SDH

I would be interested to know just what can be accomplished in a day by a good maker such as yourself. The reason I ask that is because I suspect a lot of people think that things should take a lot less time than they do.

On the other hand, I wonder how makers utilize their time. For example, if you have three big custom jobs in the shop and you have all of the components for each job, do you work a bit on all three in one day, or do you absolutely finish one before going to the next.

quote:

For those who don't understand, there is a big difference in a work order and a contract!

Actually a signed work order is a contract.
Go look at any mechanic's work order and read the fine print on the back. He can put a mechanic's lien on your vehicle if your check bounces.

Anyone that sinks thousands of $$$ and a year or two of waiting into a custom rifle without getting the expectations for both sides in writing is often headed for trouble.

SDH
Providing a drawing is an excellent idea.
Just like your work order.
I work for a company that buys billions (as in BEE) of dollars of machined parts a year... every one bought with an engineering drawing and a contract.

Having had a few custom rifles built, I would say that some of the keys to success for both the smith and me as the client were communications, courtesy, patience, and trust. My custom experiences have been positive, but I started by finding a gunsmith who I could talk to and discuss what I wanted. I also tried to give the gunsmith leeway and asked for their advise and feedback on the project. If I changed something, I made sure that the gunsmith was clear on the change and I expected to pay for the change, as necessary. I also asked periodically whether they needed a progress payment, and checked in BRIEFLY with them every two or three months as the project progressed for a status report. In all cases I made it clear up-front that I was more interested in having the job done well than done fast or cheap, and that if they needed more time to do a better job, that was not a problem. I also excepted that though the gunsmith gave an estimated cost, the jobs were time and materials, but with the clear understanding that as soon as the gunsmith thought that my budget would be exceeded, I would be informed so that I could make adjustments, if necessary. Finally, when I received the gun as a job well done, I made sure to thank them and let them know that their efforts were appreciated.

quote:

Originally posted by loud-n-boomer:
Finally, when I received the gun as a job well done, I made sure to thank them and let them know that their efforts were appreciated.

+ a whole lot on that!!!

Don

I am going to say the last paragraph first, and also leave it at the end as well:

**********************************
LAST PARAGRAPH
Now this is risky writing all of this on the internet. As I have said man, many times, it is just about impossible to judge tone when reading words on a computer screen. Please, please, PLEASE believe me when I say my tone right now is one where I am offering up some food for thought. I am just trying to add to what Steve wrote and get folks seeing how it looks form the gumaker’s side of the bench. There was not one bit of whine or condescension or smart ass in my head while I am typing this - only very friendly conversation and hoping I can better understand your perspective, and hoping you can now understand how I see things at times. Please don’t read any sarcasm or anything mean spirited in it. I swear there is none meant as I write this-I am saying it as friendly as possible in my head right now.
**********************************************


I really appreciate everyone contributing in such a professional and civil manner. I know this can be an emotional topic for folks on both sides of the bench, and yet everyone here has been a prefect gentleman. Thank you!

One reason why I asked for people with at least 2 projects or makers to respond is because it is very easy for people to speak hypothetically on how they would handle a situation. But after the first time you find YOUR bacon in the fire, folks often realize there is a lot more to it than initially thought. This goes for both sides of the bench. The theoretical client and theoretical gunmaker (or theoretical anything) can take firm stances and hold themselves up to an incredibly high and noble bar. That first trial by fire usually changes one’s perspective.

From the maker side, it seems to me that the more “artsy†a person is, the more likely they are to have delivery issues. I see a couple of reasons for this. One, they like to work on the most stimulating parts of different projects, and the less appealing portions of a job get put on the back burner. Also, when an “artsy†person gets basically told they “have†to do something, they more times than not they will balk. It is just a basic personality trait I have seen in artists of many fields, and experience in my own personality to some degree. I could speak at length on both of these points, but hopefully I got my ideas across with this brief write up.

