Gretna Gun Works: A little bit of good, a lot of bad.
Let me preface this by saying that the entire staff has always been friendly, but aside from Ryan, the other employees are useless. Ryan seems to be the only one authorized or knowledgeable enough to do literally anything in the store. The other employees call on him even when he is clearly doing 8 other tasks. I have no idea what the deal with that is, but they would be literally helpless without him. He seems to always be helping 3 people and also answering the phone while the others stand around.
Anyway, I went in last February to purchase a suppressor from them via the SilencerCo LE/MIL program. They had the Octane 45K in stock that I wanted. I purchased it right there, gave them my info/filled appropriate paperwork, and left it with them to mail. Wanting to be thorough, I called back a week later to ensure it was mailed. I was told that they did their mailings in a batch, and they hadn’t done a batch yet. No big deal. But then a week later the same thing. Finally three weeks later I was told the batch had been mailed. Nothing like adding on 3 weeks to an already long process.
Time passes, and eventually its mid-August. I think to myself that its been over 6 months, and I should have heard from them long before. So I call them up to check to see if my paperwork has come back. They tell me “Oh yeah, it just came in!” Great, Im going to go pick it up. I show up, grab my can, and head home.
First thing I see once I get it home, the date approval on the stamp is stamped July 2. It was mid-August. There is no way it took 6 weeks to get from the ATF to their mailbox. I ask around, and no one has ever seen it take 6 weeks between a stamped approval and the paperwork showing up at the FFL. Most say it takes no more than 2 weeks. So most likely they sat on my stamp for about a month without notifying me it was there and ready. So I’m annoying that I didn’t have my can much sooner, but now comes the real mess up: I go to log the can into my Trust, and notice that the serial number on my can and the serial number on my tax stamp are different! My paperwork says “Model- Octane 45K” then Serial number: OSP45K-5678” but the serial number on the can is “OCT45K-1234”. They messed up the serial number when they submitted my paperwork to the ATF, and (at the time) I was in possession of a suppressor without a tax stamp. I immediately call them and they say to come in, so I head down there right away. I have to hand my can over to them while they figure out what happened. They should have checked the serial number before I even left the store, and they ESPECIALLY should have verified it before submitting my paperwork to the ATF! They screwed this up big time.
The next day I get a call from the owner, Brian. He tells me that yes, he screwed up my paperwork, and my can is no longer “mine”. He tells me that he will check with the ATF what can be done, if they can just cancel the old stamp and issue a new one with the proper serial number. I say ok, leave, and begin to investigate on my own. Well after a bit I get a hold of someone at the ATF who tells me that I just need to mail in a copy of my old stamp with the new info, and they can cancel it and re-issue. I call GGW and tell them this, and they tell me that all they have heard is that we need to refile (didn’t seem like they had put much research into it, honestly). That isn’t a viable option for me since at this point 41p has passed, and I have a Trust (not going to bother with fingerprinting and all for others in Trust). So I mail my paperwork like the ATF agent said, and about a month later I finally get a call from GGW asking me to come down to the shop. When I get there, Brian tells me that the ATF reach out to them after getting my paperwork, and wont cancel and re-issue. Now this is not the fault of GGW of course, but the fact that I had to act on my won to get this info straight from the horses mouth with no real effort from GGW is what made it way worse. Brian tells me that I have to get my old stamp cancelled and refile for the tax stamp with the appropriate serial number. Now its 9 months down the drain, and another 8+ month wait ahead (if that was the route I had chosen).
In summation, here is the good: As payback for this debacle, Brian offered me any gun I wanted at cost (did not take advantage of this as I asked for pricing on a few, and realized I could get them cheaper elsewhere) and he also offered to pay for my tax stamp when/if I refile. He was extremely apologetic for messing up the paperwork, and was willing to try to make it right, Ill give him that. But the waste of time and screwup were just too much. So I decided to return the can to them for a refund.
Now to the final screwup: In “payment” for the frustration I asked them to pin/weld a muzzle device to an upper for me. They attached the muzzle device allright. And in the process scratch up my barrel pretty good and put a big ding into it as well. Here is the damage they did to my upper:
In short, patronize at your own risk.
