Now, *that’s* customer service.

Remember this guy?

Well, earlier this summer my pistol suffered a mechanical problem with what Boberg calls the ‘lift mechanism’ — the part which grabs a cartridge out of the magazine and pulls it back and up to position it for loading into the chamber. Basically, a pin which helps hold the mechanism in place broke, and the gun locked up.

I contacted Boberg, told them what happened, sent along some pics. They immediately responded, said that it was likely that since the gun was such a low serial number (just 0120) it had one of an early batch of pins which had substandard quality control. No biggie. They sent out a pick-up tag so I could ship it directly to them. About two weeks later (including shipping time), I had the gun back, with a new pin, all ready to go — without it costing me a cent.

Cool, right?

A couple days later I took it out to the range to see how it was working. And on the 19th round fired, it locked up again. Exact same way.

I contacted Boberg again. Again, they responded immediately. And they were astounded that it had happened a second time. The lead smith for the company queried me about the specifics of what happened, what ammo I was using, etc. Not because he thought that I was trying to pull a fast one, but because he was genuinely baffled how this could happen twice. Without hesitation they sent out another pick up tag, and I shipped the gun back in the same box it had arrived in a couple days previously. And I told them that they could take their time to investigate what happened — that I was in no hurry to have the gun back, and that above all I wanted a reliable gun rather than a quick turn-around. The lead smith understood and agreed completely.

So, a couple weeks later I got the gun back. Just yesterday, as a matter of fact (I asked them not to ship it until I was back from vacation). And I have yet to get out to test it myself. But this is what was in the box with the gun:

I want to point to the first item on the invoice, which says:

Repair of firearm. RA#611, Serial #S450120. (Replaced broken lift mechanism. Put 250 rounds through it. Passed test firing.)

They ran 250 rounds through it. Not just one (which is typical for a test firing), or even a mag full (6 rounds). 250. That’s easily $100 of ammo. And probably a couple hours of someone’s time. Because like me, they wanted to make sure the gun was functioning reliably.

Now, *that*, my friends, is customer service.

Anything mechanical can break down. Even the best made items can have weird failures, regardless of the quality of materials or the care of a craftsman. It happens. I’m a conservator of rare books and documents, and it has happened in my work. What matters is whether the person/company behind that product will stand by their work and make it good.

Boberg has. Kudos to them.

Jim Downey

PS: Just for grins, here’s a pic of the interior I took before cleaning the gun this morning:

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