BC Rich Assassin/Gunslinger

[Hamburger]

I too just got me an old '88 Gunslinger made in USA without knowing anything about these guitars before. My metallic blue Gunslinger plays and sounds awesome. The oiled neck feels great and is not too thin but features a rather narrow R2 Floyd nut. Coming from old San Dimas Charvels and bolt on Jacksons I need a little while to get used to it and I do have to say that I prefer the spacier 1:11/16 nut of the pointy San Dimas guitars. Regarding build quality the routing for the recessed trem looks a little too large but generally the guitar feels very solid and resonates massively. More than some of my Jackson strats I have to say. The trem is made by Gotoh IIRC and features a rather large brass block which may help the guitar resonate so well. The Dimarzio pickup (Paf Pro?) is not ideal for me. Too much compression, sometimes a bit muddy lacking the meaty detailed freshness (OMG, just like talking about expensive wines) of a good vintage SD JB. I'll leave it in the guitar for now to keep the guitar all original. I probably could dial my amps in to match the pickup. Overall a very nice typical 80ies guitar which feels on par with my Jackson Strats.
There's another tempting '88 Assassin in pink snakeskin available over here...

[Venomboy]

Yes, there's a BC Rich custom shop. They've done no marketing/advertising of it for quite some time.

For years the guitars were started out in Mexico, then shipped to the US to be finished and set up. This was happening since the 80s; it wasn't a secret but in the late 90's and 2000's BCR wouldn't openly admit it (depends who you talked to at the company). I met Jorge Pasaye, of Pasaye Guitars at NAMM a few years ago and he admitted to being one of the builders for BCR. Pasaye builds their own stuff and would build for others including Ed Roman, possibly GMW, probably Rico Jr. and whoever had a checkbook. The Pasaye brothers were longtime builders of BCRs. In the early 2000's BC Rich used Voodoo Guitars out of Ohio for a few builds but there were some quality issues.

Now BC Rich is using Voodoo for all the customs. Supposedly no more Mexican builders. Chris Meade runs the custom shop. I met him on the Moser forum a few years ago and I spoke with him at NAMM last year for quite some time about the customs. They are very nice; last year's guitars were excellent. This year there were 2 customs at NAMM that were very well built as well. Seems like they're just building to order and not doing high volume runs. List prices on ebay at at dealers are crazy high; I don't know what the actual selling prices are.

[Cosmiceddie]

Yes, there's a BC Rich custom shop. They've done no marketing/advertising of it for quite some time.

For years the guitars were started out in Mexico, then shipped to the US to be finished and set up. This was happening since the 80s; it wasn't a secret but in the late 90's and 2000's BCR wouldn't openly admit it (depends who you talked to at the company). I met Jorge Pasaye, of Pasaye Guitars at NAMM a few years ago and he admitted to being one of the builders for BCR. Pasaye builds their own stuff and would build for others including Ed Roman, possibly GMW, probably Rico Jr. and whoever had a checkbook. The Pasaye brothers were longtime builders of BCRs. In the early 2000's BC Rich used Voodoo Guitars out of Ohio for a few builds but there were some quality issues.

Now BC Rich is using Voodoo for all the customs. Supposedly no more Mexican builders. Chris Meade runs the custom shop. I met him on the Moser forum a few years ago and I spoke with him at NAMM last year for quite some time about the customs. They are very nice; last year's guitars were excellent. This year there were 2 customs at NAMM that were very well built as well. Seems like they're just building to order and not doing high volume runs. List prices on ebay at at dealers are crazy high; I don't know what the actual selling prices are.

Thank you. Where (website) can I get a Custom Shop order form?

[Venomboy]

Dunno of any dealers. Try Music Zoo or hit up Tim Keyes from BCR on their FB page or one of the BC Rich Junkies pages on FB.