Here’s a fun one I got in a few months back. Customer wanted me to bed the barreled action to a new laminate wood stock and do finish assembly(trigger, internal magazine etc). It was a trued 700 action with a Shilen ratchet barrel. I should have looked it over closer. I would have refused it.
First thing I noticed. The recoil lug was not in the 6 oclock position. Bedding stud screwed into the front receiver screw hole for reference.
In fixing that I thought id check on the receiver threads. Yowza! Fortunately he he slathered a bucket of anti-seize on it, so it actually came apart. It unscrewed with very little torque, maybe 20-30 lbs.
Since that was crappy, I scoped the throat and found the land tops scored to bits from a bad reamer pilot or chips getting in between.
Further down the rabbit hole I noticed a ding in the crown and abrasive marks across the crown and some distance down the lands and groove. Note the circumferential marks in the bore. It wiped the high/driven side off the ratchet rifling right off.
I chopped 3/8” off and put it in the lathe to re-crown, and realized I hadn't chopped enough.
The bolt handle had been re-attached crooked, and was in hard contact with the receiver when the bolt was closed, so the handle was relieved slightly. He had put corse lapping compound on the bolt body and lapped it to the receiver producing one of the sloppiest and binding nightmares Ive ever felt. The guy had removed a ton of material off the action face so the lug pocket in the stock needed to be moved back to accommodate the new lug position.
Apparently this was done by a gunsmith in Wyoming. Older dude. First name is Matt I believe . Maybe he was great back in the day, kinda doubt it, but he definitely isn't now.
New crown
I dont know why the customer didn't have the old guy fit the stock. I told him there were no guarantees how this rifle would shoot, and I wouldn’t continue to work on it to make it shoot if it needed more work.