les baer custom - beware

I don't know. Sometimes it might just depend which way the wind is blowing as to what kind of experience you will have with a vender.

I had a very positive customer service experience with Les himself ... on a Saturday morning besides. I shoot one of his guns and if I do what I'm supposed to do, it does what it supposed to. At the time it was an easy first choice. I might go a different direction (and have) today.

There's something to be said about all the folks that aren't happy with his service. On the same note I have a friend that had a horrible three month experience with RR CS and a brand new gun. Says he would never recommend them to anyone.

Just an observers 2 cents and not worth all that much

Personally, I’d demand my money back and find another pistol…I’ve heard way too many dramatic stories about LB from a bunch of other shooters.  Life’s too short to deal with a curmudgeon. YMMV

I have 2 Les Baer wad guns and never had a problem with either.Les may be a bit cantankerous but I've never had a problem with him either.
John

I hope I didn't imply I had a problem with him - and yes, "cantankerous" sounds appropriate.  

The gun wasn't what I was expecting, but I didn't know what I wanted.  Wad gun??   What's that??   Eventually it broke in, and now it's fine.  With Dave Salyer's modification to the barrel, it shoots my 45 bullseye reloads with no problem too, and it always shot Winchester White Box 230 grain ammo, which I did NOT enjoy shooting.  I did get used to it though.  Now it's got a 10# recoil spring, so it's more useful to me, if I want to deal with iron sights.

Sucks that you're having a tough time with them, I hope you can get it resolved. In my opinion threatening legal action over something so unsubstantial will only make the situation worse. I have one LB in the safe and it has been an excellent pistol.

71firebird400 wrote:Sucks that you're having a tough time with them, I hope you can get it resolved. In my opinion threatening legal action over something so unsubstantial will only make the situation worse. I have one LB in the safe and it has been an excellent pistol.

So, you've had a good experience with LB? And, the fact that LB won't fix the OP's problem or return the handgun is "unsubstantial" and legal action will only make the problem worse? Do I understand your logic correctly? I note that you live in the western sector of the People's Republic of Washington. I guess things are different there.

I have few a Les Baer's. One is a 30 year old bullseye 1911. The last time I sent it back for a tune-up I sent the gun with a Wilson Combat mag. Let's just say Les was a little ticked off. They did restore the gun to like new condition at what I thought was a very reasonable cost. I hope the OP gets this resolved to his satisfaction.

I bought a basic Premier II back in 2018. Like others have mentioned, I found it very difficult to cycle the slide initially. I too understood that the break in period was all about reliability, making sure parts wore in together for smoother operation. Never heard or read that accuracy would improve. Like was mentioned, my understanding was to fire the 500 rd without taking it apart or cleaning it. Just add oil every 100 rd. Mine has had ZERO failures of any kind. I am now at a documented 897 rd without any failures. I paid what I thought was a reasonable price of $1700 back then. Mine is a basic 3” gun. Once, it shot a 2.25” group from a ransom rest. I typically shoot it at 25 yd myself, and I often get 3.5” groups offhand. I really can’t ask for more. I am considering getting another, just not sure of the model. But then again, there are a lot of other 1911s that I want. Just need to decide which route to go. But overall, I couldn’t be happier with my Premier II.
I sincerely wish the OP good luck for an acceptable outcome.

ssds14534 wrote:I have few a Les Baer's. One is a 30 year old bullseye 1911. The last time I sent it back for a tune-up I sent the gun with a Wilson Combat mag. Let's just say Les was a little ticked off. They did restore the gun to like new condition at what I thought was a very reasonable cost. I hope the OP gets this resolved to his satisfaction.

Maybe he should supply mags as nice as the WC mags lol. If I recall the mags he supplies are nothing special, I prefer WC mags with removable bottoms.

I really don't like evaluating another persons work when I haven't checked the work myself. However that being said I know of a quite few top shooter that also had problems with the LB guns, they had to be corrected by others. I've only worked on one LB, local guy purchased one and had problems. From what I seen is that the lower link and lug is not correctly done so that there is quite a bit of pressure exerted by the barrel to the upper part of the slide where the locking lugs are. Yes shooting quite a few break-in rounds will "break" the gun in but the eventual result is poor group size. Ceapea, I would check that pistol at 50 yard in a rest or sand bags. Not sure if you shooting NRA matches that have slow fire target at 50 yards. However 3.25" group is not good at a 25 yard slow fire target.

