AO SWORD FIREARMS 929 East Main Street, El Cajon, CA 92021

"Real people, wealth of knowledge, grateful for these guys a great company with the tools you need!"

"Been piggy back between shops in San Diego and something about this place that always draws me back to it, great customer service great choice in firearms and gear been thinking about going there to get some cerakote done to my rifle! Dude named Erick helped me out and was super knowledgeable answered all my questions about what goes with what and some legal questions I had about transfers, great experience overall would recommend to anyone"

"The staff are very helpful and knowledgeable and they always have great gear and guns. Their gunsmith even helped me for free with one of my home built Ar-15's, as I was missing some specific tools needed for the job."

"Update 7/27/2018: I just came back here to see that I was given a response from the owner (10 months ago!) This is much appreciated. I should note that the cerakote on the part they completed looked great and has held up pretty well. It's been a couple years. I want to reiterate that my issue wasn't so much that I didn't believe there were challenges at the company, but that someone wasn't just straight up with me about the status of the work. As a customer, I was a bit flabbergasted by the fact that someone on the other end of the phone was telling me about personnel issues at the business. As much as I hate to hear someone lost their job, it's probably better for the business that way. At this point, my previous experience is water under the bridge. In either case, I'm also sorry to hear about the fate of one of the employees. Because of the response and the high quality of the cerakote that was completed, I'm bumping my review up to 4 stars. I've included a photo of their work. AO Sword is responsible for the cerakote on the frame and the barrel. This was a surplus gun and really looked terrible prior to the cerakote. I'm willing to give AO Sword a chance again, as I'll be in the market for another cerakote job within the next couple of weeks. The staff I dealt with at the time, excluding the telephone guy were all excellent. Original Review: Really nice people here and all, great selection of items if you want to go take a look or buy some accessories; That being said, I have to echo some of the other comments here. If they have to do any work to a firearm, I'd try to avoid it. I left a firearm with them awhile back for some cerakote. It was already disassembled and I had requested two solid colors. I was told 6-8 weeks. I hate being "that guy" so I avoided calling them until the tail end of that timeframe. This was in early September if I recall correctly. Each time I called, I got a different story as to the progress of the job, or the reason it wasn't completed. Around late December, I was given a strange story about a bad employee who had been let go, who wasn't showing up for work, etc. and told that's why it was delayed. Red flags galore. Showed up the next day, got my parts back. They had only done one of the colors. The slide was still incomplete. They had prepped it but that's about it. They were okay and pleasant throughout the transaction and obviously didn't charge me for the portion of work that was never completed. It's too bad, because the attitude of the people up front has always been great. They don't have the typical indifferent interactions present at a lot of gun stores. I think their organizational skills must be awful though given my experience and others' alleged experiences. I'd been told so many stories, even at one time being told it was done and waiting to be reassembled when I reminded them I didn't need that. I didn't feel wherever I spoke with was being very honest with me. The only reason it's not 1 star after all of that is because of the people working in the front it the store."