What can you do if a gunsmith willfully destroyed your gun?

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Badfinger

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I have a Wiley Clapp Commander which I purchased new in July, I had fired 280 rounds though the pistol and then sent it off to be refinished. I will not at this point reveal the culprit, but they are well known, and indeed I had used them twice before to very good effect, unfortunately this time was an another story to say the least, I intend to talk with an attorney tomorrow, I can't say much more other then he very obviously destroyed my pistols frame, I have pictures of it but they are to big of files to post here unless someone can clue me in to some trick for doing so.

I won't rehash the whole thing here, though I will over the next few days make much more known to you. For the time being I have a question, my gun was box stock new in July, it hadn't even 300 rounds through it, the culprit attempted to imply I had attempted to modify my pistol extensively and caused the damage, a brazen lie, clearly meant to place distance between the culprit and his felonious destruction of my property, the frame on my brand new gun now being covered with craters and pitting, the feed ramp contains a huge gouge almost certainly wrought by a tool. This gun was pristine just three weeks ago, now its destroyed, is it possible that this creep has his backside covered by some legality we customers are unaware of, some type of interstate statute protecting him, they are of course in another state, from my end this appears cut and dried, a slamdunk on my part, is it possible they have some legal precedent protecting them that we are clueless of? Thank you and please feel free to reply, especially with how I can post pictures of what they did!
 
I have a Wiley Clapp Commander which I purchased new in July, I had fired 280 rounds though the pistol and then sent it off to be refinished.
This gun was pristine just three weeks ago,
my gun was box stock new in July, it hadn't even 300 rounds through it
Makes absolutely NO sense whatsoever that someone would send a "pristine" gun with less than 300 rounds through it for "refinishing"
the culprit attempted to imply I had attempted to modify my pistol extensively and caused the damage
Whice is a lot easier to believe considering the previous comments about the gun being practically new. Why would it need to be refinished it somebody hadn't messed it up in the first place?
 
You may very well spend more dollars (legal expenses) and effort (time) in litigation, if you prevail, than you will ever receive in compensation.

Have you considered small claims court?

I am not a lawyer but rather am providing thoughts for consideration.

Other responders have provided questions that you will want to make sure you have answers to prior to litigation. Good luck with it.
 
Makes absolutely NO sense whatsoever that someone would send a "pristine" gun with less than 300 rounds through it for "refinishing"

:rolleyes: You do if you plan on keeping it looking that way, WC Colt's ship with a cheap black oxide finish, thats why it was sent off for refinishing! Whats so suspicious about that? Every gun I own gets refinished at some point, if its finish is lousy to start with as this Colt was, it goes off immediately after ascertaining that it functions...
 
No insult intended, but that's about the dumbest thing I've heard about owning a gun. Why not just have it gold plated, and bolt it to the wall?
Some of my best shooting guns are milsurps with crappy finishes, or well worn used guns with character added by hears of use. Others came beautifully finished from the factory, and are given reasonable care to maintain their finish, but certainly not sent off to be refinished if they aren't perfect.
Each to their own, it's your money, and I'm sure the smith is happy to build his kids college fund, or fill his 401K with it.
 
You may very well spend more dollars (legal expenses) and effort (time) in litigation, if you prevail, than you will ever receive in compensation.

Have you considered small claims court?

I am not a lawyer but rather am providing thoughts for consideration.

Other responders have provided questions that you will want to make sure you have answers to prior to litigation. Good luck with it.

I am contemplating two options, first filing a criminal complaint for felony destruction of property, secondly something along the lines of your suggestion. There is a third option that will materialize after meeting with the attorney, that will be publishing the entire account, including the perp and his business.

I have a note that clearly implicates this guy in a willful act, an attempt to place distance between himself and the damage, but that only tipped me off to the premeditation of his act, I can't say more then that. Its a simple question, is there some statute that precludes them from interstate responsibility, or as you indicated, makes the burden so large as to protect him due to costs? I am heartbroken over what he did, he utterly destroyed the frame on their fourth attempt at refinishing it! If it were just due to incompetence it would still nail his hide to the wall, but this was an act of spite, just appalling.
 
I know this might seem a tad late, at this stage of the game, but when I send something out to be repaired or have work on it, I ALWAYS,ALWAYS,ALWAYS take pictures of it from at least 3 different angles and make sure that the people who I'm sending it to get the pics of it before they ge their mitts on it.

Not everyone out there are as honerable or truthful like most of us are.

Doc
 
I deal in construction law all the time. I would clean your clock in 20 mins. My proffesional opinion would be to call the Smith he will know of his flaw in workmanship if he is smart... Then explain to him how much you will save him in legal fees... You should be able to work it out, plan B help out an attorney trust fund.

Thewelshm
 
Did you do something to personally offend said person? I can't think why anyone would put their business and/or reputation in harms way over a thousand dollar pistol. Not saying it can't happen, but it seems odd.

In the even it makes it to court, which I doubt, I would guess the best you will get is restitution for the firearm. More likely it would go to mmediation. Can you prove you didn't do the damage?

If your looking to see someone thrown in jail or to bankrupt a business, your not going to wind up happy.
 
No insult intended, but that's about the dumbest thing I've heard about owning a gun. Why not just have it gold plated, and bolt it to the wall?
Some of my best shooting guns are milsurps with crappy finishes, or well worn used guns with character added by hears of use. Others came beautifully finished from the factory, and are given reasonable care to maintain their finish, but certainly not sent off to be refinished if they aren't perfect.
Each to their own, it's your money, and I'm sure the smith is happy to build his kids college fund, or fill his 401K with it.
I don't know anything about what the OP has going on since his post is so sketchy. However, just because you've never sent a gun off to be refinished doesn't mean that it no one else does or that guns are only refinished when damaged.

