Terrible Experience at Parallax Tactical (SD)

[Stanze]

People will respect you more if you admit mistakes were made, sincerely apologize, fix it and move on. Good on ya Parallax Tactical.

PT has been my go to LGS since their original location opened.

Great bunch of guys and gals! Derek always remembers my name and face and immediately picks up on where our last conversation left off.

They are not "youtube" trained. They have always been very knowledgeable and up to the minute on CA laws and pending legislation.

They don't want their customers to get in trouble. That shows that they truly do care for our happiness and well being.

[guns4life]

Everything the poster said is true. We screwed the pooch. We did order the solder to redo it as the poster requested however for some reason or another, Brownells canceled the order without notifying us. I thought it was on the way but it wasn't. Needless to say it wasn't handled the way we would of liked. I did speak to the armorer who installed the epoxy originally and we did offer to redo it and refund the money paid but the OP wanted it silver soldered, so I ordered it as requested. So in summary, we deserve the feedback 100%. We are sorry.

Some shops would do well to take note on how to properly address a legitimate customer complaint, as seen above.

[PyroFox79]

Scott, the armorer who install the sights is attending online gunsmithing classes at SDI, an accredited school. We did speak to him about being more careful with instructions on epoxies. It won't happen again.

Gun smithing isn't something you learn online. I got my experience and schooling in the corps not online.

[Gunsmith Dan]

As a competitor I just want to make a few statements first of which it is great Parallax decided to own up to the mistake and not just bury it under the "We are looking into the situation" statement most make.

1) $60 is a fair price as the nationally recognized normal labor time for doing Silver Soldering of a front sight at 1 hour of labor. That would include setup, cleaning and sanding the area and bottom of sight, brazing, clean up, using a silver solder blackening agent to color blend, and doing a pull test to make sure it is attached properly (my charge would of been $70 on a single barrel)

2) $60 is not a fair price for doing epoxy as it is a nationally recognized labor time of 1/2 hour and whether or not silver solder was available from Brownells (which btw there is many vendors that carry silver solder and for a business to rely on just one vendor for critical supplies is never good) the customer should of been told and given a discount right off the bat.

3) Silver Soldering (actually brazing but most people do not understand the difference) is done at high temps (1100 F) which is close to the temps that you can screw up the heat treat of the barrel (around 1300 F depending on the alloy). It is critically important that someone doing that has a lot of experience and the correct tools (laser or infrared non contact thermometer very important) as making the barrel to hot will make it harden. A barrel that is to hard will tend to be brittle and crack / break from the stress and a 12 gauge shotgun will put a lot of stress on the muzzle end, especially if it has a full choke.


I have in the past sent a lot of my customers that wanted ARs built to Parallax as I did not have the time and because the profit margin is to low unless you do volume. Parallax is a great place to go for custom built ARs and they definitely specialize in that and no one I sent to them for ARs has ever complained to me about Parallax.

but I must voice a cause of concern when a person trained as a armorer (sorry but just because someone uses a file or drills holes for pin and weld does not make them a gunsmith) is doing Silver Soldering with the only experience being watching a video. Silver Soldering should be done by someone who is experienced as it is one of the few things you can do on a firearm to turn a safe to shoot firearm into a unsafe firearm. In fact in most true gunsmithing shops only after doing MANY test silver solders on sheet steel with a thermometer showing they know how to control their temps consistently would they be allowed to ever silver solder on a barrel.

I post this as a concerned professional gunsmith because this should be something that shops should be sending out to experienced professionals to do. I also take issue when people interchange armorer and gunsmith as being the same profession and level of training/experience as they are not even close.

[phase1]

Wow Parallax, way to own it. That gets mad respect IMHO.

seriously!!! much respect

[shovelon]

As a competitor I just want to make a few statements first of which it is great Parallax decided to own up to the mistake and not just bury it under the "We are looking into the situation" statement most make.

1) $60 is a fair price as the nationally recognized normal labor time for doing Silver Soldering of a front sight at 1 hour of labor. That would include setup, cleaning and sanding the area and bottom of sight, brazing, clean up, using a silver solder blackening agent to color blend, and doing a pull test to make sure it is attached properly (my charge would of been $70 on a single barrel)

2) $60 is not a fair price for doing epoxy as it is a nationally recognized labor time of 1/2 hour and whether or not silver solder was available from Brownells (which btw there is many vendors that carry silver solder and for a business to rely on just one vendor for critical supplies is never good) the customer should of been told and given a discount right off the bat.

3) Silver Soldering (actually brazing but most people do not understand the difference) is done at high temps (1100 F) which is close to the temps that you can screw up the heat treat of the barrel (around 1300 F depending on the alloy). It is critically important that someone doing that has a lot of experience and the correct tools (laser or infrared non contact thermometer very important) as making the barrel to hot will make it harden. A barrel that is to hard will tend to be brittle and crack / break from the stress and a 12 gauge shotgun will put a lot of stress on the muzzle end, especially if it has a full choke.


