Hunter1950: Dang Buddy, that does not sound like Browning to me. I once purchased a used Hi-Power that had already had the magazine safety removed and some of the other parts 'tricked' out. When she started to go belly up on me I called and then shipped the piece to Browning and they made complete repairs, replaced the 'tricked' parts and the charge was minimal. I would follow up on fz4vgq's advice to call and speak to someone else.
Now, in the event that you wind up with the same bonehead, or one from his genepool, you can always have the pistol re-finished elsewhere, for much less than Browning quoted you. You had mentioned the scarring on the slide - Checkmate in Florida does a real good job with things like that. They offer a number of different finishes and the owner of the shop always pays particular attention to that kind of a problem. I have an older aluminum frame Commander that was stolen and then later returned to me through the New York City PD. Their policy is to permanently mark any firearm recovered at a crime scene and a NYPD Officer named Tommy Napoli embraced that policy and my Commander still carries his initials. I took the pistol to Checkmate while I was vacationing in Florida a couple of years ago and the owner said he could repair that damage when he refinished the pistol. But, he wasn't able to take the job on at the time so I still have it with Tommy's initials on it but this year I plan on getting it done.
I hope this helps ya Buddy but don't give up on Browning just yet. Mikey.
