Who is Tuning M-305s These Days?

B said:
I checked out M14 medic but he hardly sells his services after listing all the things he doesn't do. 10-12 weeks is also a bit ridiculous. Any other options for a guy with a couple guns to get tuned up? Looking for the standard stuff, shim, Tig index if needed etc...
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Thanks for your kind words....

As a side note, when I say 12 weeks I MEAN 12 WEEKS.... it is a very odd occurrence when the lead time gets longer than that.

Mea-culpa for opting for honesty up front as opposed to lying to all my potential customers....

You will be well served by Nick, he does top-notch work.

Cheers!
 
notsorichguy said:
Thanks for your kind words....

As a side note, when I say 12 weeks I MEAN 12 WEEKS.... it is a very odd occurrence when the lead time gets longer than that.

Mea-culpa for opting for honesty up front as opposed to lying to all my potential customers....

You will be well served by Nick, he does top-notch work.

Cheers!
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I am in business myself. When I see a firm has long wait times, it is often a testament as to the quality of service, or an expansive customer base, also hinting at quality of service.

Very rarely in life are you going to find a company that takes longer than their competition to do a job, put out inferior quality work.

Don't sweat it, I get the same crap with my business. The new generation just takes to the internet to complain or spam business with falsified reviews because they don't get everything their way.
 
notsorichguy said:
Thanks for your kind words....

As a side note, when I say 12 weeks I MEAN 12 WEEKS.... it is a very odd occurrence when the lead time gets longer than that.

Mea-culpa for opting for honesty up front as opposed to lying to all my potential customers....

You will be well served by Nick, he does top-notch work.

Cheers!
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I meant no offense, just speaking my mind as I always do. If there were no potential gun ban and you unitized guns this thread would have never came about.
 
when I was doing the m14 smithing I tried to be as upfront about lead times as I could but often folks complained anyways.
At the time I was one of the only "m14 smiths" in the country actively taking in work and "only" working on m14 rifles.
In the end, for me, I took in way too much work at a time when most of the rifles coming in required way more of my time and sourcing replacement correctly fitting parts. Norinco parts don't come easy which led me to buying up a bunch of rifles just for spare parts. In 90% of the cases, customers where never billed for the parts needing replacement as the process had added time to the work outside of what was promised. Nobody in my dealer forum cut me any slack over it and folks just wanted me to be available online at their whim when I needed to be nose to the stone working on crappy rifles LOL Due to the decline in quality of the rifles being imported , which meant more time and headache on my bench to properly accurize them..... for me it was more stress than it was worth LOL so I quit working on other peoples stuff altogether.

it is good to see the handful of smiths still making themselves available to work on these guns but I am glad I am no longer one of them ;)
 
notsorichguy said:
Thanks for your kind words....

As a side note, when I say 12 weeks I MEAN 12 WEEKS.... it is a very odd occurrence when the lead time gets longer than that.

Mea-culpa for opting for honesty up front as opposed to lying to all my potential customers....

You will be well served by Nick, he does top-notch work.

Cheers!
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I can personally say that John/M14medic is as good as they come. He has a full time job, and does this off the side. His 12 week turnaround is what I call under promise and over deliver. I had him do an LRB/IDF heavy barrel build for me, and was ecstatic with what I got. Two thumbs up John!

Patience is not a virtue these days. By reputation, you will be happy with what you get for your choice of smith's, but John will still get any work I want done.
 
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walleyed99 said:
I can personally say that John/M14medic is as good as they come. He has a full time job, and does this off the side. His 12 week turnaround is what I call under promos and over deliver. I had him do an LRB/IDF heavy barrel build for me, and was ecstatic with what I got. Two thumbs up John!

Patience is not a virtue these days. By reputation, you will be happy with what you get for your choice of smith's, but John will still get any work I want done.
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I second that, good things come to those wait.
 
Nick is almost done with my guns. Sounds like both had poorly indexed barrels and completely unsafe headspace. Gas systems are nice and tight though. Should have them back in my hands next week.
 
45ACPKING said:
the reality is that there are lots of highly skill gunsmiths in Canada but that does not mean they have intimate knowledge of the m14/M1garand family of rifles and the skills to tune them.
It's not a common skill set to have and it just means you have a much smaller pool of expertise to rely on for quality work.
it is what it is.

there may well be other good m14 smiths out there that I did not mention in my previous post and I did not omit anyone on purpose, I am just not aware of them.
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Adding to that, there are a bunch if tools and fixtures unique to the m14 that many Smith's don't have.

Also, if they do not have a mill and a lathe with lots of evidence that they get used, you are likely in the wrong shop.
 
emerson said:
My Corlanes experience was very slow, bad communication, decent work. Lots of phone calls without call backs, I did everything but physically walk in the door. I understand lead times, but taking far longer than planned and not communicating back to me didn’t impress me. Maybe if I was spending several thousand it would have been different.
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Mine as well, for just a drill and tap and bolt bend job. 5 months and numerous calls. :(
 
The Smiths at Corlanes are not very good at all in my experiences. I sent two guns to them for what was basically refurb work and they both came back without very serious and obvious issues being fixed.
 
B said:
I spoke with Nick at Vulcan. He seems like a very competent and professional smith so I happily shipped my M-305s off for a makeover. Thanks again everyone for the suggestions.
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What all are you having done? Are you using all USGI parts or Hotrodding the Norinco parts and a Tuneup?
 
Coyote Ugly said:
What all are you having done? Are you using all USGI parts or Hotrodding the Norinco parts and a Tuneup?
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I am just having them go over the guns themselves. I can install my own parts but indexing barrels and fixing headspace is something I'd rather pay someone else to do. Was going to have gas systems unitized but they said they are very tight as is, no need for shims even so I am skipping that this time.
 
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