I ordered a Springfield Loaded from Gunbroker.com about a week ago and today I got that exciting call from my FFL that my gun had arrived.
Upon arriving, I took the gun out of it’s case and gave it a good look-over before I started on paperwork. To my dismay, the entire left side of the slide and frame had scratches everywhere. The crappy brush SA includes in the box had worked its way out of it’s pre-cut slot and migrated under the pistol during shipping. It wreaked havoc on the finish. I didn’t accept the transfer and promptly called the store who had shipped it. (Buckeye Firearms).
Apparently Springfield Armory will be sending my FFL a prepaid shipping label and they will be replacing the gun. It sucks to have to wait longer, but I couldn’t accept a damaged gun that I paid $850 for.
I’ll keep you guys posted on what happens next. Does Springfield generally have a quick turnaround on warranty repairs?
Yeah, at first the store wanted me to pay to ship it back to them. I told them that I wasn’t going to pay for their lack of proper packaging. After that, the store employee gave me the owner’s number and he was very pleasant and did all the footwork with Springfield for me. I’m more worried that it’s going to be a long while before I get my gun back.
Probably just a couple of weeks. Be sure you keep copies of all the paperwork (shipping label’s, etc…). You might call Springfield in a couple of weeks and ask to speak with “Deb”… Ron
Springfield has a very well deserved track record for outstanding customer service, and this includes quick turn around times. I doubt your handgun will be in any kind of queue while it’s at Springfield. It’ll be there just long enough to get refinished and then it’ll be back to you.
Bet they’ll re-finish it vs replacement. If it were me I’d send it on to SACS for other mods such as checker FS, flush/chamfer SS/hole, blend rear of slide, ect… Bet Dave will re-finish at no charge.
To my knowledge SA has cut off the “ship in for repair to cover the shipping for custom shop work” loophole. Last I had heard if you were asking for custom work, they were charging you the shipping in.
All that said though SA’s CS is great and it should be a quick turn around.
I can definitely feel your disappointment when you first saw your 1911’s finish. You can be very confident that SA will take care of your new 1911. When it returns to you, you’ll be like a kid in a candy store again. On a positive note, congrats on your first 1911 and your first .45acp!
It’s a 1911, odds are you’ll adore, and promptly decide it needs to be more awesome - after your likely great interaction with the SA CS, you’ll probably send it off to their pro shop sooner than you think, so waiting for a 1911 or some components in the mail coming from a shop is actually the norm for me.
So I found out there was some mis-communication between my ffl and Springfield. The shipping label never came. My ffl worked it out and 3.5 weeks later, my gun is just now going back to the factory. This is infuriating. It sat in his office for over three weeks. I would have been done with this transaction by now if it weren’t such a nice gun. Had this been a Glock or some other easy to find gun, I would have returned it for good and called it a day.
It’s so frustrating that they have me by the balls like this.
“Your ffl” is strictly the guy stuck in the middle of a transaction you decided not to include them in. They’re receiving it for you and now that its scratched its somehow on them to get it fixed?
I would have either refused it back to the original seller, or taken it and contacted Springfield and used their excellent warranty to get it repaired.
So now I’m the bad guy? I lack personal accountability?
Lets not forget that I pay my ffl for his services.
I only did what the store that sold me the gun told me to do. My ffl agreed that this was the right way to handle it. I’ve never encountered this kind of thing before so I was at a loss for what to do.
The fact that the ffl left my gun sitting in his office for three weeks without notifying me of a problem is the sketchy part.
p.s. My ffl is an attorney, not a gun store owner.
I’d have made the seller refund part of the money for the purchase. Then gone through with the transfer and dealt with SA directly.
Either that or I’d have sent the gun back sans any and all money and made them eat all the fees.
In real life I build guitar amps and if I send someone an amp and it arrives all banged up it’s my problem, not theirs. They get another amp built or the original fixed and shipped out at no cost to them pronto. I eat the costs associated and I deal with FedEX to recoup any money from them screwing up the original amp.
In fact, for this reason, and all the shippers getting so crappy I’ve pretty much stopped building for people on the net and only build relatively local.
