r/canadaguns • u/AdhesiveCam • 10d ago
Fix my gun Looking for Experienced Gunsmith-BC
Good morning folks,
As titled, I'm looking for recommendations for an experienced gunsmith preferably in BC, although I would be willing to travel.
Back in '23 Kelowna had a devastating wildfire that destroyed well over 100 homes, mine and several friends of mine included. In those houses unfortunately was recently frozen, now irreplaceable handguns. Pictured is mine and in very poor condition.
I am looking for a gunsmith to attempt to repair mine, girsan regard MC in 9mm and two iwi jericho's for a friend, both in much better condition than mine, one in .40 and one in 9mm.
If you have any experience with your local gunsmith, please rave them to me. We were going to go through Dlask, but unfortunately for us, fortunately for him, he is now enjoying a well-earned retirement.
I'd rather take them in person, but I would be willing to ship if the right gunsmith doesn't happen to be on my doorstep.
Cat tax including feet in lieu of my nasty feet. I apologize.
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u/Sirtornado š« 10d ago
I genuinely donāt think that handgun is repairable unfortunately
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u/AdhesiveCam 10d ago
Yes mine is a long shot I understand that. Buddy's are much better no frame damage.
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u/Sirtornado š« 10d ago
Depending on the firearm if the frame is ok it may be as simple as just buying a new slide hopefully your buddy can just do that
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u/givemehellll al 10d ago
Yikes, I think youāre going to need a gunsmith with a Time Machine unfortunatelyā¦ however fingers crossed that Iām wrong!
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u/Odd_Sherbet_5476 10d ago
That entire frame is trashed, even if you could build up material with weld and re machine it, the existing steel is trashed from the heat. The receiver is the serialized bit so you cant just hire a machinist to make you a new one, or buy one obviously.
So.... if you wanna do it legaly. Im very confident in saying its not possible. Unless you got a chill cfo and he lets you buy new parts, very unlikely.
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u/TheScranHouse 10d ago
^ what this guy said. Im a machinist by trade, a repair is not happening. The chemical composition of the metals on your assembly are probably completely cooked & frail from being incinerated. Even if you welded it up it'd become super brittle & break. Let alone, to attempt to machine it would be an absolute nightmare for the machinist & your wallet. Frame it & put it on the wall lmao.
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u/starw24-ps4 10d ago
Goodluck on repairing that frame. Not sure if anyone licensed will sign off saying itās shoot able
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u/Northern_Presence 10d ago
Heat damage weakens metal, also the frames usually have a serial number (I know girsans do for sure). You would have to find someone who would be able to somehow repair the existing frame due to the frame being considered the firearm, not the slide.
Unfortunately I think you and your friend might be S.O.L.
Gunsmiths are becoming harder and harder to find. Seems like most who do any sort of smithing only advertise through word of mouth too.
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u/imjonjoncanada 9d ago
I didn't read a ton of the thread, but even after looking at the piece and being pretty sure there's no way to make it fireable again....your point about the structural integrity of the firearm is the most valid. Even IF, a miracle worker could get it cleaned up, and OP was able to source a few pieces (not receiver, but furniture), I wouldn't want to fire it....and I'm no gunsmith, but I wouldn't want to be in the next stall when it was fired.
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u/Dickastigmatism 10d ago edited 10d ago
This is anecdotal but I read here of a US company that replaced a destroyed frame with one with the same serial number and the RCMP considered it the same gun. I'm not sure if Girsan or IWI would do that, especially if the gun is out of warranty, but maybe worth looking into.
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u/AdhesiveCam 10d ago
I reached out to girsan at the beginning with no luck. I'll try them again and chat again with the CFO, thank you for the info.
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u/imjonjoncanada 9d ago
I live very close to the NY border and if a miracle worker could get this thing cleaned up, OP could import parts (as long as they are furniture, not part of the action/receiver). That said, if the frame somehow isn't warped, I would seriously question its integrity under load. Sidebar, every time I have brought parts over the border, I declare and it starts a great conversation. Usually ending up with "how much was that stainless Glock conversion barrel?", or "Wow, nice upper receiver for that AR, what a deal" (the second part was obviously years ago lol).
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u/escv_69420 10d ago
Unfortunately, as far as I know just about every gunsmith in BC has either retired or gone out of business. My own quest to find one to work on my civil war era revolvers just pushed me to buy machining tools and learn to work on them myself.
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u/Strong_Mayhem 10d ago
There are a couple on Vancouver island, but I'm not sure what their machining capability looks like.
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u/hannlbaI 10d ago
Bits of Pieces in Delta is awesome. Barry is very knowledgeable, and is a well known gunsmith. He is, however, very very busy. Expect a long lead time if accepts the work.
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u/AdhesiveCam 10d ago
Thank you! I'll give them a call. You're the first person on this thread to actually answer the question rather than telling me my gun is fucked.
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u/hannlbaI 10d ago
I mean, your gun is pretty fucked, but I figured I'd do my best to help, and let Barry tell you that instead! Haha.
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u/AdhesiveCam 10d ago
Yep exactly. Mine is fucked for sure but my buddy's may be salvageable.
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u/hannlbaI 10d ago
Worth a shot! I've seen worse pistols get restored, but a lot of that boils down to sourcing new parts to use. If the frame is beyond repair, you're probably out of luck.
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u/imjonjoncanada 9d ago
WAY off topic, but love the handle. My cat's name is Hannibal and he's a badass hahaha. Runs the neighbourhood and murders daily unfortunately. I had his dad for 17 years and his name was Hamilcar (Hammie). He comes by it honestly. I'm a nerd haha.