I also see 3 primary reasons why it is quite often the metalsmith who holds up the whole works. In no particular order:

-The amount of money it takes to get set up for doing any type of metal work is significant and rarely understood by folks who have not bought it. When you look at what the margins actually are for custom gun work, it is an even more major financial outlay. The more variety of metal jobs you want to do, the more you have to spend on tooling and equipment. This means that a wolf is often knocking at the door and I have seen folks, by necessity, take a very short term view and what is important that particular day. This happens in every business.

-Another issue that causes delays with metal is the basic difference between metal and stock work. Every stock is basically like every other stock. Oh sure, they are all a little different, but it is minor differences and usually a stocker has performed the limited options in the past. They know how long it takes to do a skeleton buttplate, leather pad, or straight rubber recoil pad. They have done numerous point and fleur de lis patterns and will have a pretty firm idea of what it takes to do it again.

Metal often involves conceptual work. Many times a client will direct you to a magazine or picture on the internet and say, “I want something just like maker X made. How much will it cost and how long will it take?†It will be something the metalsmith has never seen or heard of before, so he will take a SWAG at what it will cost and how long it will take. And literally over 99% of the time he will err on the low side, much to his own detriment.

I have done business in a lot of countries, with a lot of different vendors and clients. I can only think of one man who did not assume we would come in at or deliver on the low end of the range I gave him. Meaning, I would tell a client (just to pick some numbers for an example), “If you want this addition to scope, it will be ready for delivery in 32-40 weeks.†Cost will come in at $1.2-1.35MM.†Except for Norm (the one man I mentioned) they ALL expect it to be delivered to their site in 32 weeks at the absolute latest, and $1.2 million is a price they will try to beat you down on and look for some little technicality not to pay you the full amount. It is safe to assume they will not make any progress payments due to some technicality their lawyers dug up, so your projected cash flow is all out of whack and you are dreading going to the president and telling him you need a supplemental or everything shuts down.

This is also basic human nature of hearing what you want to hear, and gunmakers need to realize this and be better at projecting budgets and times. The problem gets worse when the metalsmith hears the wolf at the door and is bidding a job that he has never done before, never thought of doing before and never even heard of before. It is a total SWAG, with very little of the “S†and a hell of a lot of “W.†This also leads to problem #3.

- Metalsmiths have to make most of their jigs and fixtures, as well as an incredible variety if hand tools and cutters, and what not. Read Tom Turpin’s book, “Mastery of Wood and Metal-David Miller Co.†I think it was very good book and am glad I bought it. Oh sure, it was light on detail of how he did things, but that is how it was intended to be. It is not a “ho-to†book, but rather a layman’s observations of watching very high end rifles being built. One key sentence in the book stood out over all of the rest when I read it. Miller said he could not even imagine starting out in the gunmaking world today. It was not because of the difficulty of making ends meet and getting customers and a reputation, but rather the idea of starting from scratch and having to make all of the jigs, fixtures, and tools again. It was mind blowing to him.

Do you know who pays for the time it takes to build all of those jigs, fixtures, and tools? The gunmaker. The same guy who has the wolf knocking at his door. If a jig must be made to do the next step on some new concept rifle, and there are 3 jobs sitting in the shop that only require doing work he has done before, then the 3 other jobs often get moved to the front burner. If any of you get the “Gunmaker†from the Guild, read Pete Grisel’s article on quarter ribs. Many non-makers do not catch it, but he mentions his first quarter rib job sat in a back corner of his shop for months. He had never made one and knew of no one who could explain how to do it. So what did he do? He did jobs he knew how to do until the client finally bugged him enough to take a stab at it. And in typical Grisel manner, he figured out a quick way to get a very good end product. Most of us flub our first several attempts at something. I usually screw up the first 1 or 2 of something new I make.

For example, this past weekend I made some items for a friend. It wound up taking right at 3 full days to make 4 parts that I could put in the bottom of my palm, close my fist, and you would never know they were there. I had never made this before and wound up scrapping some, and making some templates and jigs that I can use the next time. But if this were a paying job, I would of worked 20+ hours to make the parts, and would likely never use the jigs and templates ever again. Do you think a paying client would be happy about having to pay for that many hours to get 4 little parts? How many do you think would understand what is involved in making them and appreciate the investment in time and energy? I am sure a handful out there would, but they would be in the overwhelming majority.

