Gary Reeder Work

[Ken Lewis]

Anyone have a gun that was worked on by Gary Reeder? I am trying to convince myself that $1800 plus the cost of the gun is reasonable for an Urban Survivalist. I know he does a lot with big bore single actions but I am curious about DA/SA Smiths and the like.

Gary Reeder built a 500 Linebaugh revolver for me. Terrible accuracy, so I measured the cylinder chambers, which should have been .510" +/- 0.001". They were all 0.500". Also, the casting flaws on the grip frame were so bad, they could not be covered by the grip panels. Also, the rear sight blade broke off within 35 rounds. Gary told me they built a 500 S&W revolver at the same time they were building my 500 Linebaugh and got the cylinder specs mixed up. I had to pay for return shipping as well. He later posted a comment labeling my penchant for perfection as "anal".

 

[Leonard]

He is not a quality gun smith I got rid of my .510 Spend your money with someone like Andy Horvath. Read the above posts and if you use him you will have no one to blame but yourself.

 

[Nemo288]

Now that all makes me glad I stayed away from the 440 GNR.
I ended up with an Encore (now a S&W product with their serial #s)
and a couple of Pac-Nor barrels from Bullberry in .445SM (see my avatar).
One is for handgun configuration and one as a rifle.
Very satisfied with the results.

 

[Side by Side]

I had Gary Build a Ruger "Long Colt Hunter" single Action,everything was better than I expected. I would have another one built by Gary Reeder. That was back in the 90's, I'm guessing he has gotten better with time.

 

[DumpStick]

It's funny reading this. One of my brothers is a PhD, and a Professor at a very large University. He claims that in any profession, half of the practicioners are incompetent.

Not uninterested in doing a good job, but incapable of doing a good job. Yet, they continue in that profession.

The older I get, the more I tend to agree with him.

 

[Hapworth]

This thread is three years old -- OP has probably made his decision and gotten on with his life.

Also, Leonard: I'm sorry you had a bad experience with a gunsmith, but there ought to be a limit to how many times one can complain about the same thing in the same thread; it's a lot more convincing when a fellow speaks his piece once let's it stand at that.

 

[Nemo288]

It's funny reading this. One of my brothers is a PhD, and a Professor at a very large University. He claims that in any profession, half of the practicioners are incompetent.

Now that's kind of scary to think about if you apply it to professions and jobs that have to be perfect.
Examples might be surgeons, motorcycle mechanics, nuclear engineers,
rocket and space scientists, bridge builders, tattoo artists, you name it!
Here's a somewhat on topic example; missile handlers.
Bidganeh, Iran, Nov.12, 2011
Place blowed up good, then they completely razed it.

 

[Leonard]

This thread is three years old -- OP has probably made his decision and gotten on with his life.

Also, Leonard: I'm sorry you had a bad experience with a gunsmith, but there ought to be a limit to how many times one can complain about the same thing in the same thread; it's a lot more convincing when a fellow speaks his piece once let's it stand at that.

No I will do all I can do to warn others about this guy, he is that bad!

 

[TheGrimReaper]

I know for a fact that many gunsmiths charge less than the time they have in a firearm. I do some gunsmithing but I mostly do refinishing and rebluing. Most people have no idea how much time it takes to do the metal work on an old beat up pitted and rusty firearm. If I were to charge the hours that I put into a firearm it would cost well over $1000 to refinish and reblue a gun.
I just refinished a Model 94 30-30 that I had 32 hours in metal work. Add another 10 hours on the stock woodwork and 2 hours on the actual rebluing plus the time it took to disassemble and reassemble it adds up to over 46 hours!! I charged the guy $350!! That adds up to around $7.60 an hour. I made more than that in high school! But I don't do it to get rich. I do it for the love of restoring a firearm back to as good or better than original.
I guess my whole point is there are a whole lot of the same gunsmiths out there. They are not going to get rich doing what they do. Please don't clump all gunsmiths into the same mold as the hacks. Good ones are out there, just find them.

True story!!!

 

[akinak]

I have done recently a project with his shop. Disappointed.

 

[cjwils]

About 6 years ago I sent Gary Reeder a Ruger Vaquero 45 Colt and asked him to make a cylinder in 45 ACP. I got the gun back in a timely manner at a decent price, but the flash gap was too big. Lots of stuff was blowing out the sides of the flash gap. I sent it back to him and he made a new cylinder in a short time without complaint. Soon after I sent him a Ruger Blackhawk for a trigger/action job, and I was happy with the result.