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u/PageAggravating4460 9d ago
I second this recommendation Barry is excellent but he is busy and it can take awhile
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u/SquallZ34 10d ago
Unfortunately, that is now an insurance claim. Sorry bud
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u/imjonjoncanada 9d ago
The crazy thing is, an insurance company that HATES paying out its clients more than anything else, would likely give OP a much better price than what Gary is offering for high-end ARs purchased legally after long waits and background checks. What a time to be alive.
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u/Haunting-Goose5368 10d ago
Have we all gotten so desperate to own handguns in Canada we started pulling them out of Mordor
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u/JaxIsLoud 10d ago
Could you reach out to the manufacturer with your story and see if they could make one and reuse the serial number. I really don't see a way your repairing this legally. Sometimes a sob story gets a company to do odd things.
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u/yummybunnybear 10d ago
looks like just a bit of surface rust
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u/AdhesiveCam 10d ago
It'll buff right out I'm sure of it
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u/yummybunnybear 10d ago
honestly though, I hope they can save the serialized part even if you have to Frankengun the thing so you can keep shooting it
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u/Rick_bo 10d ago
Damn, and for a Girsan. If it weren't for the freeze there's no way that's be worth it. Might wanna try your luck getting into olympic training for an exemption to replace it, I hear BC does some of those.
A cautionary tale for the rest of us to get ours out of the locked cabinets and into fire resistant safes.
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u/AdhesiveCam 10d ago
Mine was in a fire resistant safe, inside a fire resistant safe. Fire resistant lock box for the gun, inside a fire resistant safe. It's a fucking joke don't waste your money.
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u/GonZo_626 10d ago
Yeah it's usually just a peice of drywall.or cement board sandwiched between the metal. They have a time and heat rating, and it is usually less then that even. Expect your "fire resistant" safe to stop a lighter, not an actual fire.
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u/JustACanadianGuy07 10d ago
I donāt think that gun will ever fire again. The barrel and most likely slide are not safe anymore, the heat of the fire almost certainly messed with the tempering of the metal, weakening it. Frame is obviously unsalvageable. Springs loose their elasticity and stiffness in extreme heat, so the springs likely arenāt going to work anymore.
You would need a new gun entirely.
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u/Khmerog1 10d ago
I think you were supposed to wrap it in a ziplock bag before losing it on your boat fire on that lake in Camrose.
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u/Pristine-Alps-426 9d ago
Dels in Vernon is a good smith, heās kinda a dick but whatever. I doubt anyone can fix that though
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u/Lobsterstarfish 9d ago
As a gunsmith and machinist! This has been so compromised in metallurgical terms! You would have to cnc or forge a whole new gun! The slide and frame and internals are probably also fused together! And I could probably get this functional again, but the amount of new parts and components, it would be classified as completely building a new firearm! It would need to be fully rebuilt with new serial numbers and the legality would be a nightmare
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u/AdhesiveCam 9d ago
Thank you for being the only person with any credentials in the field to respond.
Theseus' handgun! Perfect. If you're interested in a project shoot me a message, if it's possible legally I want it done.
IDC if it gets a new frame milled and stamped with the existing serial or how that works. If it can't be done legally, it won't get done. But nightmare isn't impossible.
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u/scottsuplol 10d ago
Whatās the laws stance on replacing handguns lost in disasters?
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u/AdhesiveCam 10d ago
Talked to a CFO right after it happened and they told me get it repaired by a gunsmith or I'm SOL
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u/JurboVolvo 10d ago
I think repairing that would include melting it down into a new slab of aluminum and starting from scratch.
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u/NIBLZ_HAMSTR 10d ago
He's got his work cut out for him there... a little clp should do the trick though.
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u/AP587011B 10d ago
This is almost certainly not restorableĀ
Even if you could somehow send it back to the OEM I doubt they could even do itĀ
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u/BowFella 10d ago
Even if you could by some miracle cosmetically repair that gun the metal itself is toast. That barrel will explode if you could ever even chamber a round, whatever heat treat might've been in that barrel or frame is gone and it's the equivalent to rebar now.
You could possibly source some parts to replace, but you cannot replace the frame as that is the regulated entity of the gun.
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u/Background-Way7794 7d ago
not repairable. full stop, don't waste a smiths time with even asking, we are busy enough. That said, sorry this happened.
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u/Volgin 10d ago
The problem is that the frame is both the most damaged part and the only part that you can't replace since it's serialized.
If the serial was on the steel slide you would have been fine. As it is now you would need to basicaly find a deactivated one to reapair this one.
The IWI Jericho mostly steel and can probably be repaired with work and a new set of internals since the old ones will have been anealed in the fire. Those internal are probably rare but Magnum Reaseach still imports IWI so they might have some kits.
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u/CaptainPeppers 10d ago
I cant believe anyone would want to save a melted Girsan
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u/AdhesiveCam 10d ago
Imagine for a second: it's the only handgun I have, and I can no longer purchase a handgun ever again in my life thanks to the liberals freeze(unless I get an Olympic exemption).
Not to mention, fuck your judgement mate the girsan regard MC was excellent. It's literally identical to the Beretta because they bought the tooling from Beretta to manufacture them.
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u/CaptainPeppers 10d ago
There's no saving this dude, its super apparent. If this were mine, I would frame it and display it. To think this may someday be safely operable is nuts.
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u/AdhesiveCam 10d ago
If handguns weren't frozen I'd just replace it so my only handgun being destroyed doesn't matter if it's a Beretta or a hipoint. Still the only one I'll ever have.
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u/TescoValueSoup 10d ago
Can you post a picture of the gun so we can assess the damage? I think you accidentally posted a pic of the slag they scrape off the top of a crucible in a smelter.