Now combine these 3 bullet points with the fact that Steve mentioned-many (most?) gunmakers are part timers with a “real job.†The real job takes priority. It has too. If you lost it you could not buy more machinery to make guns.

So how does this help solve the delivery problem? I have no idea. Just reading this will give an inexperienced reader only a token idea of what is involved in making an actual part.

When I was in the corporate world and flying all over the globe, I did my best to give clients realistic expectations, and gracefully point out when their expectations were unreasonable. I would always have the projected range of delivery dates and costs in a written range, which I would refer to when they were jumping up and down saying I did not live up to my commitments. On items where it was a firm price and firm delivery, I had a lot of contingency built in to cover both my schedule and budget. I was a project manager on international projects and a business system developer for one of the most divers companies in the world. I know a little about schedules, budgets, systems, planning, communication with clients & vendors, managing folks from laborers to PhD engineers, writing contracts, going to arbitration, litigation, and all of that good stuff. I have been the client/end user, vendor, subcontractor, general contractor/ general manager, peon, someone’s bitch, and just about every other slot on an org chart. Custom gunmaking is different. I have done both and it really is different.

I have often work with contracts that had penalties for late delivery. If this was present, one of tow things always happened. Either there was a bonus for early delivery, or we had a healthy contingency in both schedule and budget built in. The client would get the product on time, and he would pay more than if he had just come to us and said, “look, we need it on X date. If you are a month early, then GREAT! If it runs a couple of months late, it will put us in a bind. What can you do to help us figure out an alternate plan and schedule?†Had they done this they would have gotten a lower fixed price bid, and a range of delivery dates showing our best date, worst date, and most likely delivery date. We would show the internal team the stretch goal date and work towards that.

If we did not have a lot of contingency built in, which the client paid for without knowing it, then we had a bonus clause for early delivery. And just about every contract had a “no harm, no foul†clause. Meaning if a delivery was a week late but it would have just sat in a back field and had no impact on the final completion date, then no penalty could be assessed.

Are you seeing something here? When a custom gun buying client starts wanting a contract signed in blood, I have never seen them offer up anything on the maker’s side of the ledger. All I have ever heard are their demands, with all take and no give. I am not saying my clients were like that, but I have only seen that kind of talk when being discussed on the net and in magazines.

So I will ask people here who have commissioned at least 2 custom guns:

-what bonuses did you offer the gunmaker?
-how much extra did you offer to add to the total cost he gave you so he could have a contingency fund?
-did you live by the range of delivery dates, or start calling twice a week starting 2 months before the early date?
-after you have made 14 changes to the scope, did you still expect the early delivery date to be beaten and the firm price given on the original scope to be reduced?

Now this is risky writing all of this on the internet. As I have said man, many times, it is just about impossible to judge tone when reading words on a computer screen. Please, please, PLEASE believe me when I say my tone right now is one where I am offering up some food for thought. I am just trying to add to what Steve wrote and get folks seeing how it looks form the gumaker’s side of the bench. There was not one bit of whine or condescension or smart ass in my head while I am typing this - only very friendly conversation and hoping I can better understand your perspective, and hoping you can now understand how I see things at times. Please don’t read any sarcasm or anything mean spirited in it. I swear there is none meant as I write this--I am saying it as friendly as possible in my head right now.

Ok break time is over. Idle chit chat about building rifles won't make it happen any faster.
Back out to your respective shops and get to it. Man + handtools or Man + machine, go make it happen or it won't.
SIEZE THE DAY !! (Robin Williams)
Good Day!
Timan/SS

I remembered something else I meant to say. GUnamking really is different than most, but not all, other endevors. Custom engine building has been brought up as an example. In a previous life I was a drag racer and built engines. Later I got into making/customizing 4x4's. The motorsports, even when looking at a "custom" engine, is a far cry from what I do now. I can see it being similar to stockmaking, but a good deal different from metalsmithing. Engine building is basically the same thing over and over, just to a client's specs and requirements. Sorta like the product Dakota or Cooper put out.

