He is honest, but not realistic. His intent is not to mislead anyone.
I appreciate your defending your friend (and potential employer) in the face of what appears to be an onslaught of negative feedback.
Unfortunately, while many people have the talent and skills to be
in business, many do not have the talent, skills, or knowledge to
run a business. This is especially the case where people take their passion and turn it into a business such gunsmiths -- who most often rely on word-of-mouth to build their clientele.
If you can't manage customer expectations and customer experience, you have no business running a business. This goes for the gunsmith or multimillion dollar operations like TSA (and
Outdoor Limited). One upset customer can kill the business.
Take what you wrote and substitute car for gun, and mechanic for gunsmith. I doubt you or anyone else would accept a friend of the mechanic saying "There’s 250 (guns) cars back there to be fixed, the majority of which he has to fix by himself." What the customer hears you say is "He'll get to it when he gets to it, and in the meantime, you're out of luck without your car/gun, so just Fsck Off!"
The proper way to run a business is to a) set expectations at the outset, and b) meet or exceed customer expectations. When you can't meet expectations, communicate appropriately with the customer to reset expectations. Hiding your head in the sand is about the worst thing to do, and only exacerbates the issue, feeding a never-ending negative feedback loop.
As it is, your friend the gunsmith will not be making a profit by working on the OP's gun. Worse, he continues to cause reputational damage and lose future customers and profits by retaining the gun.
Your friend the gunsmith would be best served by having you or the CEO of TSA retrieve the gun at issue and delivering it to the OP. ASAP. While the OP will probably never do business again with the gunsmith or TSA, both may still be able to salvage their reputations, retain other customers, and not lose future business.
I'm surprised at the poor judgement of the CEO of TSA. They clearly have invested millions of dollars into building a class-A space, and have millions more invested in inventory. While the gunsmith may be a subcontractor, it's TSA's name on the door, and you can't get to the gunsmith without first entering TSA.
As a consumer, I don't give a flying damn about anything other than getting what I paid for when it was promised to me. And that's what's happening here. When the gunsmith screws up, TSA takes the blame. While I'm perfectly happy to spend time throwing dollar bills downrange at TSA, based on what you have said I won't be availing myself of TSA's gunsmithing services.
Unfortunately for you, you're suffering collateral damage. It's highly likely that I (and others) won't avail myself of your services either, as it's more than likely you will follow the same miserable lack-of-business practices you defend. I'd go as far as saying that recommendations from you for other gunsmiths are also suspect. I would get a second and third opinion for anyone you recommend to make sure that they can deliver at the price point and time they promise.