Sons of Guns

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Drexellake

New Member
Does everyone watch this show? I like when they have like 10 episodes in a row. I could watch nothing but this show. In fact I'm watching it now.

American Guns starts next month on Discovery. Can't wait.
 
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Schultz

New Member
I've tried to watch several episodes and have come to the conclusion they're idiots. Lets make a reality show depicting how gun owners and builders can ruin firearms , Shoot off guns in parking lots and destroy historical firearms. Sadly there is another show due out soon that will be similar to SoG. :roll:

The only gun related show I can tolerate but not for long is top shot and even that show has too much drama.
 
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Enjay

New Member
We enjoy Sons of Guns and Top Shot. Sons of Guns can get a bit over the top at times and I have issues with the show but I like the big booms they end the episodes with. We like Top Shot to see all the neat weapons and challenges they come up with and pretty much ignore the drama llama when it strolls in. I don't know if I'm interested in watching this American Guns.

Frankly, I wanted do see what kind of parents allow their 16 year old daughter to dress like that for their TV show, so I did a little digging. It didn't take too much to find a dirt trail on Rich Wyatt that spans most of the last decade, but I spent hours last night anyway listening to podcasts and reading forums because it was like a train wreck that just didn't stop.

He's done some jail time for refusing to return two weapons to his ex wife and pay her a large sum of money even after he was court ordered to do so. There have been issues with weapons taken in by police departments that he worked for turning up missing, voluminous threads complaining of shoddy workmanship from his shop, lost weapons, using sub par parts rather than the parts the owner was asked, by the shop, to provide, sloppy workmanship that he insists is intentional, etc.

He also has (to my mind) bizarre business practices, such as requiring a customer to pay for their weapon before he runs the background check, then refusing to refund their money if they're denied. He will sell the weapon for them and take a 20% commission though. That garnered him a 4 day discussion on the radio show The Troubleshooter where he called in to rebut the discussion. I think the one thing I learned that boggles me the most though is their policy of stamping his store logo prominently on weapons that his store works on. Apparently without permission or the owners prior knowledge. Wanna replace the sights? Get a logo too. Upgrade the trigger? Here's your logo! After all, they're customizing the pistol for you. One of the complainers compared it to your mechanic sandblasting their logo onto the door of your car. I have to agree that I would be supremely pissed if that happened to one of our weapons.

Here are some links from whence I sourced the info. If you want to skip the other podcasts I'd recommend going straight to number 4 as it has a good, fair summary of the issue and shows how hard he tries to weasel things around. I was also rather surprised at how big of a weenie the representative from CBI (Colorado Bureau of Investigation) was in response to Rich's interrogation tactics when he used them to turn the conversation around on him.

Podcast 1, the original complaint to the Troubleshooter show:
http://tinyurl.com/3pcn3dc

Podcast 2:
http://tinyurl.com/3toyk95

Podcast 3:
http://tinyurl.com/3qwywuv

Podcast 4:
http://tinyurl.com/3hwvvjm

I was going to post the various articles and forum threads that I read about him, but this relatively current (as of 8/1/2011) 16 page thread on a Colorado AR-15 forum does a pretty good job of linking and copying most of them.
http://www.co-ar15.com/forums/showthread.php?t=41935

Here's an 8 page thread from 2009 where I found links for the first three podcasts but the fourth had not been made as of the original post. There are also many personal stories of dealing with his shop.
http://www.co-ar15.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13026

I did find some people that were satisfied with his work, liked his classes and are supportive of him and his shop, but they were in the minority.
 
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HHB Guns

New Member
Schultz said:
I've tried to watch several episodes and have come to the conclusion they're idiots. Lets make a reality show depicting how gun owners and builders can ruin firearms , Shoot off guns in parking lots and destroy historical firearms. Sadly there is another show due out soon that will be similar to SoG. :roll:

The only gun related show I can tolerate but not for long is top shot and even that show has too much drama.
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If he an idiot then I guess I am trying to fill an idiots shoes. I have talked with him on the phone and every model he makes...either class 3 or not is back ordered for months. I got one his ak's today for transfer and it took six months to get and cost $850 and I must say its pretty bad ass looking. I have customers DAILY calling to see if I can get his toys so I could only hope to do what he is doing cause the majority of gun owning America loves him. As for the guns in parking lots I can only remember him shooting off a 204 launcher in the parking lot which was a flare and honestly if thats what your talking about I would have done the same thing.
 