If you commissioned someone to make heades from stock, cams from oversize round bars, rods from billets, then it gets more in line with a lot of metalsmithing. But it does not really matter, because we are talking about gunmaking here.

It is also not safe to assume that a straight forward job-say new bolt handle, drill and tap, and rebarrel-is easy for a metalsmith to estimate. All of these things are similar to stockmaking, in that the metalsmith would have done it before and will have a very good idea of how long it will take. But by the time that job comes up in the rotation, his entire shop schedule may have slipped due to a unique and first time job 3 clients back. Maybe 3 jigs had to be made, and the first try at 2 of those jigs wound up being scrapped.

I have seen high praise for good turnaround in shops where it is cookie cutter work. All they do is a few basic tasks, they know how long it takes, they know what tooling they have, they know the availaibilty of all required materials, etc.

Anytime someone starts doing new and unique things, or tasks that ae very difficult and have not been common practice for the past 7 or 8 or 10 decades, schedules get pretty fuzzy. Your job may be straight forward, but a couple of really cool and challenging jobs ahead of your could have caused the gunmaker to get behind, work for free for several weeks in a row, get worried over how to pay the bills due next week, and as a result take a job that otherwise they would not.

Steve made some great points that it takes most of us too long to learn. Taking small, odd jobs, repairs, or whatever is usually done at a detriment to the core custom, work. When bills are due, folks tend to make different decisions then they would make when not under pressure. THis lesson is hard and painful to learn.

This is also an area where part timers can get in trouble. Speaking from a lot of experience here! You have time budgeted for a cool custom project, and folks come by wnating small jobs done so you take them to work them in. Then you get a phone call and are headed to Europe for 4 weeks within a matter of hours. Get back a month later, totally wiped out, and need some time to decompress. Start in the shop and get the flu a week later. or the wife or kids get the flu. Or a key person at work gets the flu and the real job demands more time than normal. Then it is hunting seaon a month after that and you go deer hunting. Then a call and you are flying across the pond again. Get back and decompress. The your kid's basketball season starts. Then,well, you get the idea. Trying to juggle small jobs, repair, and major custom work in this scenario is tough and the lead times are long. The original schedule will be estimated in good faith and with 100% honest. Life has a habit of getting in the way regardless of good intentions.

Make no mistake about it. Some part timers out there can turn out work as good as any made today, and often at good prices. But the schedule is much, much more likely to slip. At least that has been my experience and what I have observed others experience. Just saying this so folks can understand why it sometimes gets frusttrating while waiting on the gun to be finished, and hopefully help you have reasonable expectations in the future.

Marc

I, and a lot of other people who work for theirself, would disagree with you that gunmaking is a whole lot different than other forms of self employment.

We all have "wolves at the door". We all have only so much time to get the jobs done to the customer's satisfaction. We all want the money from every job offered to us, but we don't want every job, which causes us to take jobs we don't want which then causes us to have scheduling problems.

And I think that is where the major problems that you are talking about come about. When a person is in business for theirself, they want and need as much revenue as possible AND THEY HAVE TO TAKE IT AS IT COMES TO THEM. So, when a customer comes to the door its hard to say no becasue a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. So you take that customer in even though you have a ton of other work and you don't have the time to do that particular job right away.
Its a juggling game, trying to keep the revenue coming in, the jobs going out, all the while spending important time with the wife, kids, significant other, or what have you. Its not limited to gunmaking, and I like what Steve Hughes said. It takes time to get it right. When you start out in any line of work it takes time to get the customers, get the work flow right, get a reputation, get good at what you do, get your business going in the right direction, etc. After you have worked in it for awhile and you develop a reputation as being very skilled in your craft or profession your work markets itself and more and more people who want to spend the money for good work will come to your door.

