David Wells Custom Guns

**logic250** · May 9th, 2011, 05:48 PM

Has anyone had any experience with this shop? I have heard good things, but then read a thread on target talk that was negative. Of course that could be an isolated incident or a crack pot, but figured I'd see if anyone on here had any input.

**J261** · June 1st, 2011, 10:33 PM

Originally Posted by logic250

Has anyone had any experience with this shop? I have heard good things, but then read a thread on target talk that was negative. Of course that could be an isolated incident or a crack pot, but figured I'd see if anyone on here had any input.

I sent him a note about doing a minor job on my S70 a week ago. Haven't received a response as yet.

**3rd MPB Corporal** · August 11th, 2011, 11:56 PM

Originally Posted by logic250

Has anyone had any experience with this shop? I have heard good things, but then read a thread on target talk that was negative. Of course that could be an isolated incident or a crack pot, but figured I'd see if anyone on here had any input.

Hello, I know this thread is old but I have dealt with him before so I figure I'd give some input. I had scheduled to travel up to his shop during the spring about a year or two ago to get my M1 Garand rebarreled and headspaced.

I'd like to note we also had trouble getting in contact with them...took maybe 4 months for them to respond to our email, but it was because their power was knocked out and some of their computers got fried during a thunderstorm. Also during that time his family had gotten sick so he had to take care of them also.

Anyways back to the review- his shop is not huge, but has all the things to get the job done. It also is more of a family run operation; there's Dave, his wife, an older gentleman I do believe to be a grandfather and one other person who might be family or a close friend of theirs, who were working when I had visited. So if he gets a large influx of orders this might be another reason for delay other than the fact that each rifle gets individual attention.

When I arrived my Dad and I introduced ourselves and talked to him about what I wanted him to do with the rifle. After that he took us back into the workshop area and started to do some preliminary work with my rifle and explained some of what he was doing to my dad and I; he even offered to reparkerize my Garand,although the next day we found out he didn't have enough solution for all the parts; he did offer for us to mail the rifle back up to get reparked though which I thought was kind. Not long after all that my dad and I left to do some exploring of the area.

The next day we went back to pick up my rifle and it was rebarreled and properly headspaced (he gauged it one last time in front of us to make sure), not only that but he completely disassembled everything, inspected the parts, cleaned them, regreased what needed to be, and reassembled it. He then test fired it for us and gave it back. He told us the procedures for breaking into the barrel and even told us where the local state game land range was so I could do it there and if something went wrong we could go right back. He also gave me one of their custom 2 round enbloc clips since the range had a capacity restriction and he didn't want there to be any trouble for us getting caught with regular clips; also since I shoot in CMP competitions he thought it'd make loading the rifle during the rapid fire stages easier for me- which it does!

To spare you from more of my "story mode" description, to summarize- I am very pleased with the quality of work and amount of time Dave puts into his firearms. His kindness and generosity was another thing I was highly appreciative of and still am (honestly after seeing him work my interest in gunsmithing went up and I'm looking into it as a possible career). If you are in no hurry to get something built or repaired I'd suggest Wells Custom LLC without hesitation- the wait is well worth the quality product you'll get.

I hope you don't mind my long response, I just wanted to depict the kind of service and hospitality I received when I went there. Him and his family were very nice people; they even invited me to come back up sometime to do some things with them.
I also wanted to give some possible reasons for waiting times:
-each rifle is worked on individually work time for each one will be different
-it is a small operation it's not like a military armory where they can turn out rifles by the hour
-and also the weather up there isn't too kind and it isn't uncommon for power to be knocked out; every thunderstorm I have been in up there in the coal region has been quite intense!

I sure hope this has been of assistance to you or any others who have been wanting a review of Wells Custom Gun Makers; I know there are some other negative reviews out there but that was their experience, this was mine.

(On a side not sorry if this was hard to follow at times or anything, I wrote it up late at night and tried my best to keep it on topic flowing well.)

--Cpl. Bonetti 3rd MPB