cedestech
What I don't understand from Colorado is did he buy a stock only, a complete rifle or give them his rifle to stock?
Answer to your question: The rifle was built by Mark Pharr the action was Durcaoated and put in a original RT stock. Mark’s bedding, stock work and duracoat finish was top notch. The order was for a new RT carbon fiber stock with the carbon fiber showing.

No defending or playing devils advocate and I know it's human nature to see the negative as opposed to the positive....

Can they make/supply a flat top of reasonable quality/price that will be bought knowing it'll be a painter? Answer to your question: No, I seriously doubt they make anything of any quality.

The bedding in those pictures was sloppy and the getting in the actual action was wrong. All of the finish defects though are easily curable with some spot putty and paint.
Answer to your question: You are probably right about the finish defects being fixed the putty and paint. But that is not what I paid for. I did not pay the hacks to damage the finish in the tang area and drop the rifle damaging the trigger guard, and tip of the barrel. This shop has no integrity, is not honest and ethical in the product they are trying to sell. The stock as ordered has not met any of my expectations. The customer service side of this ordeal is even worse, numerous messages left on his cell, no responses, No I am sorry about the damages, No I can offer you a refund, etc.

Dave

colorado shooter wrote:cedestech
What I don't understand from Colorado is did he buy a stock only, a complete rifle or give them his rifle to stock?
Answer to your question: The rifle was built by Mark Pharr the action was Durcaoated and put in a original RT stock. Mark’s bedding, stock work and duracoat finish was top notch. The order was for a new RT carbon fiber stock with the carbon fiber showing.

No defending or playing devils advocate and I know it's human nature to see the negative as opposed to the positive....

Can they make/supply a flat top of reasonable quality/price that will be bought knowing it'll be a painter? Answer to your question: No, I seriously doubt they make anything of any quality.

The bedding in those pictures was sloppy and the getting in the actual action was wrong. All of the finish defects though are easily curable with some spot putty and paint.
Answer to your question: You are probably right about the finish defects being fixed the putty and paint. But that is not what I paid for. I did not pay the hacks to damage the finish in the tang area and drop the rifle damaging the trigger guard, and tip of the barrel. This shop has no integrity, is not honest and ethical in the product they are trying to sell. The stock as ordered has not met any of my expectations. The customer service side of this ordeal is even worse, numerous messages left on his cell, no responses, No I am sorry about the damages, No I can offer you a refund, etc.

Dave

That explains a lot. Just wanting to clarify the situation. Don't know what you paid (and it's none of my business) but the lack of working out a reasonable solution isn't a good thing.

This is sickening, but thanks for taking one for the team.

The damage to your new gun is unforgiveable, I can fix the stock and the bedding for you if want me to, I owe you a couple of favors anyway. I don't claim to be a gunsmith but here's what the bedding job on my 6x47 turned out like last summer.

Kevin

Dave certainly deserves a full refund and an apology from Joel. The work is very disturbing and probably hurt the holidays for Dave.

I'd still like to hear from the vendor. Not that I don't believe you, its just that I hate to not hear both sides of a story. In my eyes the bad stock work isn't the biggest problem, all that can be sorted out by a competent smith eventually. The metal damage though is another story. You can always add putty and paint to a stock, not quite as easy to do that to metal. It did make me shudder to see some of those pictures....

Dave specifically requested an unfinished stock as it comes from the mold. He did not want a finished stock. Bill does not use forums and I do not frequent steelchickens regularly but dropped by this evening on a whim. If he had requested a finished stock it would have non of the cosmetic flaws to the exterior of the stock.

I would be more than happy to share pictures of completed stocks with the community and will post them in the next couple of days.

Also I will note that Dave tried to reach Bill on his cell phone which is not given to customers because he lives outside of cell coverage in the country. But because he offered to do a favor for this gentleman and deliver his rifle to him because he refused to ship it he had his cell number to make contact . The messages Dave left were not retrieved until three days after he left them by which time he had already contacted the shop during business hours.