And I also agree with what has been said about folks who are not going to commission a custom gun wasting a gunmakers time. If you have no intention of hiring a maker to make a stock or do some metalwork, don't call the guy and take his whole afternoon talking about work you will never order. I spend a considerable amount of time talking to people who want me to think that they are going to hire me and want me to think that they have the money to hire me, and then I never hear from them again.

WE all have to live where we want to live or where our spouses want us to live (in my case) but it seems that many custom gunmakers seem to live far away from their intended markets. The custom suit maker and the Mercedes dealer don't locate their business in the poor section of town or out in the country somewhere. They locate in the wealthy suburbs where the people have discretionary money to spend on their product. I think custom gunmakers would do well to think about that.

quote:

Originally posted by Timan:
Ok break time is over. Idle chit chat about building rifles won't make it happen any faster.
Back out to your respective shops and get to it. Man + handtools or Man + machine, go make it happen or it won't.
SIEZE THE DAY !! (Robin Williams)
Good Day!
Timan/SS

Hey Stuart,
I would love to give you a big tip on a job well done, however long it takes. Sooner = bigger tip.

I always tip for a good job.

Deposit sent before Christmas, 2006, you finally cashed the check about mid January 2007. We can be more specific about dates and dollars.

You said you had purchased the stainless steel stock you need to make the action.

This was to be the first stainless steel magnum Mauser-type action that you have built?

I have been wanting one for years.

That is all I want for starters, an action:

1) .750" bolt diameter, stainless Magnum Mauser.
2) box for 4-down .416 Rigby
3) square bridges cut for Weaver-style cross-slots
4) 3-position wing safety on the left side, of right-hand action, you said was no problem

You said it would take about six months when we first discussed this by PM here, which I printed out.

Your next estimate was "twelve to fourteen months" when we last spoke a couple of months ago by telephone.

I'd love to give you more business if you want it.

Isn't Marc_Stokeld the guy who offered to do the gunsmithing for free on boom sticks's .395? That was a "straw dog" offer for sure.

RIP-

As soon as the conditions laid out in the .395 post are done, I AM going to give you (or Boomstick? someone anyway) some free gunmaking! How is the project coming along? I asked about it a couple of months ago and for some reason people thought I was "trolling." I never did figure that one out, I was just wondering if the project was moving forward. You can PM me with the current status if you want to.

I have time to sit in front of the computer right now because I am held up waiting on a vendor. A guy started making M70 safeties for Mausers and they are sculpted on the left side. He has the whole shop held up! sorry Timan, couldn't resist the low hanging fruit. Trust me, you are not holding up anything at all.

.22
I can sure identify with your daily worries. I have owned a business and had employees and all that goes with it. Almost all of my friends are also business owners and daily they go through the same thing I did when I had the other business. I am speaking with the benefit of a lot of very expensive (the best way for a bsiness owner to learn a lesson is take it in the shorts!!! ) and time consuming education. I have owned a non-gunmaking busienss, a gunmaking busienss, and have friends in each catagory. With just 2 exceptions, all of my friends are business owners both in and out of the gun business.

I am just saying this so you know where I am coiming from. These are my life experiences, not some theory, that I puton the screen. Your mileage may vary, this is just what I have lived and paid dearly for.

One thing all of my friends who still have their busienss learned was that it was too expensive to have some customers. THey were literally money losing propositions. I have seen companies go under because of a client who was a poor fit. Also, back when I was in the corporate world I worked for a company that had just been bought for a song. it was on the market and priced so low because one single client bankrupted them. The business owners who understood this made more money and kept the doors open, assuming all else in their business was correct.

The best business owners know, know when to politely and professionally say, "I don't think we area good fit for each other." I have said many times that most gunmakers need help getting educated on good business practices becuase they are not good bueinessmen. I am not the first to come up with that little pearl of wisdom. I am sure it was said long before I was born.

The gunamking world is different. It is a hybrid of art and craftsmanship. You ahve to have both, and the personality of both. And those 2 personalities are definitely different. Then you also have to be an astute businessman and have the personality that goes with it. FInally, you have to be good with the public, have good communication skills, and be good at promoting yourself. If a gunmaker is missing one of these 4 parts, he will either go under or not achieve up to his potential.

