I have had gunsmith delay or fail to complete work for just about every reason you can think of. One went bankrupt and left town. Local cop helped me get my gun back. One died, he was way behind on his work and kept taking more in until he passed away. Honest man that he was, every gun had the check taped to the box. I think he kept taking work in because he thought he would get better. Bit of a problem getting the gun back because they had so many to return. He never seemed to have cashed one in advance. I do miss him. One ran off with another mans wife and left his entire life behind him. One sold my gun and pretended he never got it. Saw my gun at a gun show a few months later. That was a [censored] to get back. One fellow took so long to finish my job he thought I died. Three years almost and I had forgotten about the gun several times. One fellow had his father died and that caused him to take forever to get the job done. Funny thing is that his father died twice in three years. Must have been hard on his father.

Now to be fair I have been having gun worked on for over 35 years and used several dozen gunsmiths for a hundred plus jobs. About two thirds of them have no concept of a calendar or due date. All will give you a date and then you need to start from there. I think their wife takes 13 month to deliver by their calenders. Many have had no people skills and hate to be bothered with petty questions. A few were thieves and or con men, many were experts in their own mind and a few were hacks and BS artist. You live and learn. A skilled smith can do anything if he sets his mind to it.

The good ones are like painless Dentist. The bad ones are hacks who you regret ever sending a gun to and make a solemn promise never to use again. To move from the one column to the hack column is very easy and never does one move back in my book. Word of mouth in this case is death.