Danforth Gunsmithing

WASTE OF TIME, NEVER GOING BACK! DIDN’T EVEN GET TO TALK TO ANYONE!
I had a revolver that needed some work so I googled gunsmith. This was the closest gunsmith so I decided to load up and come check the place out with my friend.
We get there and there’s a guy from ‘second ammo’ there, apparent by the suv wrapped with 2^nd amendment stuff and the logo on the guys shirt, talking to someone I can only assume to be the owner/​gunsmith. There was a lady doing some paperwork at the front desk and the dog. Basically the guy wanted to get his revolver plated but the gunsmith was telling him he’s not too familiar with the new revolvers on the market such as the one he wanted to be worked on and there’s no way of knowing what can or can’t be done until he tears the gun apart and starts polishing the parts, etc, etc. and named the price. You can tell the ammo guy didn’t want to pay for the gunsmith to rip the gun apart to see if the desired work could be done or if there would even be a big performance change on his revolver when he started asking will the price be different if this and that.
The conversation between the two got onto the topic of primers and how you could even tell the difference between hard and soft primers and how they work, blah, blah, blah. Gist of it was if the firing pin doesn’t hit the primer hard enough it won’t fire. Trying to talk to each other like oh I know this and oh well I know that.
The gunsmith started on when I was a competition shooter, I would… at this point nearly 30 minutes later of listening to these two guys talking about ammunition and how a gun goes about shooting said ammo, I said «FUCK» and walked out.
Ammo guy was inconsiderate, the gunsmith named the price, laid it out for him what needed to be done just to get to the point of determining whether or not the next steps should be taken. Take or leave it, yes see if the price will change if this and that, and decide! But no had to go off on ammo primers this and that, which had nothing to do with the work he wanted to be done.
The gunsmith didn’t seem to care. Just stood there and talked on and on with the guy. You know I was there, you were facing the door, its a tiny little room.

I had an old Model 38 Turkish Mauser action, a new Wilson barrel and some other parts that I needed individually finished and assembled into a good big game hunting rifle so I went to Danforth Gun smithing after seeing one of their flyers at the Pasadena Turners Outdoors shops.
John Danforth is super friendly and very knowledgeable in the craft of gun smithing. Inside the front lobby John has one of the best collections of gun related books I have ever seen, very extensive.
I met with John and discussed my rifle project, he is very easy to understand and explains everything very well. After talking about all my options I had John begin my project and to my surprise it was finished sooner than we thought. Some rifle makers are very slow to complete full rifle jobs and it is common to have to wait a year or more and some custom rifle builders have been known to take more than two years to complete a rifle.
John sold me on one of his made to order muzzle brakes as the cartridge I chose for my rifle has a reputation for having some stout recoil. I can tell you the muzzle brake works amazingly good. Felt recoil on my rifle is that of a 30 – 06 which is fine for me as the 30 – 06 is the most powerful round I have used for hunting and recreational shooting for 34 years. The brake tamed the 9.3X64 Brenneke far more than I could have imagined.
My rifle turned out just like I wanted and works perfectly. I am very happy to have found this shop and to have met and worked with John and his staff.
I rarely give 5 stars on Unilocal to any business so for me 4 stars is really good.
The front room could be cleaner but that has nothing to do with the over all quality of the work that I received and did not take away from my satisfaction in dealing with John Danforth. I recommend this shop and I plan to have another custom rifle built for me by John.

Bad experience. Took in an AR 15 to get a new MI quad rail mounted since I don’t have the vise, block, etc to replace the barrel nut myself. 130.00 for a 45 minute job which I agreed to. Got it back same day. Gas block was badly misaligned. Barrel nut that came with the rail had several teeth that were partially sheered off. I assume because they did not use the supplied wrench, which I gave them. And small but inconvenient detail, the retaining clip for the pin on the dust cover was gone. I would have taken it back and had them correct it, but I don’t want them anywhere near any of my guns again. I can do my own incompetent, sloppy work at home myself. This was a simple install. Should have had no problems.

John and the rest of the staff at Danforth are awesome. I took a really old (early 1900’s) WW Greener to them to be restored and they did such an amazing job that words can’t describe how great it looks. The Damascus barrels went from something that looked like a rusty stainless steel sink to just like new. From start to finish, I got great advice and information about what was possible and what to expect.
The quality of the work is great and I was sold immediately after walking in the door and having some other guns they were working on shown to me. If you want to have restoration work done, they are like a time machine for old guns and everyone there really knows their stuff.