BTW-the very first day I had the other business open I told a prospect that we were not a good fit and turned down paying work.

quote:

The best business owners know, know when to politely and professionally say, "I don't think we area good fit for each other."

I know a very good CPA that regularly fires his PIA clients. If they are a problem, he jacks up the price the next time they bring him work. Usually they don't come back again. But if they do, the price goes up again and they never come back.
He audits a lot of school districts and has fired at least one of them too.

I was trying to get back out in the shop when I wrote the last post and forgot to give an example and then ask for feedback from the group.

When I mentioned wolves knocking at the door, I forgot to insert that the truth of the matter is that gunmaking is just about impossible to make any sort of living that a typical employee would be happy with, and no business owner I know would consider that income anything but a failure. Well, I do have one friend who is an artist, and she would be OK with it. Funny thing is she is in Greenpeace and we went out and got along just fine. But her family is very comfortable, so even she is not an example of someone who would accept only the money earned by making guns. The business I had before should make literally over 2 orders of magnitude more that would reasonably be expected in a gunmaking business.

This all goes back to the artist mentality that several have spoken of in this thread. The gunmakers I know can all make more money doing something else, but their burning desire to create and passion for the craft keep them going. I know other business people who genuinely are consumed with passion for the line of work they are in, but not nearly as many as compared to the gunmakers I know. A good guide is like a gunmaker in that he or she (2 of the absolute best guides I have had are women) is totally consumed with the hunting or fishing and talking to the clients and money becomes very secondary.

Please understand I am not crying in my corn flakes here and I am not looking for one little bit of sympathy. I am merely stating this put “money problems†and wolves in perspective. Friends of mine who make 7 and 8 figures a year talk about money problems and the wolf at the door, but it is a far different scenario then a gunmaker saying he is broke.

Many makers have alternate sources of income to keep cash flow coming. Writing, photography, turning stocks for others, selling wood, making parts for the trade, dealing in certain types of firearms, and things such as that.

OK, so knowing that the typical gunmaker makes a tiny fraction of what is average client makes, and knowing that cash flow problems are quite often the driving force in schedules slipping, what can we do to make the situation better? Of course some folks will not meet their schedule regardless of cash flow, so let’s assume that we are dealing with someone who would love to buckle down on your commission and his other business practices are sound. What can be done to make it run smoother?

This is just brainstorming and friends talking, so there are no bad answers or stupid comments. Hell, if I will work on a .395 project than it should be obvious I won’t call ANYTHING stupid! Sorry RIP, couldn’t resist that one.

But seriously, I would love to hear any suggestions any of you have for helping a gunshop run smoother and helping to get projects out on time.

Marc

One thing you could do, if you are having trouble with too many phone calls interupting your work, but not wanting to miss any phone calls, is to put a message on your phone that states something like this.

Hello, Marc Stokeld here. In respect of all of you good customers that want your work done on time, I am instituting a new policy that I think will help. I will take phone calls from clients and prospective clients on Mondays from 9:00 A.M. until 12:00 noon. After that and for the rest of the week I need to be in the shop getting your work done.
So please, if you have questions or want to discuss a project, call me on Monday mornings.
Thanks.

Marc,
Do not confuse me with boom stick. You have teased boom stick with your offer of "free" work on a .395, knowing full well that he was a no-go, all talk and no walk. He tried for a while to take over the .395 idea, as his own, but quickly jumped ship. I have fired him, without notice, again, for his poor work as PR man on the .395, and he shall not be rehired to his low paying job.

You never offered to do any "free" work for me, and you are safe in not having to deliver on that straw dog to boom stick. It is an insult as you fully intended. Thanks for allowing me to draw you out on that one.

You should be ashamed of yourself for teasing kiddies like boom stick. That is just perverted. You must have had a lot of idle time that day too.

There are two variables here: first is production vs custom/bespoke. The second, which is a byproduct of those: business organization.