I've had guns hard chromed, parkerized, coated with Ionbond DLC and NP3, polished and blued, and had some stainless guns polished and other stainless guns bead blasted. Not everyone is satisfied with leaving their guns the way they came from the factory. Nothing dumb about it.
 
I am contemplating two options, first filing a criminal complaint for felony destruction of property, secondly something along the lines of your suggestion. There is a third option that will materialize after meeting with the attorney, that will be publishing the entire account, including the perp and his business.
"Felony destruction of property"? I'm not a lawyer (nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night)but that sounds like a mightily tall hill to climb. Small claims court sounds more doable. The last is the easiest and might make you feel better momentarily but probably has the least chance of a satisfactory outcome.

Obviously we don't have the full picture, but "acts of spite" are not consistent with folks who want to stay in business. Most are either insured against stuff like this or prepared to eat the occasional goof up. Hopefully cooler heads can still prevail.

As far as posting pictures, the easiest approach is to use a site like photobucket.com, upload the pictures there, and then you can copy the "share" links in a post here.
 
I guess I'm just too utilitarian, and simplistic. If I don't like tye way a gun looks before I buy it, I don't but it!:D
As for refinishing older guns, when I asked about having some of my older, use worn guns refinished I was told they would lose a great deal of value being refinished over letting them display their honest wear, and character.
 
You say you have pictures. Are they time stamped? If not, you cannot prove that this person damaged your gun. Second, why would you need to have it refinished if it were brand new with less than 300 shots fired? Third,why not send it back to the company that made this gun? This does not make any sense!
Something stinks in Denmark.(No offense to the Danes).
 
The frame of a Wiley Clapp Commander is anodized aluminum. What kind of refinish did you order?

I first wished to apply hard chrome, but the owner talked me into ceracoat, the reasoning being that hard chrome over aluminum alloy was somewhat difficult and required a base of nickle. The company failed in three attempts at ceracoating the pistol, each time they still shipped it back to me knowing it had failed to fully coat the substrate, forcing me to send it back three separate times at my cost for repair.

After the third failure in which the owner verbally attacked me, (insinuating that I was the only person who ever had a problem of this nature and it was likely my doing don't you know), and against my better judgement, I sent it back for a fourth time to be hard chromed, ostensibly for free. The pistol was returned to me just this afternoon, accompanied with a note explaining why the ceracoat had failed, and implying that I knew why anyway, implying all was due to my having effected some type of modifications and how the frame had seen better days, again a total fabrication, the pistol was essentially NIB other then for the 4.5 boxes of ammo it fired.

After reading the note I became very nervous and immediately took the pistol from my box, it was then field stripped and the damage readily observable, the frame had cratering and pitting, the rails had long deep gouges that strongly appeared to have been the result of a tool dragging across them! The feed ramp had a huge, deep gouge, the entire aspect of the frame being one of a total loss of integrity of the alloy, it was obviously destroyed and now unsafe to fire!

Its the fourth consecutive time they shipped back the gun knowing full well what had been done to it, they knew that the frame was destroyed and they sure as hell know that they did it! I promise you, I will be getting the names out there is short order, many of you will know them and be shocked, I am, I was a three time customer who had nothing but wonderful praise for this operation, I am appalled and equally furious, and heart broken over the total loss of this beautiful pistol, its a black outrage what they did!
 
.... the frame on my brand new gun now being covered with craters and pitting, the feed ramp contains a huge gouge almost certainly wrought by a tool. This gun was pristine just three weeks ago, now its destroyed, is it possible that this creep has his backside....

You really should post pictures. I can't imagine a refinisher doing all that damage. Seriously, I don't know how that could happen while simply refinishing a new gun. Unless he stored it in hydrochloric acid before he refinished it.

And, criminal charges are pretty much out unless you can prove he damaged your gun knowingly and intentionally. This is a civil matter.

Ok, I was responding before you posted. So, in essence, this gun has been refinished 4 times now. I can see that making a mess of things. No idea how he took the previous 4 finishes off.
 
No insult intended, but that's about the dumbest thing I've heard about owning a gun. Why not just have it gold plated, and bolt it to the wall?
Some of my best shooting guns are milsurps with crappy finishes, or well worn used guns with character added by hears of use. Others came beautifully finished from the factory, and are given reasonable care to maintain their finish, but certainly not sent off to be refinished if they aren't perfect.
Each to their own, it's your money, and I'm sure the smith is happy to build his kids college fund, or fill his 401K with it.

:eek: Good grief, I own dozens of firearms, every one but my Glocks has been refinished, most within weeks of their purchase.
 
People should stop asking why he wanted it refinished. It's not unreasonable. I thought about future refinishing options as soon as I held my new Ruger in my hand, and have researched it. Some people want things refinished in the strongest way possible to preserve them, others want them to look custom. It's very reasonable.

That said you need to find out how the damage was done and what accident could cause it. Pitting for example, what pits aluminum. Did he use the wrong cleaner? Is there a test for that? do you have a local gunsmith who will help verify the cause of the damage and if possible have a tool that matches the gauge before going to court. The burden of proof is on you and I for one believe in burying the court with evidence before even starting.

Secondly let the shop owner know in a polite was that you are very disappointed in this and just want it made right. Give them an out. Ask for enough money that another gunsmith can fix it. Be polite so they won't immediately toss up their legal defenses.

If that fails the second step is a smear campaign where you go to every contact they have and file a complaint, reviews on facebook etc.. Be talking to an attorney now. Don't forget the BBB. A black mark from the BBB goes towards other review sites and at the very least will be another link you can give people when you can complain. Perhaps even contact the NRA.
 
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