Let me preface this by saying that the entire staff has always been friendly, but aside from Ryan, the other employees are useless. Ryan seems to be the only one authorized or knowledgeable enough to do literally anything in the store. The other employees call on him even when he is clearly doing 8 other tasks. I have no idea what the deal with that is, but they would be literally helpless without him. He seems to always be helping 3 people and also answering the phone while the others stand around.
Anyway, I went in last February to purchase a suppressor from them via the SilencerCo LE/MIL program. They had the Octane 45K in stock that I wanted. I purchased it right there, gave them my info/filled appropriate paperwork, and left it with them to mail. Wanting to be thorough, I called back a week later to ensure it was mailed. I was told that they did their mailings in a batch, and they hadn’t done a batch yet. No big deal. But then a week later the same thing. Finally three weeks later I was told the batch had been mailed. Nothing like adding on 3 weeks to an already long process.
Time passes, and eventually its mid-August. I think to myself that its been over 6 months, and I should have heard from them long before. So I call them up to check to see if my paperwork has come back. They tell me “Oh yeah, it just came in!” Great, Im going to go pick it up. I show up, grab my can, and head home.
First thing I see once I get it home, the date approval on the stamp is stamped July 2. It was mid-August. There is no way it took 6 weeks to get from the ATF to their mailbox. I ask around, and no one has ever seen it take 6 weeks between a stamped approval and the paperwork showing up at the FFL. Most say it takes no more than 2 weeks. So most likely they sat on my stamp for about a month without notifying me it was there and ready. So I’m annoying that I didn’t have my can much sooner, but now comes the real mess up: I go to log the can into my Trust, and notice that the serial number on my can and the serial number on my tax stamp are different! My paperwork says “Model- Octane 45K” then Serial number: OSP45K-5678” but the serial number on the can is “OCT45K-1234”. They messed up the serial number when they submitted my paperwork to the ATF, and (at the time) I was in possession of a suppressor without a tax stamp. I immediately call them and they say to come in, so I head down there right away. I have to hand my can over to them while they figure out what happened. They should have checked the serial number before I even left the store, and they ESPECIALLY should have verified it before submitting my paperwork to the ATF! They screwed this up big time.
The next day I get a call from the owner, Brian. He tells me that yes, he screwed up my paperwork, and my can is no longer “mine”. He tells me that he will check with the ATF what can be done, if they can just cancel the old stamp and issue a new one with the proper serial number. I say ok, leave, and begin to investigate on my own. Well after a bit I get a hold of someone at the ATF who tells me that I just need to mail in a copy of my old stamp with the new info, and they can cancel it and re-issue. I call GGW and tell them this, and they tell me that all they have heard is that we need to refile (didn’t seem like they had put much research into it, honestly). That isn’t a viable option for me since at this point 41p has passed, and I have a Trust (not going to bother with fingerprinting and all for others in Trust). So I mail my paperwork like the ATF agent said, and about a month later I finally get a call from GGW asking me to come down to the shop. When I get there, Brian tells me that the ATF reach out to them after getting my paperwork, and wont cancel and re-issue. Now this is not the fault of GGW of course, but the fact that I had to act on my won to get this info straight from the horses mouth with no real effort from GGW is what made it way worse. Brian tells me that I have to get my old stamp cancelled and refile for the tax stamp with the appropriate serial number. Now its 9 months down the drain, and another 8+ month wait ahead (if that was the route I had chosen).
In summation, here is the good: As payback for this debacle, Brian offered me any gun I wanted at cost (did not take advantage of this as I asked for pricing on a few, and realized I could get them cheaper elsewhere) and he also offered to pay for my tax stamp when/if I refile. He was extremely apologetic for messing up the paperwork, and was willing to try to make it right, Ill give him that. But the waste of time and screwup were just too much. So I decided to return the can to them for a refund.
Now to the final screwup: In “payment” for the frustration I asked them to pin/weld a muzzle device to an upper for me. They attached the muzzle device allright. And in the process scratch up my barrel pretty good and put a big ding into it as well. Here is the damage they did to my upper:
In short, patronize at your own risk.
and I am assuming suppressor refunds and tax stamp refunds would help a lot, but I guess when you get you mind on something and wait 8 months and do a lot of leg work making sure when you get your cans in you have all your equipment ready for cans, thread barrels, buy new suppressor host, accessories, ect. like telling you there is no Santa clause before Christmas
