Yup, Rich. Good dealers sell bad guns and bad dealers sell good guns. You are the inspector. I will deal with almost anyone who occasionally has a good gun.

And if I am successful in buying it I will look at it as soon as it arrives and if there is no substantial dificiency that was not disclosed in the description I will keep it and if there is I will contact the auction company immediately and let them know my concerns. That "puts the ball in their court" and it is then up to them to make it right whether that means returning it for full refund or lowering the price to compensate for the dificiencyJMHO.

George

george what if they want do anything to correct there mistake you found after contacting them... charlie

Charlie: If I informed them shortly (within a week or two) after receiving the gun that it was misrepresented by them (either intentionally or unintentionelly) and they refused to make it right, I would seek legal recourse if the amount warrented that. If not, I would spread the word, like on this & other forums, of the exact details of what happened which might cost them a whole lot more in the long run than it would have if they had done the right thing in the beginning. That does not seem to be the case here. It sounds like too much time elapsed between the purchase & delivery and the difficiencies being brought to their attention. On the other hand, it does seem that it would be in Julia's best interest to offer a reasonable offer to settle and retain the goodwill of their customer. however, none of us know all the particulars of the issues involved between the two parties but them.

Best Regards, George

Hello. I’ve been away for some time and am in my office today but will be gone tomorrow for a matter of days to do a decoy auction in the Midwest. Upon arriving at my office a friend alerted me to the continued discussions on the forum in regards to my company.

When I responded to Mr. Eis’s complaint, it was suggested to “discuss this off forum either by PM or phone”. I assumed that it meant just that, but I see that after we discussed this, Mr. Eis then shared online his personal interpretation of what transpired. So that everyone can know exactly what transpired, I have included the complete thread here online. I would have gladly done so originally in an attempt to be transparent, but I misunderstood the meaning of dealing with it offline.

After learning Mr. Eis’s name, I wrote him a letter which is attached here, requesting the details about his complaint. Since I had no personal recollection I indicated that if he would give me the details I would research it and that “I do wish to get to the bottom of this”. I did not promise I would make any adjustment, however, if in fact after my investigation had I discovered my company had done something totally wrong, there would have been some type of an adjustment, but as a result of my investigation, that is not the case.

In regards to guarantees, if I’m not mistaken in the gun world frequently when one buys a gun through the mail, the seller often gives an inspection period to the buyer to determine if the gun is as it was touted to be. I sometimes see an inspection period of 24 hours; I sometimes see inspection periods of 7 days, but I see no one that provides an inspection period of 45 days. My company, however, does. I don’t know of any auction firm that in writing offers a warrantee regarding guns (I may be wrong), but we do. We specifically offer a warrantee and it is good for 45 days, but the warrantee is very clear. While I have a responsibility to cancel a sale or make an adjustment to the client (if I can), it is my responsibility provided that they notify me within the time period. However, the client also has a responsibility and that responsibility is to review the gun when they get it and do their due diligence to make sure that there are no problems.

Because this purported error took place is not a matter of my being honest or dishonest. We all make mistakes and one of the things that is implied in the conditions of my sale and also announced verbally at the beginning of an auction is that I am fully aware that regardless of how many experts I use to review things, there are bound to be some mistakes. If it is a mistake; it is a mistake; it is not an intention on our behalf; that’s not the way we do business. I also share through the conditions of my sale and also through verbal announcements that we do a number of things to protect our customers, and all of those things we do, we hold ourselves to be responsible for, but the buyer in turn, also have a responsibility. We know that with every catalog we print there are going to be a handful of mistakes in their for sure, and to protect our customers we supply a limited guarantee, good for 45 days, it is a customer’s responsibility to review the things during that time period or, request an extension of time to finish their examination is necessary. If you don’t do your due diligence and you wait for some long period afterwards to finally examine the item and then discover a problem with it, it is too late. It would make no difference whether this was a truck, a computer or a television set. Most things tend to have warrantee periods but if the complaint comes long after the warrantee period has expired, there’s not much anyone can do, and that’s essentially the bottom line here.