A production/semi cutom product will (usually) have a more reliable and timely delivery/completion timeline. It boils down to 1. the the use of "in stock/on the shelf" items in the production process and 2. a more structured business environment because of #1. Conversely, a custom shop is (for the lack of a better word) not as structured as one sees in a production line, the business practices are treated more flexible by the smith/owner (which are his rights and I do not disagree with) ie "sure I can do that for you now" (while putting aside one or two other projects).

That just goes with the territory, nothing more, nothing less. What each individual smith does is his own business. Who am I to tell him what to do?

As long as he has a good reputation and does a good job who cares what he does with his time, just find out from other customers what to expect. That is up tp the consumer- period!

And yes, a written order is indeed a contract............just very hard to enforce.

P.S. You can certainly try to put in a time clause in the contract if you like, but I doubt you will ever be able to get a smith to accept your order.

Satterlee's web site states all his actions are in stock and available for quick delivery?

I just want to know if this is indeed the case because if it is I will order one this week.

While we are on the topic is anyone offering a 223 sized M-98 or M-70 action?

Howard?

If you've seen his website, you know his phone number. He also lists an email addy.

Barring that, his username is Timan, and you can send him a PM.

Instead of getting the forum into a gunsmith bashing brouhaha, why don't you just ask the man?

flaco

I've had 4 rifles commisioned, and 3 in the works. I usally email the smith with my request, we agree on the ROUGH timing and price. I then send all the components to him, thereby removing the waiting game for parts. All guns have come in close enough to delivery and price that I've not had a major issue. None have been custom wood (one in the works now). Wood from a top stock maker is going to be a couple of years, so plan accordingly.

quote:

Originally posted by flaco:
Howard?

If you've seen his website, you know his phone number. He also lists an email addy.

Barring that, his username is Timan, and you can send him a PM.

Instead of getting the forum into a gunsmith bashing brouhaha, why don't you just ask the man?

flaco

Nobody is bashing anyone here. I have no idea why you would think a rifle enthusist would want to bash the makers of them.

As far as asking him well he has already answered on his web site by stating he has inventory. I am simply asking if anyone has placed an order and received an action that was in inventory.

Rip-

OK, OK, I will admit to assuming that the odds of BS ever getting the .395 project going were more or less zero-but now the egg is on me!

But I was sincere when I told everyone I would do it. I told yall more than once that I really will barrel it up, and if it is a military Mauser I will weld on a new bolt handle. If you really are going forward, PM me and we will work out the logistics.

Marc,
How long would you make me wait for delivery???
Can't you take a hint? I am no beggar and would be very suspicious of your services offered for "free." No thanks. I do not want to be involved in anything like your "offer" to boom stick. You have disrespected the concept of the .395 so vehemently, so how in the hell do you expect to be allowed to work on such a unique project? That is an honor that will be reserved for THE WORTHY. You are not worthy.

Marc, let me answer the questions you asked a few posts back, if I can. I have NEVER paid a gunmaker what he asked. I have ALWAYS paid more than the asking price. Part of it is because I figure they deserve it, and part of it is because I also own my own business and I know what it is to try to make a living on my talents/knowledge. The most I have paid is 50% more because I got exactly what I wanted, sort of like he was reading my mind, and it was on time.

Secondly, I NEVER pay less than 50% up front. There is just way too much that needs attending to that could require money. It is, again, what I require in my business, so why would I expect it of others. If more is needed, and the price goes up, I hope that I have said before, I think I am talking to a friend that will tell me these things in a timely fashion, and I send money immediately. I never borrow money, so if I can not send the whole amount, I do not place the order.

Lastly, as I stated before, I never call before the due date that was originally discussed. It ain't due, don't call. Maybe these are some of the reasons my projects are close to on time, I don't know. The only one I had that I would consider late was when Shilen sent a shit barrel and I chose to wait for the Lilja. I got put way back in line, but I expected it and it was clearly communicated. No harm, no foul. Yes, I also paid for both barrels.

The key is still, communication, trust and friendship.