Again Dave was trying to save every penny he could and did not want to pay for a finished stock he also included an FFL from a friend to get a dealer discount but he did not have any intention of having this dealer involved in the transaction. That is rather dishonest at best. Again this stock was supposed to be going to a gunsmith for the work to be completed. We would never have sold this stock let alone given Dave a dealer price on it if he had been honest in his intentions. So when you ask for incomplete work and claim that someone else will be finishing it..... you should expect exactly what you ask for.

Thanks for replying. Yes, you should include some pictures of your completed work ON THIS THREAD. There are always 2 sides to every story.

Yes, I would be very interested in seeing an example of your stock in a "finished" raw carbon fiber state since that is what Dave received. In addition, I am wondering if your bedding jobs all look like Dave's. I have never heard of someone doing a bedding job that has to be finished by another gunsmith to make it presentable.

So he ordered an unfinished stock, what about the metal damage? Were those dings and dents done at your shop?

SturtevantArms wrote:If he had requested a finished stock it would have non of the cosmetic flaws to the exterior of the stock.

That explains somewhat the cosmetic flaws to the exterior of the stock, BUT...

SturtevantArms wrote:Again Dave was trying to save every penny he could and did not want to pay for a finished stock he also included an FFL from a friend to get a dealer discount but he did not have any intention of having this dealer involved in the transaction. That is rather dishonest at best.

Did you deliver his rifle in the condition it was in because you thought Dave was being dishonest!?!?!?! What does the FFL/dealer discount situation have to do with anything?

SturtevantArms wrote:Again this stock was supposed to be going to a gunsmith for the work to be completed.

Which work specifically was supposed to be completed by another gunsmith?

SturtevantArms wrote:We would never have sold this stock let alone given Dave a dealer price on it if he had been honest in his intentions.

Again, was something done to the rifle in retaliation for something Dave did?

SturtevantArms wrote:So when you ask for incomplete work and claim that someone else will be finishing it..... you should expect exactly what you ask for.

I have a hard time believing that the condition of this rifle is "exactly what he asked for." Did Dave ask to have the rifle bedded? How do you explain the bedding job that he got? Did Dave ask to have the rifle inletted? How do you explain the inletting job that he got? I know Dave didn't ask to have the rifle dropped or the metal damaged, but I'd like to hear your explanation of that.

If the bedding and inletting would have been quality and the rifle returned WITHOUT DAMAGE and with a stock that needed only cosmetic work, your explanation would make perfect sense. But as it stands, I just dont understand how you'd let what's in those pictures leave your shop regardless of how the transaction went down.

Dustin

The metalwork was not damaged in our shop. The finish that was on the rifle was Duracoat which is actually an industrial grade of metal paint made by Sherman Williams and rebottled by Lauer weaponry. Duracoat scratches very easily and it is no surprise to see scratches on that type of finish. If you want the proof of that; get the MSDS sheet for Duracoat and you see the Sherman Williams logo at the top. Mark Pharr does absolutely excellent work and he and our family have been friends for decades, but on this one point we disagree, Duracoat is not an exceptable firearms finish in our shop. It is made to paint well rigs and construction equipment. Again Mark is an excellent riflesmith so if he did the work, I seriously doubt that it was scratched when it was done, but it would not surprise me if it scratched in a box during shipping or just during normal use on the firing line. Now to the more important matter,... because the customer was unsatisfied I offered to take care of Dave. We agreed that we would Cerakote his metalwork free of charge with our next run of the color he would like, he has not done so to this point.

