Terms of service

Effective August 25, 2026. These terms replace all earlier versions.

The short version

We engrave, coat, print and polish items — most of them yours. We are not a firearms dealer and we do not accept firearm frames, receivers or complete firearms. You are responsible for the legality of what you send us and for the artwork you ask us to reproduce. We are responsible for doing careful work on it. Before you put a coated or engraved firearm part back into service, have a qualified gunsmith check it. Everything below is the long version of those five sentences.

Who these terms cover

These terms are the agreement between you and Apex Coatings & Engraving ("Apex", "we", "us"), a Tennessee business operating at apexcoatingstn.com. They apply when you browse this site, request a quote, place an order, send us an item, or pay an invoice.

They work alongside two other documents, both of which are part of this agreement:

  • our Privacy Policy, which controls anything to do with your personal information, your project photos and your files; and
  • our Refund and Return Policy, which controls cancellations, remakes and refunds.

If those documents and these terms ever disagree, the more specific document wins on its own subject. The version of these terms published on the day you place your order is the version that governs that order.

Who can order

  • You must be at least 18 years old, or 21 where the item or service requires it, and legally able to enter a contract.
  • You must be legally permitted to own, possess, receive and ship every item involved in your order, in your state and in ours.
  • You must not be a person prohibited from possessing firearms or firearm parts under federal or state law.
  • You must not order on behalf of, or arrange delivery to, anyone who is prohibited. Doing so is a federal crime, not a policy violation.
  • We sell and ship within the United States only. We do not export, and you may not export or re-export anything we make or finish for you without complying with U.S. export law at your own cost and risk.

Placing an order is your confirmation that all of the above is true.

What we do

We provide finishing and personalization services, and we sell a small number of finished goods we make ourselves.

Services, performed on items you supply

  • Laser engraving on metal, wood, polymer, Cerakote, plastics, slate and glass
  • Cerakote application, including H-Series, C-Series and Elite Series finishes
  • Direct UV printing
  • Powder coating
  • Metal polishing and surface correction
  • Custom graphic design and logo vectorization

Goods we supply and finish

  • Engraved Magpul PMAG magazines
  • Engraved and UV-printed Zippo lighters, and Zippo inserts and accessories
  • 1911 grip panels in Cerakote, aluminum and hardwood
  • Engraved gifts, memorials, plaques, drinkware and promotional pieces

What we do not do

Read this before shipping anything

Apex is not a federally licensed firearms dealer, manufacturer or importer, and does not hold a Federal Firearms License. We do not accept firearm frames, firearm receivers, serialized parts, or complete or assembled firearms — ever, by any method, including hand delivery. We work on non-serialized component parts only: slides, barrels, uppers, handguards, rails, grips, controls, magazines, knives and similar.

Specifically, we will not:

  • receive, hold, transfer, sell, buy, trade, repair, assemble or ship a firearm frame or receiver, or any complete firearm;
  • alter, deface, remove, cover or obscure a manufacturer's serial number or any other legally required marking, in whole or in part — this is prohibited by 18 U.S.C. § 922(k) and we will not do it for any reason, including "just a light polish over it";
  • apply National Firearms Act markings to a short-barreled rifle, short-barreled shotgun, suppressor, any other weapon or destructive device unless you first provide an approved ATF form or proof of your own manufacturing license, and the markings meet the depth and height required by law. Requests without that documentation are declined;
  • perform any machining, drilling, cutting, conversion or assembly work — we apply finishes and marks to the surface of a part, and nothing more;
  • work on any item that is stolen, subject to a dispute, or that you cannot show you own or lawfully possess;
  • work on ammunition, loaded magazines, primers, propellant or any explosive.

If a prohibited item reaches us despite this, we will not perform work on it. We will contact you, hold it securely and either return it at your expense or, where the law requires it, contact the appropriate authorities. Sending us a prohibited item is a breach of these terms, and any resulting cost, delay or loss is yours.

Items you send us

Before you ship

  • Confirm your item is not a frame, receiver or complete firearm.
  • Ship it unloaded, disassembled and free of ammunition, magazines with rounds, batteries, fuel and pressurized inserts.
  • Remove sights, optics, springs, pins, lasers, grips and anything else you do not want disassembled, exposed to heat, or lost.
  • Pack it properly, insure it for its full value and keep your tracking number. We are not the shipper and we cannot claim on your behalf.
  • Include a note or your order number inside the box. Unidentified packages cause the longest delays we see.

