Tennessee Firearms Assoc. Inc.

OK, here comes some venting....

I have long distrusted Gun City in Nashville, and that distrust has been re-enforced today.

I had purchased a used Charter Arms .38 and had experienced a few misfires with it, so I left it there to get checked out by the smith.

When I was told it might be 2 weeks before he got to it I should have gone elsewhere, but I got lazy and decided that I would stick with the closest one to home. When the smith finally got to it he called and said it was something that the factory would have to handle. So off it went to Charter Arms.

That was late September. I waited. I waited some more. After about 5 weeks I start calling Gun City. Nope, not back yet.

Still nothing the next week, call again. They say I need to speak with the owner because all packages are addressed to her and none of the day crew handles them, yadda yadda. Of course she only comes in a couple of hours in the evening, maybe before closing. So I have no luck actually getting in touch with her.

Finally I sent an inquiry to Charter Arms, explaining the situation and giving the serial #. They had actually turned it around within a couple of days of receipt and sent it back on October 8! I called the gun shop, they gave me the usual they'll have to wait and talk with the owner, call back at 5 and they'll give me an update, blah blah blah.

So I sent another email to Charter asking for any other information they could send; tracking number, order number, method of shipment, etc. A lady from Charter actually called me to explain that they had sent it back and GC had refused the shipment because of some kind of difficulty with their FFL! That was 5 weeks ago! The factory still has it there.

The lady at Charter has so far been nice, and said she will pursue it tonight and call me back tomorrow. Hopefully those bozos at GC will get their act together and I can have it back this week. Either that or I'll ask them to pay to have another FFL receive it since they won't.

What a CF! Needless to say, it will be a LONG time before I do business with GC again.

Those of us who grew up in Nashville wonder why you ever did business with them in the first place?!?

Seriously...I've dealt with--no, make that "attempted to deal with" them for close to 40 years (since I was 11, &
got my 1st .22 rifle from my grandmother)--and have always been treated with thinly disguised contempt, at best.
I've heard more "gun-store-worker know-it-all BS" shoveled from behind the counters there than any other place I
can think of. I finally gave up on even visiting the store about a decade ago.

Just FYI; unless something's changed recently, it's legal to send & receive guns directly to/from manufacturer for
repairs. No need to involve an FFL holder. Just did it last year with S&W.

Good luck getting your gun back.

David

Can't remember exactly when this was, but saw in the Tennessean that Gun City was in some hot water
with the BATF for bad record keeping, etc. Was a few weeks ago +-. Don't know if this had anything to do with
the mishandling of your gun, but not impossible.
Just FWIW, good time to stay the heck away from Gun City.
Hope you get yours back. If you have a paper trail to prove they received it from Charter, you could take
it to court....which might cost more than the gun's worth.

Well here's the latest.

I have suggested to the Charter folks that they send it to a different FFL. Haven't heard back from them. I have attempted to contact anybody at GC who knows what's going on, and the owner is apparently a will-o-the-wisp who never shows up or returns calls.

I called again this a.m. Am expecting ANOTHER call back from anybody, don't ever expect to hear from the owner. (OT, reminds me of Norm Peterson's wife Vera from Cheers; spoken of frequently but never seen).

So my patience with this whole debacle ends today. I will tell them I want my property back or the next communication they receive from me will be through legal channels.

Along those lines, does TFA offer any kind of services to its members in cases like this? Even something as simple as an official letter from some legal eagle telling them to get their act together might help.

Oh, and the reason I did business with them at all? I got lazy since it is the closest shop with a smith to where I live. Lesson learned the hard way I guess. From now on I'll go elsewhere even if it involves driving to the other side of the county.

Problem solved...hopefully.

The customer rep from Charter finally got in touch with the owner of GC, and my revolver is being shipped to another FFL. Hooray!

Hopefully Charter fixed the problem with the gun and it will work better. The lady at Charter (Dee Ecker) was very nice, and is even promising to send me some goodies because I was so patient, even though Charter was clearly not at fault in this whole episode.

Lesson learned. I will avoid GC from now on unless I just feel the need to use the closest indoor range for some reason. But I don't even like their range; too cramped and lousy ventilation.

Maybe the present owner will sell the business to some one who will improve it.

Any takers?