To the next issue,... The FFL situation is key to this because there was supposed to be another gunsmith involved that was going to finish this work, not a guy in his garage. We have a bad taste from guys in the garage trying to hack work together, I know some guys that are perfectly capable but for every guy who is there are 30 other who claim they are and really aren't. We will not sell and unfinished stock to anyone except a licensed gunsmith that can professionally finish the job. The fact that he was dishonest is just a fact, one that would have prevented him from ever getting a stock in an unfinished state. He asked for a rough inlet job and aluminum pillars installed only, again to be final bedded by his other "smith" so the stock was rough inletted and bedding agent was only used to secure the pillars in the stock. That stock is not final bedded, at least not by us. Again final bedding was supposed to be completed elsewhere a bed job would never look like that from a professional. We do not take the time and effort to make a pillar installation perfect if that work is just going to be shaved off and final bedded by another shop or gunsmith. Again we know there are hundreds of excellent gunsmiths that can complete work from a rough stock and they want to do that. So other than having a stock the was ready to be completed by another shop nothing was leaving our shop in its final state, NOTHING! Also we did not put a recoil pad on the stock, another thing that we would never let out of our shop to a customer as opposed to a gunsmith! We would not let any work leave our shop incomplete to a final customer! A finished, inletted, aluminum pillar bedded, complete stock with clear see-thru exterior coat to show the carbon fiber through the finish would not be $550 not even close. The stock blank alone in a finished condition with clear top coat to show the carbon fiber is $500, getting a final clear finish is labor intensive. An RT uninletted blank, painted in a solid color is $375-$425 depending on material choices; let alone inletting, installing pillars, bedding, installing a recoil pad etc. and the list continues.

I must say that I am appalled that anyone would think a professional shop would damage a customers rifle intentionally for some sort of retaliation. We would not have been in business for 30+ years if we conducted our shop like that. There is no retaliation at all, in fact we would like nothing more than that stock/rifle to return to our shop so the work could be completed in a professional matter. The metal finish I have offered to complete for free, and I would like that stock to be finished properly! Having a stock out there like this is why we refuse to sell unfinished products to shooters in the first place. We have no problem selling to gunsmiths to complete work, but for a guy in his garage to complain that he did not recieve a final product when he didnt ask for it (infact specifically requested otherwise), didnt pay for it, and inteniontally misled us to obtain an unfinished stock under a false pretense gets under my skin. And to top it all off Bill went through the hassle of giving him his personal cell phone number and dropped the rifle off to the customer at his home (200 miles from our shop on his way out of town) because he did not want it shipped, that does bug me.

Again I am glad to have the community aware of this transaction completely. I prefer to address this in public forum rather than have someone be dishonest (again) about what work was supposed to be done . And if Dave reads this and would like the work completed by a gunsmith, we would be happy to, or if he would rather I can reccommend several other excellent smiths that will do exactly what was intended from day one.

A bunch of things just aren't adding up here. It is pretty clear that the rifle was dropped, not just scratched. Dented muzzle, dented scope mount and a dented trigger guard. That is more than just scratched Duracoat.

I'm having a hard time buying the idea that the pillars were installed with the intent of someone finishing them later. Any gunsmith that is going to do a proper bedding of a rifle is also going to install the pillars. All the gaps and pockets in the bedding compound... if I was a gunsmith that was supposed to finish that job I would start by removing every bit of bedding compound and the pillars and starting over. Sorry to be so blunt.

I hate to see this type of debate going on in this community. We are severely lacking in the composite stock market since the closing of Roberstons. At the very least there was some SEVERE miscommunications and expectations in this situation. Dave does not get upset... like EVER, so clearly his expectations were not in line with what is being described here for him to verbalize his disappointment like he did. I just can't understand how a customer and a vendor/gunsmith could be so far apart on expectations.

If there is a lack of communication then this is the place to let it get corrected. I have no interest in a debate either, I just want the truth to get out there. If anyone is in need of a stock and wants us to stock a rifle let me know via email [email protected] or through our website sturtevantarms.com and the contact forum. I seriously doubt that we will sell unfinished stocks to any new gunsmiths that are not ordering in quantity( or that we do not already deal with) after the hassle/confusion over this job.

On a really positive note, should you want Mark Pharr to do the stock work you can order a stock through him from us and he can do the work. And as everyone in the sillouette game knows Mark is one of the best.

Thanks to the community for all the input out there!

My 2 cents worth, on my first couple of custom rifle projects I was very disappointed because I felt that the gunsmiths had not completed the work to my expectations, these were totally verbal communications. I no longer get work done in this fashion!!!! Everything is in writing or email and preferably both along with phone calls before the work begins, the latest gun project was my 6x47 by Douglas, the gun was exactly as I specified, no surprises or disappointment's. Although I've never done it in the past photo's of the gun prior to shipment wouldn't be a bad idea either.
To use those overused clichés from the business world, this is a learning moment and what's the take away from this.