I know this is a long read, but please bear with meÂ…
About a year ago, a friend of mine got me an E-11 build by bowjunkie. As you can imagine, I was elated. However, there were a couple of issues right off the bat with it. First, the front of the scope rail was not attached in any way, and only resting inside a air-vent hole. Even though the gun was packaged well, the scope rail came out during shipping and put a nasty scrape, through the paint, down the side of the gun. I know we all like weathering, but this just looked bad. Secondly, the stock was out of alignment and snagged on the safety switch when opening it, and then would not lock into place when fully open. Honestly, both of these were minor gripes. The silver solder lines were absolutely immaculate, and not only thatÂ… the bolt worked, which added a cool dimension to the gun.
Shortly after getting this gun, I was working the bolt one night (nothing extreme, just cycling the bolt) when the back of the gun popped off. For any of you that know anything about a Sterling, I know what you are thinkingÂ… the end cap just came off. Well, unfortunately, it was not that simple. Literally, the back of the gun came off. As mentioned, the Sterling has a butt cap. This buttcap, locks onto a thin metal locking sleeve that it welded to the receiver of the gun. Originally, the receiver tube extends all the way to the rear of the gun and then the sleeve was slid over the rear of the receiver and welded into place. However, on bowjunkie rebuilt Sterling, the receiver ends just before the locking sleeve. It appears as if he cuts, the locking sleeve, receiver and all, off the parts kit and then uses an inner sleeve to tack on the old part to the new receiver tube. While, I donÂ’t want to be overly critical, this seems like a somewhat cheap and easy way to do things, instead of correctly removing the original locking sleeve from the original receiver tube and attaching the locking sleeve to the new receiver. BowjunkieÂ’s method results in a pieced together receiver instead of a one-piece receiver. This joint is where my gun broke.
I contacted Steve about it and he agreed to “reweld” the rear of the gun and assured me when it was done it would never come off again. Well, it took forever to get back but he did get it back to me and did not charge me for the work. However, within a few weeks…. The back was off again. L
With the gun out of commission again and seeing what a hard time people were having getting their items from Steve, I decided to just let things lie. However, as I got to thinking about it, I saw an opportunity in this tragedy. One of the things I really didnÂ’t like about my bowjunkie E-11 was the finish. The gun is a flat black with a powdery grey highlightsÂ… kind of like a drybrushed weathering style finish, which I always thought was a bit silly because this is an ALL METAL gun. Why would you drybrush on weathering? Anyway, I thought since the gun was in pieces, now would be a good time to strip it and have it properly finished, with the original style Sterling finish.
I stripped the paint from the gun a huge and very disheartening discovery. All those “perfect solders” weren’t so perfect after all. Steve had made his solders then cleaned them up and where they weren’t so nice, he simply smoothed them out with putty. Virtually every solder point had putty around it as well as a number of dings and machining gouges in the gun. The paint hid this nicely but the problem is that the original coating for a Sterling will not adhere to putty well. I know some probably wouldn’t care that the solder points were puttied but for someone who is a metal worker, this seems like an extreme shoddy effort to cover up poor craftsmanship.
The next thing that was discovered, thanks to Dean O, was that the joints were not high-temp silver-soldered as they should have been, but instead were SOFT SOLDERED. That is rightÂ… regular old soft-solder, similar to what would be used for electronics. No wonder the back endcap wouldnÂ’t stay on. Not only did Steve not clean up the areas where the weld would be, but he used the wrong solder..
Dean O was kind enough to look at the gun and send pics to darkside72 for evaluation. Sadly, Jamie found even more issues with the build in terms of accuracy and at this point, the only real option is to completely break this gun back apart and redo it, which will be MORE work than if Jamie started from scratch with a demilled Sterling. The worst part is that I now have to pay TWICE for a gun (once, for my friend who paid Steve, and once for me paying Jamie to fix this mess) that SHOULD have been made right the first time.
Up until now, you might be saying “so what, you bought a finished E-11, you shouldn’t care how it was assembled as long as the finished product looks good.” If you feel that way, you are entitled to that opinion. However, this next little bit is VERY IMPORTANT FOR ANY BOWJUNKIE E-11 OWNER. In disassembling the gun, which required only basic hand tools (no power tools, no special machinery), I discovered that the way in which this gun is assembled is potentially ILLEGAL. That is right. If you own a bowjunkie E-11 you MAY own an ILLEGAL FIREARM that could be “readily restored” to a class 3 fully firing smg. Owning such is a FELONY offense.