The gun in question was described in my catalog as having a left barrel with .019 thousandths of an inch; the right barrel being .017 thousandths of an inch (not .015??). The gun in question was Lot 1348 in our Spring 2009 auction. So that there can be no misunderstanding, the catalog description is of course in print in any of your catalogs and you can refer to it to make sure that I am accurate. If you don’t have a catalog, you can simply go online to our website, go to that specific auction, and go to that specific lot number and you will see the catalog description that was printed with the catalog when it was produced. As I said in my letter, I can’t contradict Mr. Eis regarding what thickness Bill Taylor could have told him or anything else that they may have had for conversations. Bill no longer works for me, and I have no records of anything along these lines. All I know is that if I were buying this gun and the catalog stated the barrels were .017 and .019 and later someone told me the barrels were .030 instead, the first thing I would do when I got the gun was check it. I only wish that Mr. Eis did what he was responsible for because if he had done his due diligence in time, and had I been notified in time I would have simply canceled the sale of the gun and given him his money back (or made an adjustment if possible at that time). The issue here is that he didn’t.

I personally consider it unfair when someone holds me responsible for something that was a lack of their own due diligence. Mr. Eis essentially expected me to change the conditions of my sale because he had neglected to do what he was responsible to do in the appropriate time period. If I or any other business regularly changes the conditions of their sale to suit all buyers’ demands, even when they are in the wrong, eventually the business will go broke. I try to be consistently fair with everyone. I feel that if I do something for one client, I must do it for all others, and if I were to change the conditions of my sale simply to suit Mr. Eis’s desires, it would only be fair that I do that for everyone and I can’t. Regardless of the circumstances I am sorry that Mr. Eis has a problem with us, but the specific conditions of my sale had offered him more than adequate protection to save him from mistakes. Forty-five days is a long time. Again, I repeat, under no circumstances did I or anyone else on my staff tell Mr. Eis to “go pound sand” nor have I “trashed” him, as he has purported.

Sincerely,

Jim Julia

It's interesting to know that Mr. Julia considers his good name worth less than $750. Should be a pittance to a man of his supposed means.

And again I'll say, when you buy a gun from someone like Julia's you shouldn't have to check the wall thickness when you asked their staff in advance what it was. These are mistakes that shouldn't be made. If they are made, they should be put right quietly and quickly when the issue comes to light no matter the time frame.

This all just lets you know who not to buy from boys.


Destry L. Hoffard

Jim thanks for your clear explanation. I know JR Larue and Wes Dillon but have not met you. Had long talks with your people at the NRA convention. I get your catalogs and will continue to look for something I can't do without. Thanks for your support of the PGCA.

I am a bit confused about the gun in question. Mr. Julia kindly gave us the catalog reference to the gun in question, if #1348 in the Spring 2009 catalog is the gun in question. Eric says the claim was made that the MBWT was claimed to be .030 and it turned out to be .015. The catalog states .017 and .019. Was the catalog wording changed? Did Eric call Julia's to get a confirmation of the .017 and .019? Why would anyone even think about buying such a gun in the first place? If Eric was told on the phone that the thickness was .030, why was the catalog description not changed? Maybe Eric will answer this question so we don't have to reread eight pages of forum text. This is not a gun most of us would give a second look, especially when it was described as having been redone and with bad barrels and a $6000 to $8000 estimate. Where did those numbers come from? I'm sure Mr. Julia's staff figured they had a sure "No Sale".

Bill, I will say one more time and then let's move on. The catalog stated, .017 on the gun I purchased and the other two 16's were stated thin also, so I called Bill and said I thought that was strange that all three were thin. He asked which one I was interested in and I told him. He called me back later that day and said the catalog was wrong and he personally had measured it and it was .030. When I got the Hosford gauge in June and measured it it was .015 in the middle of the barrel by the rib.

Mr. Julia I didn't post after our emails (not sure why you felt you needed to post the emails (or the ethics of that) and no I didn't look at the pdf file so I don't know if they are the originals or editted) so I don't know what you are talking about. Also I never have said in any post that you "Trashed" me, but I would say this last post that you made might fit into that catagory....! I guess you had a Bad Day on Friday and felt that you needed to vent.... so be it and hopefully this next week will be better for you.

Bruce, I don't remember the Julia Company supporting the PGCA like Puglisi's or Tony at CSMC so I am not sure what you are talking about but I am sure they will continue sending you their catalogs...

The Hosford gauge take some understanding. Are you sure of those measurements. I find it hard to believe that a gun with .665 bores would be so thin. I have never seen the outside of a set of "nice" barrels struck to a MBWT of .017. I have a suspicion that this gun is not as bad as it seems.