As many of you might remember I received a Marlin MR-7 bolt rifle in 30-06 caliber for my birthday in August of 07. This came about because of the generosity of a forum member who wanted to do something nice for someone and read my post about wanting one. ( I can’t find the thread now to refer to it. )
The rifle got to me and it is a beautiful rifle. It had no iron sights, which I prefer, but came with a Simmons 3-9x40 scope on it.
Since I live in IL I didn’t get to the outdoor range at all last year. Once the winter got here I ordered the iron sights from Marlin and Midway. Once they got here I had to find a gunsmith to drill and tap the barrel. This proved to be harder than I expected. Being on very limited funds I called all the shops here in the area and got prices. They ranged from $10.00 per hole to $35.00 per hole. I also contacted a gunsmith in Tennessee from Levergunlovers.com forum. He quoted me $10.00 per hole. But that meant I had to ship the rifle and that was something I didn’t want to do.
I himed and hawed for several weeks until early this year when I decided to have the gunsmith used by a local indoor range and gun shop do the work. He was the local who quoted me $10.00 per hole.
I got the rifle back late March or early April and noticed right off the iron sights had been installed tilted to the right. I took the rifle home and looked it over in better light.
I even pulled the sights off the barrel to see if there was any leeway to adjust them. Nope.
But what I found under the sights made me mad. In every hole there were metal shavings. Besides drilling the holes off center, he didn’t clean up his work. These holes are from the front sight. I didn’t think fast enough to take pics of the rear holes.
A shoddy job to be sure and a very unhappy customer. I took the rifle back the next day and the gun smith looked at it and said, “Yes, the sights are crooked but I don’t know what I can do for you.” Then he blamed the shoddy work on my rifle being milled crooked.
I just looked at him like he was an idiot and left before my temper overrode my self control.
That gun shop, gun range, gun dealer, and gun smith will never see my business again.
So now I posted about that, I can’t find that thread either, two threads, both gone.
A little while later another forum member suggested I go to a gunsmith here in Springfield he knows and has done good work for him. That was Oglesby & Oglesby. So I did. That was April 3rd of this year. I received a call from one of O&O’s gunsmiths August 28th of this year. He told me Bill Oglesby had been trying to call me and the phone was always busy. I gave him my cell # and said to call me on that. Several hours later I received a call from the gunsmith saying my rifle was done. But it wasn’t. Instead of resetting the iron sights like I had asked them to do, they drilled four more holes in the receiver. When I told them that is not what I took it in to have done he made excuses and said that the irons were factory and the holes in the receiver were so off center the rifle could never be sighted in.
I corrected him and told him the irons were the ones installed crooked by the other gunsmith and I did not say anything about the scope bases.
Could not be sighted in …… I doubt that very much. It was a used rifle, over 10 years old. I suspect that was an excuse to try and cover their butts because they didn’t do what was wanted.
I was hot when I sent the forum member an email about that conversation. He said he’d take care of it. Well, I guess he did, financially anyway. I'll have to get with him on this when I can.
I picked the rifle up on October 3rd or 4th. While I was there they did everything to convince me I was wrong about the iron sights. Including breaking my existing factory front sight blade and installing a half inch tall, too wide fiber optic sight.
Here is a pic of the entire receiver. The four holes connected by the white line are the factory holes. The others O&O’s holes.
The extra front holes are not even drilled smoothly. I’ve done better myself.
Not to mention the fact that he ground off the bottoms of the scope base screws so short they might have one to one and half threads engaged in the receiver. I’d be expecting those screws to shear off under recoil.
Here’s a pic of the bases with the ground off front screws and my broken factory sight.
Here is a pic of the .500” tall fiber optic blade. It’s so tall that when I shoulder the rifle I can’t pull it down into the rear sight notch. The original blade was .375” tall.
So here I am trying to decide what to do with my last year’s birthday rifle that I haven’t even fired a single shot out of. Pathetic isn’t it that you can’t find a gunsmith that can speak and comprehend English in central Illinois.
Now, please don’t tell me to sue them, or take them to court. I’m not going to do that.
I’m going to do two things for now:
A: I’m going to shoot it as is with the iron sights to see IF the rifle can be shot with the sights as they are. If so I’ll leave them as the back ups they were intended to be.
If not, I’ll pull them off and put plug screws in the holes until I can find a gunsmith that speaks and comprehends English.
B: After trying it with the irons, I’m going to put the scope bases back on in the factory holes, and shoot it that way. I doubt seriously that there is any misalignment to them at all. If one of the scopes I have will work well enough to use, I’ll just use it as is. If not then I’ll buy a new scope. I kinda like the looks of the Pentax scopes 86er recommended.
Sometime in the future I've got to find a gunsmith who can take care of the extra holes in the receiver and somehow straighten up the barrel sights. But for now I'm not doing anything else.
So, now you have it …. the rest of the story. So far.
Joe
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