According to the ATF:
“An unserviceable firearm is defined as one which is incapable of discharging a shot by means of an explosive and which is incapable of being readily restored to a firing condition. An acceptable method of rendering most firearms unserviceable is to fusion weld the chamber closed and fusion weld the barrel solidly to the frame. Certain unusual firearms require other methods to render the firearms unserviceable.”
The penalty for breaking the law? Again, according to the ATF:
“Violators may be fined not more than $250,000, and imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.”
The key term in the above information is “readily restored.” The ATF makes this a loose term on purpose so they have a wider range of opportunity. They can be as stringent or as lax as they see fit. However, they do suggest “acceptable methods” for making a firearm unserviceable: “fusion weld the chamber closed and fusion weld the barrel solidly to the frame.” Most people also say it is wise to rebuild the gun in such a way as to not allow the original, working internal components from being installed/working properly.
Bowjunkie fills the barrel of his Sterlings so a bullet cannot be made to pass through it but he does NOT weld the barrel in place. You can remove the inert barrel in less than 5 minutes and replace it with a fully functional barrel. I think even under the most lax view, this would be considered “readily restorable.” Additionally, from what I can see, the bowjunkie Sterling uses all original parts, including the original bolt. From what I can see, all that needs to be replaced is the barrel, which is held in place by two screws…
I canÂ’t even begin to describe how pissed I am about this. I know some have not even received what they paid for but at this point, if I didnÂ’t have my item, I would not want it, but a refund instead as you would be receiving an extremely shoddy and ILLEGAL item... For whatever it is worth, you have been warned.
IÂ’d like to thank both Dean O and Jamie for their professional assistance in this. They have been very helpful and patient. Hopefully, they will add to this with any details I left off or got wrong.
Please note in the pics below, Dean O had already bead-blasted the gun to clean it up, taking off some of the putty, but you can still see it in numerous places. There was even putty in the rust pitting on the stock...
About a year ago, a friend of mine got me an E-11 build by bowjunkie. As you can imagine, I was elated. However, there were a couple of issues right off the bat with it. First, the front of the scope rail was not attached in any way, and only resting inside a air-vent hole. Even though the gun was packaged well, the scope rail came out during shipping and put a nasty scrape, through the paint, down the side of the gun. I know we all like weathering, but this just looked bad. Secondly, the stock was out of alignment and snagged on the safety switch when opening it, and then would not lock into place when fully open. Honestly, both of these were minor gripes. The silver solder lines were absolutely immaculate, and not only thatÂ… the bolt worked, which added a cool dimension to the gun.
Shortly after getting this gun, I was working the bolt one night (nothing extreme, just cycling the bolt) when the back of the gun popped off. For any of you that know anything about a Sterling, I know what you are thinkingÂ… the end cap just came off. Well, unfortunately, it was not that simple. Literally, the back of the gun came off. As mentioned, the Sterling has a butt cap. This buttcap, locks onto a thin metal locking sleeve that it welded to the receiver of the gun. Originally, the receiver tube extends all the way to the rear of the gun and then the sleeve was slid over the rear of the receiver and welded into place. However, on bowjunkie rebuilt Sterling, the receiver ends just before the locking sleeve. It appears as if he cuts, the locking sleeve, receiver and all, off the parts kit and then uses an inner sleeve to tack on the old part to the new receiver tube. While, I donÂ’t want to be overly critical, this seems like a somewhat cheap and easy way to do things, instead of correctly removing the original locking sleeve from the original receiver tube and attaching the locking sleeve to the new receiver. BowjunkieÂ’s method results in a pieced together receiver instead of a one-piece receiver. This joint is where my gun broke.
