The time a customer brought in a 'gun' that was just a bunch of pipes and a door hinge

About three years back at my old shop in Tulsa, a guy walks in with a canvas bag and asks if I can 'tune up his piece'. He pulls out this thing that looked like a prop from a bad movie, just some steel pipes held together with hose clamps and a door hinge for a trigger guard. He said he built it from a diagram he found online and wanted me to 'make it safe and accurate'. I mean, I didn't even know where to start, it had no real firing pin or safe way to chamber a round. I had to tell him it was basically a pipe bomb with a grip and that I couldn't, in good faith, work on it. He got real huffy and said, 'It worked fine in my shed!' Has anyone else had to deal with a totally unsafe home build that a customer thought was legit?

3 comments

3 Comments

parkert7324d ago

Holy crap, that's a new level of scary. Honestly makes me wonder about the legal side for you as the shop owner. Like, if you'd even touched that thing and he later blew his hand off, could he have sued you? Some people are just living in a whole different reality.

the_ryan24d ago

Yeah, the "different reality" part is spot on. I'd be more worried about him trying to sue the bullet manufacturer because it "looked at him funny" after he drilled into it. The legal system is wild enough that he'd probably find a lawyer to take that case too.

davidwright5d ago

Man, I used to think those lawsuits were just jokes. Then a guy tried to sue us because he used a drill press wrong after we told him not to. He messed up his own project and blamed our safety warning for not being "clear enough." Totally changed how I see liability now.