Walden Arms

Being in the area for the past 13 years, I’ve had a lot of time to scout the local gun shops and gunsmiths. As far as Calhoun county is concerned there isn’t much to be had. I’ve purchased firearms and services from local shops and gunsmiths and always left feeling that I didn’t get what I wanted for the $$$ paid. On with the actual experience… So in October of 2013 I purchased a NIB S&W M&P 10 from a dealer in West Virginia. It stayed in my safe until this past Spring when I brought it to a buddy’s house to finally test it out. I was thinking, I got a good deal on a sweet deer rifle. Well, it turns out I was wrong… FTF FTE it just wouldn’t cycle. I was so upset at S&W for letting this rifle out of their factory with this major issue. I was pissed off to say the least. I wanted to throw the gun off of a cliff. Which brings us to Walden Arms. I had heard about Walden Arms from a friend while attending classes at KCC last Spring. They mentioned that he was prior military and that he had a passion for firearms and hunting. Both of those hobbies are right up my alley. So, I called Chris the owner/​gunsmith and described my problem. He told me to bring it by and let him take a look at it… BTW that always worries me when someone says that. I just envision $$$ and months of waiting. Long story short, after about a week he called me up and told me that they had determined that S&W had drilled the gas port too close to the mounting surface the gas block rests against. He said he had to machine 0.003 from that surface. After that, everything lined up perfectly! He met me at a local Machine Gun shoot at Feek’s Tactical and gave my M&P 10 back. He asked me to test fire to confirm it was working to my satisfaction. I proceeded to grab .308 and low pressure machine gun 7.62 rounds and mixed them in the mag. Which apparently wasn’t what he was expecting me to do. :-) I ripped off about 20 rounds as fast as I could pull the trigger. SUCCESS!!! Lucille (as she was affectionately named) was working like a dream. In addition to getting her to function flawlessly he cleaned/​polished and tweaked her in just the right way. She’s a dream to shoot. I can not recommend Chris enough. Like I said before, I’ve tried other gunsmiths in the area (BCA)… I’ll never use them again. If you value your firearms bring them to Walden Arms. You won’t be leaving disappointed.