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Drexellake

New Member
Since the TV show started he went from a few dozen regular customers to thousands. It's going to get backed up and some are going to complain. It's the nature of business.
 
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Bob Ouellette

New Member
My biggest problem with SoG is that they tend to do things with weapons that they were never designed for or poorly designing something they claim to be "new."

Examples: Water cooling a pair of M4's so they can be fired on full auto and empty 300 rounds a piece without over heating. That's why they make machine guns for the role of fire support and overwhelming suppressive fire.

Putting a suppressor on a MK19, 40 mm machine gun. I actually refused to watch this episode, but I did see the commercials for it. If you fire one of those things off, people are going to know about it. It doesn't matter if it's from the muzzle or the big boom from the grenade exploding.

The fold out machine gun. One of the guys that works in the shop brought in an AirSoft version of an actual weapon that unfolds into a sub machine gun. Will said that it was a great new idea and decided to build a much larger, less refined version.

Sorry if it seems like I'm ranting, but I've started designing my own weapon from scratch and I'm kind of appalled at their machining and welding work, currently being a machinist and having had to weld for past jobs/school. :roll:
 
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Frost

Active Member
Yea probably did.
It tromix.com he is most famous for Saiga shotgun conversions.

SoG is now a TV show in my opinion that is why they build some of the stuff they do.
It would get pretty boring if all they did was normal gun manufacturer work.
I mean how many time could you watch them convert a Saiga 12 before you would never tune in again.
I think some of the stuff they do is kind of goofy but it's not targeted at us.
I enjoy the show but I enjoy auction hunters too.
Television is a waste land now days, the good shows have 12 episodes and that's it for a year.
The same movies get shown over and over and over.
It is almost like a TV station get rights to one movie a month and the play it till the disk wears out.

They filled out an application a couple of years ago and they were the ones chosen for the show.
I think part of the reason they were chosen is the girl.
The last episode I saw they were setting up some sort of romance between her and one of the shop guys.
Not knocking it but I do wonder about why it is making it to the show.

True Blood
Why do women watch it?
Answer; Excitement, Romance, and Vampires
Why do men watch it?
Answer, Violence, Boobs, and Beer
 
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Schultz

New Member
HHB Guns said:
If he an idiot then I guess I am trying to fill an idiots shoes. I have talked with him on the phone and every model he makes...either class 3 or not is back ordered for months. I got one his ak's today for transfer and it took six months to get and cost $850 and I must say its pretty bad ass looking. I have customers DAILY calling to see if I can get his toys so I could only hope to do what he is doing cause the majority of gun owning America loves him. As for the guns in parking lots I can only remember him shooting off a 204 launcher in the parking lot which was a flare and honestly if thats what your talking about I would have done the same thing.
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The reason he's so busy is because of TV if he wasn't on it he would be the same as anyone else. As for the flare launcher that was irresponsible of them to do that flares can cause fires I've seen it happen, No offense but I would think you wouldn't take that chance.



Frost said:
I enjoy auction hunters too.
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Seriously? Storage wars is better IMO. :lol: I've been buying storage units for a long time and because of them and Storage wars it's ruined the business just like American pickers drove up the prices of old stuff. But thats a different story.
 
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Drexellake

New Member
From what I've seen the show is taking safety into account. We are talking about guns, fire, and explosions here so to me it is to be expected.

I still think the show rocks as do most of my friends and family.
 
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Bob Ouellette

New Member
Frost said:
SoG is now a TV show in my opinion that is why they build some of the stuff they do.
It would get pretty boring if all they did was normal gun manufacturer work.
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I get that. My biggest problem is that Will seems to act like some of the things they make were their original idea.

Personally, I think normal gun manufacturing/development/testing could be quite interesting, but a new weapon system wouldn't be thought of and created in a week. :lol:
 
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Dirk Pitt

New Member
Bob Ouellette said:
Frost said:
SoG is now a TV show in my opinion that is why they build some of the stuff they do.
It would get pretty boring if all they did was normal gun manufacturer work.
Click to expand...
I get that. My biggest problem is that Will seems to act like some of the things they make were their original idea.

Personally, I think normal gun manufacturing/development/testing could be quite interesting, but a new weapon system wouldn't be thought of and created in a week. :lol:
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I agree and I'm sure he's a talented fabricator and all, but dude your not freaking god's greatest gift to gunsmiths...
 
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