Froneck wrote:Ceapea, I would check that pistol at 50 yard in a rest or sand bags. Not sure if you shooting NRA matches that have slow fire target at 50 yards. However 3.25" group is not good at a 25 yard slow fire target.

The 2.25" group was at 50 yd, from a rest. It is supposed to be a "standard" 3" gun. As far as 3.25 @ 25 yd, well that's just me. Plinking at the club. I have an extremely had time with all black (target/bullseye) sights anymore. Years ago, I shot my model 14-3 at Perry. My first ever match, with just three practice sessions at my local club. I experimented with a few different loads and ended up placing in the high 200's, of 900+ competitors. Since then, I have been systematically changing most of my handguns over to fiber optic sights. The Premier is on that list, soon to be done. All Dawson Precision sight sets for me.

Maybe it was only my Premiere II, but my gun wouldn't cycle bullseye rounds through the gun.  I loaded up dummy rounds, and one after another, they failed.  Purchased "Snap Caps" worked fine.  

I took close-up photos of the barrel, and sent to Dave Salyer.  He immediately knew what the problem was, fixed the barrel, and it now shoots Bullseye rounds just fine.

Now the gun mostly sits in my gun safe - when I want to try iron sights, I use it.  Most of the time, not.  For Bullseye I used to use (and will use again) my Springfield gun that Dave built into a wad gun. I'd probably shoot the Baer more if I were to mount optics on top.
     

I have a Baer question that might even help others - were I to send the complete gun to Dave (or Jon, or KC, or other bullseye experts) to convert into a real wad gun, would that be a good thing to do?  I know it would mean mounting a rail on top (I have an extra rail I bought from Jon), but would a Premier II be a good starting point to build a wad gun?

Baer uses kart barrels and forged frames , so it might be a good base gun.

It would be as good as any.  

But a caveat.  Whe I was engineering, occasionally my boss would re-shuffle assignments so I would have to pickup other engineers work.  Since that other engineer said it was (75%) complete, the boss would say that it was just a “finish up” project.  They were seldom 75% complete but the hours were 75% expended, and it was usually a mess.  A host of issues including prohibited modeling techniques etc.  i likened it to “putting on someone else’s used underwear.  

So sending these guns to bullseye smiths to “fix it up” can be problematic and it may not be cheap.

I have a question for Lenny53, the "OP".

Which model gun did you buy from Baer?  They have many models, including one specifically made for Bullseye:

     

Is this the model you bought?

Also, you wrote "Also I used all possible loads available from the best load gurus in USA and none of them shot even a small resemblance of the group."

IF the barrel was machined the way the barrel in my Premiere II was machined, it would work fine with "normal" ammo, but with the three types of Magnus bullets I have been loading, NONE of them would cycle properly through the barrel.  I used to buy Magnus #811 bullets, and then tried two similar bullets.  None of them worked correctly.  I took photos of the inside of the barrel, trying to show the marks of where the rounds were hitting, and sent the photos to Dave Salyer who immediately knew what to do.  I sent the barrel to Dave, he fixed it, and now it shoots bullseye rounds perfectly.

I don't know the correct terminology to describe this - bullets with rounded ends cycled fine, but rounds for Bullseye that looked like a Magnus #811 did NOT.  You can see what the Magnus #811 looks like here:
    http://www.magnusbullets.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/CatalogNEWSITE1.pdf

The problem had nothing to do with the load, only the shape of the bullet.

Can you post a photo of a typical round you were trying to shoot.  I can send it to Dave, and ask if what he did for me would be needed for the bullets you are shooting.

If so, just maybe, this is your issue of why your gun isn't shooting properly.  

If this is the case, and if you get Les to ship the gun to someone in the USA, you or they could send the barrel to Dave to get it corrected.



Wobbley, I guess there is no point to what I was asking about for myself.  I already have a Salyer/Springfield that works great for me, has already been fully modified for Bullseye, and there's no point in changing.  Now that my Baer shoots bullseye loads, I'll just use it as-is.

FWIW I have never met a good gunsmith that was not strongly opinionated.  A thing to note about Baer is he seems to be talking AT you not TO you.  If you don't think you know the difference call Baer and then call KC...  

