERYTHING costs more.

Opening feed throats and fitting barrel bushings isn't THAT big of a deal. Nor should it take 50 rounds to get HP's to feed. Perhaps he included the cost of a "how to" gunsmithing video on the 1911's.

He probaly also charged for time at the range as well as for the ammo. Since he shot 50 rounds extra he might have gone to the range more than once.

That does seem high.... But how far does he have to drive to the range? How many days did it take him to finish you gun?

And the bottom line for me would be, Does it function 100%?

Hey Fjold, I can let you in on some "Magic Words" that totally eliminates that kind of rip-off. Since they work perfectly, everytime, all the time, I tend to use them over and over when I get into a situation where there is no previously set price. There is "NO CHARGE" for this, obviously new to you, bit of info.

Are you ready? Completely sure you are ready? OK, here they are:

How much do you charge to - XXXXXXX???? In your case, it would have gone: "How much do you charge to" - throat the barrel and polish the feedramp to feed hollowpoint ammunition and to fit a stainless barrel bushing????

Best of luck to you.

Thanks guys

I gave him the gun at 4PM Monday and he called me Tuesday at 3PM to tell me it's done. He doesn't go to the range, he shoots it into a snail trap on his property.

Actually HotCore this was a test of a new gunsmith. I purposely didn't give him any idea that I am a guy who spends EDIT a couple of large a year with my gunsmith as a means of seeing what type of gunsmith/person/businessman he is and how he treats the average Joe coming in off the street.

My regular gunsmith is retiring and I need to find a new one. So I'll take a gun to a gunsmith for a trigger job, etc. and see how I get treated. I happened to have an old 1911 frame that I had dropped a series 80 slide assembly on and thought that it would be a good test of his business ethics and basic gunsmithing to get it tweaked to feed correctly.

I'm witholding judgement until I pick up the gun today because he might have a perfectly adequate reason for charging this much because he found something major wrong with the gun. He certainly works fast.

quote:

This guy said that it took him another 50 rounds of HPs over the 15 rounds that I gave him to get the HPs to feed

He didn't have to shoot them to see if they fed or not.

I got to his shop and noticed right away that there was no stainless barrel bushing installed and i mentioned it and he said that he didn't have one in stock.

So I asked him "You're charging me $250 to throat the barrel and polish the feedramp? That seems awfully high."

Ha said that he thought that his prices were about the industry norm and asked how long had it been since I had any 1911 work done.

I told him two years ago and was charged $30 for the exact same work here in town. (To make sure that I wasn't completely out of line I had also looked up prices on the internet today and couldn't find one gunsmith that charged more than $80 for this same work).

He then said that he had fired 30 rounds through it to test and I asked why it took so many and what about the ammunition that I had supplied, and he couldn't give me an answer.

He said make it $200 and I just paid him and left.

Too bad, I have a Ruger Super Blackhawk that I want to rebarrel and a I need a 26" barrel built from a blank, chambered, threaded and have a muzzle brake installed. And that's just this month's work.

frank..... take it to tip burns.... you need a texas trip anyway......

Frank, you just screwed the next guy that comes into his shop because you paid him instead of kicking his ass. Now he will just do the same thing to the next guy..and the guy after that. If you would have just threw a 50 dollar bill on the workbench and walked out with your gun you would have taught the little bastard something. If your oil man dropped off 50 gallons and sent the bill for 200 gallons it would have been a different story.

Frank

Let us know if the pistol works when you shoot it.

I see greed raise its ugly head in every type of business. Too bad you got caught up in it with a gunsmith.

I can't add more to what has been said already other than that I hope you got a happy ending with your 1911...
But for a dose of perspective I looked up Bar-Sto's gunsmithing schedule. For the same work they list:

Fit match bushing - $45
Throat barrel and frame - $60
polish breach face - $50


That's @ $100 dollars less from one of the best 1911 shops there is.

Barsto

I wonder how he would compare himself to Bob Marvel:



"m8. National match bushing fitted to customer’s barrel $68.00

m9. Throat barrel, correct frame feed ramp,correct chamber depth [if short] and polish the chamber $50.00"


Stryker60

Im with John....and I have worked on a few 1911's. My sincerest regrets from the other side of the bench. Chuck

Well the gun works fine. It ate three magazines of 180 grain hollowpoints, three magazines of 200 grain semi-wadcutters and a magazine of ball ammo this morning without a hiccup.

I'm not complaining about the quality of his work, just the price.

Frank, your a generous man with lots of patience.

"Frank, your a generous man with lots of patience." ...And a great avitar...

MKane160