Gunstock Shaping Ripoff

I sent a walnut blank and my 46" 62 caliber fowler barrel to Virgil Otto at Gunstocks Plus for shaping. Everyone else I talked with was too far backed up. His quote of $165 plus $45 shipping was to include shaping and drilling of ramrod hole.
Here is a pic of what I got back. The stock is extremely crudely shaped. No ramrod hole drilled and no shaping what so ever on the forearm. It is far too thick for a proper fowling gun. Plus he cut the stock off too short. My mistake was he got a check from me in full before he did the "work". Shame on me.
Do yourself a favor and don't send anything to this guy!

me-thinks i would be giving HIM a call!

if you want to try again....dave at knob mountain, and there are others, i just have experience with him. he is around 4 months backup.... :wink:

I live only 30mins away from him and have heard many mixed reviews. The two stocks i've seen from him were very good indeed, but i also have to trust the opinions of my fellow shooters who have used his services and were gravely disappointed. I've met the man and he seems honest, has a clean shop, and knows his stuff! Gotta wonder about this inconsistency. Maybe he has some poor quality help? I just don't know for sure. To bad.

You sure about "WHO" you were dealing with.

This has been posted on his website for a good number of months now (can't remember exactly when I first saw it - 6 months ago maybe)

Well, have you tried talking to him to say "hey, this isn't right?" before going public to complain about what you got?

:idunno:

Stophel said:

Well, have you tried talking to him to say "hey, this isn't right?" before going public to complain about what you got?

Click to expand...

I totally disagree with the tone of this response. Someone who is in business shouldn't turn something loose if he made it into a piece of manure. It's not up to the customer to try to "smooth" things over first.
I was in business for 38 years on my own and would redo anything at my expense that didn't turn out right. This guy should have done the same.

Well, if the customer doesn't go back to the vendor and try to remedy the situation he will end up with squat. A stock he won't use and no money back.

Now I'm as much a perfectionist as anyone (MUCH more than most), but sometimes people mess up, sometimes something doesn't come out right. Maybe the hired help accidentally sent the stock out before cutting the rod groove, I don't know. Go to the guy, tell him what is wrong, and if he blows you off, then by all means tell the world. Publicly saying what a horrible job he did right away is not going to help get a new stock or a refund. :wink:

I totally agree. Any businessman has a right to try to make a problem well before a customer goes off to the rest of the world. And while you as a customer has a right to do whatever you want, only after you have given him a chance to make it right- and he fails to, does your complaint carry weight to others, as far as I am concerned. You are not being fair not giving him a chance to respond to your complaints.
JMHO.
Wes

btech may have done that too, I don't know, which is why I asked. :grin:

Next time, send it to me even.....I could rough it in better than that!...I do hate walnut, it does a number on my sinuses even WITH a mask on!...and I clean out tomtom shop floor and stuff after working....don't need to poison him :shocked2:

I love my maple stocks though.....even cherry, BUT....I don't have a business doing these, and somebody that does....should of done you a much better job.....

Post the result of this please.....I'm interested.
Marc

I have not called the guy yet. I was too ****** when I saw the work and the conversation wouldn't have gone well. Anyone that would send out this quality of work shouldn't be in business. I saw the note that his business was for sale. I asked him in my email if he was still doing stocks. I outlined specifically what I wanted and he agreed.
I cannot imagine any circumstances where I would send this stock back to him to "fix" it. This guy obviously does not know or care about the quality of his work. Every item that comes out of your business is a representative of your quality.
If the company that made your TV has a 1 in a million quality record, but you get that one, they're manure to you.
There's no excuse for this. If he had someone doing the work he should have supervised it. I worked in the chemical industry for 40 years. Work this would put normal business under very quickly. I will fix the stock myself. I was trying to save some time but that didn't happen. I just wanted to give you guys a heads up.

He is still doing business even though his it's for sale.
He charges extra for the ramrod channel & hole.
I've used him once. There won't be a second time.