I have in the past sent a lot of my customers that wanted ARs built to Parallax as I did not have the time and because the profit margin is to low unless you do volume. Parallax is a great place to go for custom built ARs and they definitely specialize in that and no one I sent to them for ARs has ever complained to me about Parallax.

but I must voice a cause of concern when a person trained as a armorer (sorry but just because someone uses a file or drills holes for pin and weld does not make them a gunsmith) is doing Silver Soldering with the only experience being watching a video. Silver Soldering should be done by someone who is experienced as it is one of the few things you can do on a firearm to turn a safe to shoot firearm into a unsafe firearm. In fact in most true gunsmithing shops only after doing MANY test silver solders on sheet steel with a thermometer showing they know how to control their temps consistently would they be allowed to ever silver solder on a barrel.

I post this as a concerned professional gunsmith because this should be something that shops should be sending out to experienced professionals to do. I also take issue when people interchange armorer and gunsmith as being the same profession and level of training/experience as they are not even close.

And that is why I asked that question. I too thought $60 is fair, while epoxy is is not. Only those highly experienced should engage in silver brazing on firearms. And it will look like hell afterwords, as the flux will kill the finish where polishing off the original finish for brazing did not. Hence re-blueing. Having silver brazed professionally for years, my hair stood on end when I read the original post.

[jeffrice6]

It's to few and far between these days when a company owns their mistake. Got my respect!

[SonofWWIIDI]

Everything the poster said is true. We screwed the pooch. We did order the solder to redo it as the poster requested however for some reason or another, Brownells canceled the order without notifying us. I thought it was on the way but it wasn't. Needless to say it wasn't handled the way we would of liked. I did speak to the armorer who installed the epoxy originally and we did offer to redo it and refund the money paid but the OP wanted it silver soldered, so I ordered it as requested. So in summary, we deserve the feedback 100%. We are sorry.

Way to step to the plate. I applause your ownership of the problem and the attempts to fix the situation to the customers satisfaction.

From a business standpoint, you shouldn't stop there.

Ongoing training for all staff regarding customer orders and how to properly handle them is key. As is attention to detail in all facets of customer interaction, customer service and repair/smithing services.

The customer is not always right, but the business that doesn't at least try to treat their customers as if they are always right, will rarely endure.

In this case it seems that the customers order was not fufilled properly, and the situation should be used as a tool to train employees.

Good luck to both the OP, and your shop.

[gwoneg]

Terrible Experience at Parallax Tactical (SD)

I've been going to PXT for purchases and service over the last year or so. Like someone else mentioned, I drive past quite a few other shops to get there. My experiences have been nothing but positive. On one occasion their error resulted in me making an extra trip and wasting some time, but they apologized profusely, gave me some free ammo, and discounted the next purchase I had from them. Yes they get busy, but turners also has a wait despite having twice as many gun counter employees. I was sorry to hear that Jeff left for a freer state as he was great at tracking down uncommon firearms for me, but it's still a great shop and I'll continue to bring them my business.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Leadingall]

don't epoxy sights to a shotgun barrel....I'd be hesitant to have it done to a 10/22 let alone a 12 gauge.

[KING_PALM]

No one is ever happy and not all customers are right. OP stuff happens and I get that but half of you in this thread shouldn't leave your house with the stuff you say.


Sent from my shop couch!

[Fishslayer]

Brownells was backordered on the flux, as they still are backordered. To expedite the customers order we ordered the epoxy instead as Brownells recommends it to attach sights.

Does this stuff require a special flux & solder? Brownell's would be my last source for generic sorts of repair stuff like this...

[Dee_Dub]

Everything the poster said is true. We screwed the pooch. We did order the solder to redo it as the poster requested however for some reason or another, Brownells canceled the order without notifying us. I thought it was on the way but it wasn't. Needless to say it wasn't handled the way we would of liked. I did speak to the armorer who installed the epoxy originally and we did offer to redo it and refund the money paid but the OP wanted it silver soldered, so I ordered it as requested. So in summary, we deserve the feedback 100%. We are sorry.

I know they messed up but they owned up to it. I'd be willing to shop there if I was down there.

[XenosAce]

Should learn how to do it yourself then. Sucks that they messed up. But they are owning up to it. Good on them. But seriously, no need to throw ad hominem at them. They are human too.

[sfbay]

sounds like they owned up after bieng on blast her, at CalGuns...

they probably didn't know the victim was a member here.

I've seen several instances where companys or individuals, upon finding out the person was wrong put it on CalGuns and they in ALL OF A Sudden to make things right.

just saying . . .