Wortner Gun Works, how long did they take to repair your firearm???

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rjmacpherson

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I sent them a S&W revolver for warranty repair last March and they still haven't worked on it.

Is this a normal turnaround time for them?? :mad:
 
No different than mine, I sent my S&W handgun to Murray Charlton Enterprises and it's been there for 4 months now. I'm guessing it's going to be a year before I get it back. And that's being really optimistic. :( I bought it brand new and had it for a day and noticed there was something wrong with it. The dealer wouldn't take it back and told me I had to send it for warranty.
 
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My rifle was a Thomson center, there for a safety recall. Wortner was listed as an authorized service center. I ended up calling Thomson personally to express my concerns and my rifle arrived within a couple weeks.
 
I called S&W about mine and they escalated it to Level 1 and I got an email that someone will be calling me within 3 days. That was 2 months ago.
 
The last repair that I had them do took 18 months. And I do mean last. Their quality has gone down and their time to complete the job has greatly increased. If you have to phone there try practicing first by talking to a tree or barn animal. Because that is how far you are going to get with them. ALL DONE!
 
If you have a relationship with George in there and buy the firearm from them direct then the work is done right away. If you purchase elsewhere and use them for service the time increases. If you don't have a relationship with George the time increases even more. I've had fantastic service in there, but if you don't know them and don't purchase from them, expect your wait times to increase. Once George retires the place will probably go under as the son just hasn't picked up the gun smithing like his dad. Sorry, it is a who you know for this place, but that can be said for a lot of shops.
 
I recently played the interesting game of 'this item costs Y dollars on monday and when you call friday the item hasn't shipped yet and will now cost 3 times the Y cost'.



In fairness regarding S&W warranty work - S&W take FOREVER to ship ANYTHING to Canada, so that's the main delay. If you email S&W directly......they don't reply, and if you call S&W, you will wait on hold for 15 minutes listening to horrible music before being hung up on.
 
Thanks everyone for the quick replies, I only wish Wortner worked as fast.

It looks like my fears have been confirmed that this is not the place to have a firearm repaired.

Does anyone have any good warranty repair stories? I like S&W but if they only have 2 repair centers in Canada and both seem to have poor turnaround times I think I am done with S&W.
 
Ya at wartners in Chatham, is quite the small gunsmith shop, does just about everything for warrenty repairs, busy doing that and running his gun shop out front. From what i have heard everyone from everywhere sends things to him, and at that age about to retire he might not quite move that fast, it seems everytime i go in there they are out front helping with customers. I have heard from multiple people that he is a busy guy and wait time is ususally a year. Heck if everyone stopped calling him all the time, maybe he might be able to get some work done? lol
 
TC and Smith are owned by the same parent corp. they aren't all that interested from what i have seen in keeping their export permits up to date. nor are they to interested in the canadian market. what that means for the poor sods that are on the hook for being a warranty depot is they cant get parts reliably.
 
I've always really liked going to Wortners. George and Pete are great guys to talk to. That said I'm local, so I can go shoot the breeze occasionally too.
 
The problem with any good shop is word gets around and they get overloaded with work. I had some work done there a couple years ago and yes it took a while to get the rifle back......but the job was done right. I recommended them to a friend last fall and it was this summer before he got his rifle back, but he is very happy. I also understand that Mr. Wortner lost his daughter this spring and that slowed things down. If that is true that may be reason enough to cut him some slack.
 
rokoro said:
The problem with any good shop is word gets around and they get overloaded with work. I had some work done there a couple years ago and yes it took a while to get the rifle back......but the job was done right. I recommended them to a friend last fall and it was this summer before he got his rifle back, but he is very happy. I also understand that Mr. Wortner lost his daughter this spring and that slowed things down. If that is true that may be reason enough to cut him some slack.
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You are correct about his daughter and he does deserve some slack as I understand she worked with him in the shop.

I started this thread not as an attack on Wortners but more to see if this was normal for warranty service. From all the feedback it looks to me like if you are not local and don't have a personal relationship with them then it looks like it can take a year or more (18 months and counting for one customer) to repair your firearm.

From the feedback it looks like I don't have much choice as it's no better with the other S&W warranty centre. I even checked in the US and they are waiting months just for a reply on a repair estimate from S&W, much longer on the actual repair. Not sure how long the wait is in the US with authorized repair centres.

My next quest will be to see if anybody else provides better repair services as only having 2 repairs centres for S&W seems like things will only get worse as it's been mentioned that they are only getting busier.

It's a lesson learned. Next time I will forget about the warranty and just pay to have it fixed locally.
 
I drove down to have a trigger changed on my Thompson Centre for a safety recall. I dropped it off and went to get a coffee. Came back in an hour and the job was done. They were very nice there. I would give them more business.
 
Wortners is an old fashioned shop with a very experienced and talented gunsmith. He does the maintenance work on the local Chatham police and OPP weapons.
If you have a tough gun to fix, George is likely your man.
As to speed, do you want it done quickly or do you want it done right?
 
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