You may be well founded or you may be blowing a lot of ill will over a simple clerical mistake.

Last Saturday, my lions club had a barbecue. The wind was brisk and while we were packaging the chicken and baked potatoes we needed to weigh down the Styrofoam containers. In our haste to pack the food warm, someone closed a container and packed it containing three baked potatoes and no chicken by accident. Someone could just as easily have shipped out the stock by accident before it was finished. Was there a hidden defect in the wood that prevented the job you wanted. There are indeed some folks whose idea of product and workmanship is alien to everything others expect and it runs both ways.

If there was a problem, the guy should have called you. In my business, communication with customers is most important even if the result is not the best. But if a correction or amendment is necessary, I need to know to correct it and make it right.

You haven't given the man the chance to correct a mistake by "help" that he may not even know occurred. Most vendors bend over backwards to make customers happy, even give free do overs, merchandise discounts etc. You probably blew any chance of such offers by not going to him first.

Since I knew a phone conversation wouldn't have gone well, I emailed him my complaints with his email specifically outlining the work he quoted in his estimate. This included drilling the ramrod hole and many other steps that weren't done.
That was over a week ago. I have gotten nothing in response. Yes, I could call him. Yes I could even plead to get my stock fixed. I just don't feel I need to. I could shape the stock this good with my side grinder.
He had the chance to contact me and make this right. It NEVER should have left his shop looking like this. I've done cabinetry work for years on the side. NEVER sent anything out this poor of quality. As with any poor quality contractor, at some point you have to cut your losses.
He will never do any work for me again.

Sad results, I am sorry for you.
I had problems locating a reliable stock maker when I wanted a certain stock duplicated. I never found one and that experience indicated to me there was an unfullfilled market out there. So, in my wisdom, I bought, not one, but two duplicating machines. Did not take long to figure out it is difficult to do good dups. Plus it also did not take long to figure out it is about impossible to make them correct fast enough to have a profitable business. Made lotsa chips but no good stocks. Got rid of the machines and, to this day, they are sitting unused by the buyers.
One must make a really large investment to get top end industrial equipment for stock making. Not many of those around. Buying pre-made is wise for several reasons.

You "mite" be missing something here....I've used a number of Virg's "pre-carved" stocks--yes they're rougher than Pec. or TOW's. BUT they have a huge amount of wood left on them--for a reason. They can be shaped down to what you want, and there's plenty of butt stock to give either cast-on or off, something hard to get from a detailed full shaped piece. The fore arm is much easier to drill for pins/wedges if it's square. They take a bunch more work, but will make a nice gun in the end. Here's the same stock I think, click on pic to see it go together. Just my 2 cents....Tom

I have learned that lesson well. I wanted to build a 46" fowler. Got the barrel from Colerain. Couldn't find anyone with a premade 46" stock. Found a beautiful walnut stock blank. Everybody I talked with to make a custom stock was backed up sometimes by 2 years. I should have realized this guy was too good to be true when said he could do it right away. It's a good thing he's selling his business. He shouldn't be in it.

I paid for the forearm to be roughly shaped and the ramrod hole to be drilled. He stated in his estimate that both of these would be done. Neither were done. The forearm was not even shaped at all.
As I said, I could shape the stock this good with a side grinder. There just any isn't excuse for work like this. If you can't do it, don't take people's money. This is simply another contractor ripoff.

I would at least call him & ask him why he didn't do what you paid him to do. If anything, he owes you a refund of at least Part of your money.

Had he done the RR hole, he most likely would not have drilled it. :shake: He would have routered the RR hole from the entrypipe to the lock inlet out
from the bottom of the barrel inlet, because that is how he does them.

I don't know who you called for stock carving, but normal time is 1-6 months, depending on what you want & how busy they are.

Keith Lisle

Really, I think this has gone far enough. There's a disagreement between a customer and a vendor and that's where the communication should be. This is not the reason that this forum exists.