I contacted Steve about it and he agreed to “reweld” the rear of the gun and assured me when it was done it would never come off again. Well, it took forever to get back but he did get it back to me and did not charge me for the work. However, within a few weeks…. The back was off again. L
With the gun out of commission again and seeing what a hard time people were having getting their items from Steve, I decided to just let things lie. However, as I got to thinking about it, I saw an opportunity in this tragedy. One of the things I really didnÂ’t like about my bowjunkie E-11 was the finish. The gun is a flat black with a powdery grey highlightsÂ… kind of like a drybrushed weathering style finish, which I always thought was a bit silly because this is an ALL METAL gun. Why would you drybrush on weathering? Anyway, I thought since the gun was in pieces, now would be a good time to strip it and have it properly finished, with the original style Sterling finish.
I stripped the paint from the gun a huge and very disheartening discovery. All those “perfect solders” weren’t so perfect after all. Steve had made his solders then cleaned them up and where they weren’t so nice, he simply smoothed them out with putty. Virtually every solder point had putty around it as well as a number of dings and machining gouges in the gun. The paint hid this nicely but the problem is that the original coating for a Sterling will not adhere to putty well. I know some probably wouldn’t care that the solder points were puttied but for someone who is a metal worker, this seems like an extreme shoddy effort to cover up poor craftsmanship.
The next thing that was discovered, thanks to Dean O, was that the joints were not high-temp silver-soldered as they should have been, but instead were SOFT SOLDERED. That is rightÂ… regular old soft-solder, similar to what would be used for electronics. No wonder the back endcap wouldnÂ’t stay on. Not only did Steve not clean up the areas where the weld would be, but he used the wrong solder..
Dean O was kind enough to look at the gun and send pics to darkside72 for evaluation. Sadly, Jamie found even more issues with the build in terms of accuracy and at this point, the only real option is to completely break this gun back apart and redo it, which will be MORE work than if Jamie started from scratch with a demilled Sterling. The worst part is that I now have to pay TWICE for a gun (once, for my friend who paid Steve, and once for me paying Jamie to fix this mess) that SHOULD have been made right the first time.
Up until now, you might be saying “so what, you bought a finished E-11, you shouldn’t care how it was assembled as long as the finished product looks good.” If you feel that way, you are entitled to that opinion. However, this next little bit is VERY IMPORTANT FOR ANY BOWJUNKIE E-11 OWNER. In disassembling the gun, which required only basic hand tools (no power tools, no special machinery), I discovered that the way in which this gun is assembled is potentially ILLEGAL. That is right. If you own a bowjunkie E-11 you MAY own an ILLEGAL FIREARM that could be “readily restored” to a class 3 fully firing smg. Owning such is a FELONY offense.
According to the ATF:
“An unserviceable firearm is defined as one which is incapable of discharging a shot by means of an explosive and which is incapable of being readily restored to a firing condition. An acceptable method of rendering most firearms unserviceable is to fusion weld the chamber closed and fusion weld the barrel solidly to the frame. Certain unusual firearms require other methods to render the firearms unserviceable.”
The penalty for breaking the law? Again, according to the ATF:
“Violators may be fined not more than $250,000, and imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.”
The key term in the above information is “readily restored.” The ATF makes this a loose term on purpose so they have a wider range of opportunity. They can be as stringent or as lax as they see fit. However, they do suggest “acceptable methods” for making a firearm unserviceable: “fusion weld the chamber closed and fusion weld the barrel solidly to the frame.” Most people also say it is wise to rebuild the gun in such a way as to not allow the original, working internal components from being installed/working properly.
Bowjunkie fills the barrel of his Sterlings so a bullet cannot be made to pass through it but he does NOT weld the barrel in place. You can remove the inert barrel in less than 5 minutes and replace it with a fully functional barrel. I think even under the most lax view, this would be considered “readily restorable.” Additionally, from what I can see, the bowjunkie Sterling uses all original parts, including the original bolt. From what I can see, all that needs to be replaced is the barrel, which is held in place by two screws…
I canÂ’t even begin to describe how pissed I am about this. I know some have not even received what they paid for but at this point, if I didnÂ’t have my item, I would not want it, but a refund instead as you would be receiving an extremely shoddy and ILLEGAL item... For whatever it is worth, you have been warned.
IÂ’d like to thank both Dean O and Jamie for their professional assistance in this. They have been very helpful and patient. Hopefully, they will add to this with any details I left off or got wrong.
Please note in the pics below, Dean O had already bead-blasted the gun to clean it up, taking off some of the putty, but you can still see it in numerous places. There was even putty in the rust pitting on the stock...