I had problems that not addressed by Baer. He insisted that every gun that was shipped he, personally, fired the gun and it was acceptable


Mr. Baer is very much full of himself. There are a couple of ex Baer employees that now work with Cabot. They fixed my .45 that Baer, himself, found acceptable.

Like said above, every gunsmith never admits to sending faulty work out or to fix them when they are returned. Besides Eulette, Chambers, RRA, C&S, and Shue; most of the other names/companies in this thread have a few stories to them if you dig for them.

Something to consider - there is a big difference between a "gun smith" and a "gun manufacturer".  Les Baer should be lumped with S&W, Colt, Ruger, Springfield, and so on, rather than with Jon, KC, Dave, Roddy, and so on.

I know that when Dave does a bullseye job for someone, that person becomes a friend for life.  Roddy was that way with me after I bought a Victor from him - he wanted me to do well with it (and I think he was disappointed that I wasn't as good as he hoped I was).  Anyway, these people participate in this forum, and they all have wonderful reputations.

But for Les Baer, he should be lumped with other gun manufacturers, not Bullseye Smiths.  Baer is also too "small", and it's not a fair comparison, as many of the other companies have lots off customer support people - and in some cases, they have to make good on "defective" products that were sold.  I keep reading about guns being returned for corrections.

I know nothing about Wilson, Ed Brown, Cabot, and others - what I read is excellent, but I've had very little contact with them.

A relative of mine bought a Dan Wesson.  He had an issue - and a friend of his worked at it at the range.  Problem wasn't fixed.  He sent the gun in to Dan Wesson, and they were rather upset that it was no longer "stock", and that voided his warranty - as I recall, they removed the non-standard parts, and charged him for the repair.

I bet Les, and most other gun manufacturers, feel the same about someone messing up their "perfect" product.  I think they take it as a personal insult.

msmith44 wrote:

71firebird400 wrote:Sucks that you're having a tough time with them, I hope you can get it resolved. In my opinion threatening legal action over something so unsubstantial will only make the situation worse. I have one LB in the safe and it has been an excellent pistol.

So, you've had a good experience with LB? And, the fact that LB won't fix the OP's problem or return the handgun is "unsubstantial" and legal action will only make the problem worse? Do I understand your logic correctly? I note that you live in the western sector of the People's Republic of Washington. I guess things are different there.

Oofta, someones a bit salty! My point was that pursuing legal action for such an unsubstantial item is not going to be equitable. A Les Baer is around $2000? Go get a lawyer to draft up a letter for you and you'll quickly realize that you're simply falling further and further behind, financially.

OK. So who are you, Currency, who has joined just 3 days ago and is touting a questionable site? Anyway, I can't get the site to work. Any member tried it?

Olde Pilot wrote:OK. So who are you, Currency, who has joined just 3 days ago and is touting a questionable site? Anyway, I can't get the site to work. Any member tried it?

It's a scam site- they didn't even do a good job of cloning whatever site they stole the layout from. It is a nice trick making the address a gun parts place, but Apex isn't in the reloading business, and if they were, they'd use their own site.

Scam scam scam.

I tried the site and get a full page of the same address! Guess it's getting blocked by my virus protection. I edited my reply in Fundamentals, Chambering Technique  where it was just posted to warn of it being bad!

First of all thank you guys for your replies to my post. There has been an update that I would like to share as well. After I posted my info on multiple Forums and on Google and Yelp I finally got a call from Less himself. It was on Friday July 2. He said: "Lenny, I finally got the ammo to test your gun. It's a long weekend and I am taking your gun to the range to test. We are closed on Monday but I will call you on Tuesday with results."
Today is Friday, July 9 and I guess I don't have to finish this post because you probably already know what I was going to say. You are right! I did not hear from him since then. To say the truth, he did not mentioned which Tuesday he was going to call. So, I keep my phone by my bed side when going to sleep on Monday night hoping to get a call on Tuesday.

It's now going on 3pm Friday, July 9.  Why not call right now, and ask what the results of the test were?  Maybe he will have found some issue and he is working on it.

Don't start by asking if the gun is on its way back to you - just build on what he said, that he would be testing it last weekend.  This gives him a way "out", if he says he is correcting what was wrong.