doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com RBL Non-Delivery

FYI- I'm still patiently waiting for my PIF 9/22/05 gun...sigh......'

9/22/05 That has to be close to the first day they were offered...

Good thing you paid in full to get that priority delivery date, otherwise who knows how long you would be waiting...

Doug, probably a silly question but did you check to see that they did not lose your order?

My PIF 10/24/05 RBL was delivered 4/5/07. Because the RBL received so much earlier commentary I was not going to opine, BUT......

The checkering was dreadful - double cut or something with no diamonds visible on most of forearm and a large area on the wrist. The front bead was not on the gun, but loose in the case. When I called Lou in the gun room he told me he had personally seen my gun, and all the RBL's checkering looked like that. He did agree to let me return the gun to have the checkering cleaned up. It was sent back to me a week later with no improvement to the checkering (the bead was attached). I honestly do not feel they touched the checkering.

I asked for a refund and they gave it to me in about 7 to 10 days. You really can not argue with them standing behind the product in this regard.

After 18 months of waiting I was disappointed that the gun did not live up to my rather modest expectations. Unlike many I was not expecting a work of art for my $3,850. I was expecting a gun with reasonable cosmetics, and a more lively feel to hand.

Most of what I had seen on various threads was accurate, the engraving was thin and the stock had a strange satin finish. I could have lived with the engraving, the finish, and possibly the handling, but not the checkering. It's too bad, I really wanted to add one of these guns to my cabinet - american made and all.

For those considering wood upgrades I was disappointed with what they considered "Exhibition Wood". It was ok but I am not sure it was worth an additional $700. Someone, on this site, had an RBL for sale and I think it had 3x wood that was equally as nice as what they sent me.

Wish I had received one of the good ones. Coming from a maker of of some repute, I am baffled why the quality control is so poor.

Chicago,
I also observed the 'doubled' checkering or 'mismatch' of the lines or whatever you want to call it, on my friend's RBL. It was as bad as the worst amatuer checkering attempt I've seen. All burned black and virtually a collage of lines with most of the diamonds non existant.

The 'engraving' was not as bad as the checkering, but looked like it had been buffed in an attempt to coverup poorly executed work.

I'm really disappointed that they put out a gun like this. It would have been more acceptable to the market, IMO, to have put out the gun as an unengraved model. The checkering debacle is a mystery to me, since Builder and I got a demo of the laser checkering machine on a RBL forend,which turned out nearly perfect (except for the burnt look). Truly disappointing.

Chuck and Chicago -

Credible firsthand reports like yours, while not the norm, still make me consider cancelling my order. I ordered thinking the RBL would be a good value, but it seems too much of a crapshoot. I don't need another 20 ga. SxS, and definitely don't need the hassle of returning a gun twice because nothing was done to correct one of the problems it was returned to have fixed. I'd be really irritated by that, and not so generous as Chicago is when he compliments CSMC for standing behind the guns with a refund.

Looks like they're limiting the hours/$ they'll put into a gun to maintain a required profit margin on each one. Beyond that they will take it back rather than assign an employee whose skills have a higher return when employed on their high-end custom guns.

I wonder what happens to returned guns like this. I hope they don't just ship again to someone who ordered the same options. Maybe they put on a new stock and forend for the next buyer and sacrifice the original wood.

Tony is a business man, and profits are in the driver seat.

I really don't understand how they can screw up the checkering that badly. Most of the major gun makers have been using machine cut checkering for at least ten years. Surely if someone like remington can turn out stocks with flawless CNC machine cut checkering then galazan could do so also. I don't understand the insistence upon doing it with a laser when the results are suspect and there are proven low cost methods that give better results.

The algorithm is the tough part to CNC work. The computer simply follows its program, that's all it can know, and developing that program for a specific gun is not cheap. Remmington and other makers turn guns out left and right since they are production makers and that's how they absorb the cost. The laser works behind the same principle, but that cost is probably less than using a CNC.

I cancelled mine a few months ago. Heck, a 20 guage isn't good for much anyway!

In regards to returning and re-selling guns. When I worked at Colt fact. I was told that any guns that were picked up by the Co. for non payment couldn't be resold in the USA as new guns due to a fed. law. Ken