What working on your item involves

Finishing work is physical and it is not reversible. By sending us an item you accept that:

  • coating requires disassembly, degreasing, abrasive blasting and oven curing, and each of those steps carries a real risk to old, worn, brittle, plated, plastic or previously repaired parts;
  • abrasive blasting removes a small amount of material and permanently changes the original surface texture;
  • curing heat can soften, warp or discolor polymer, adhesives, seals, springs and factory finishes;
  • laser engraving applies heat and permanently removes or alters material, and depth and contrast vary by alloy, temper and coating;
  • hidden cracks, prior repairs, fatigue and internal corrosion are not visible on inspection and can appear or worsen during normal processing;
  • small components — pins, detents, springs, screws — can be damaged or lost during disassembly of a used assembly.

We take every reasonable precaution and we handle your property with care. But we did not manufacture your item, we cannot replace it, and we do not accept the risk of its underlying condition.

If your item is lost or destroyed

If we lose or destroy an item you supplied, and it was our fault, we will pay you its documented fair market value up to $500 per item. If your item is worth more than that, tell us in writing before you ship it and we will quote a declared-value surcharge; without that written declaration and surcharge, the $500 cap applies regardless of the item's actual value. We do not pay for sentimental value, collector premium, engraved provenance, matched sets, or the cost of a replacement you were unable to source.

Quotes, pricing and payment

  • Every price shown on this site is a starting price. Final pricing depends on design, materials, color count, part count, prep condition and scope, and is confirmed to you in writing before we begin.
  • Quotes are valid for 30 days. After that we may re-quote, particularly where material costs have moved.
  • Some orders are completed through an emailed invoice rather than at checkout. For those, adding an item to the cart is a request, not a completed sale, and no contract exists until we send an invoice and you pay it.
  • We may require full payment or a deposit before work begins. Deposits cover design time, materials and scheduling, and are non-refundable once design or preparation work has started.
  • If you change the scope of the job after approval, we will re-quote. Additional work is billed at the revised price.
  • Balances unpaid 15 days after invoice may accrue interest at 1.5% per month, or the maximum rate Tennessee law allows, whichever is lower. We may also recover reasonable collection costs.
  • Tennessee sales tax is applied where required. Exemption certificates must be provided before invoicing, not afterwards.
  • If a payment is reversed, charged back or returned, the order stops. Where we hold your item, we may retain it under our lien rights until the balance and any fees are cleared.

Design approval — the most important step

We engrave exactly what you approve

Once you approve a proof, that proof is what gets permanently cut into your item. Check the spelling of every name. Check every date. Check unit designations, ranks, badge numbers, callsigns, model numbers and caliber markings. An approved error is not a defect, and remaking it is a new paid order.

  • For custom work we send a digital proof for written approval before production. Approval by email or text message counts.
  • Your quoted price includes one round of revisions. Further rounds are billed at our design rate.
  • Proofs are shown on screen. Screen color is not finish color, and screen scale is not physical scale.
  • Where you supply artwork, supply it as vector where possible. Low-resolution files, screenshots, photographs of designs and heavily compressed images produce poor engravings, and we will not remake work for that reason.
  • If you skip the proof and ask us to proceed straight to production, you accept the result as produced.

Artwork, trademarks and copyright

Artwork you send us

When you send us artwork, text, logos, insignia, photographs or a design brief, you confirm that you own it or hold written permission to reproduce it, and that our reproducing it on your item does not infringe anyone's rights. You agree to indemnify us — that is, to cover our costs, damages and legal fees — for any claim arising from artwork you supplied.

We will decline any request to reproduce material that appears to be protected and unlicensed, including but not limited to corporate logos, sports and entertainment properties, comic and film characters, military and government seals, badges and insignia, professional credentials, currency, and identity documents. We may ask for written proof of authorization, and we may decline even after you provide it. We are not obliged to explain a refusal.

Artwork we create

Original designs, patterns, layouts, vector files and shop artwork produced by Apex — including our catalogue designs — remain our intellectual property. Buying an engraved item buys you that item, not the artwork on it. You may not reproduce, resell, redistribute or license our designs, or send them to another shop to have them reproduced, without our written permission. Custom artwork can be assigned to you outright; ask, and we will quote it.

Third-party brands

Magpul, PMAG, Zippo, Cerakote, NIC Industries, Glock, SIG Sauer, Smith & Wesson, Springfield Armory and all other manufacturer names and marks referenced on this site belong to their respective owners. We use them only to describe the products we finish or the components we supply. Apex Coatings & Engraving is not affiliated with, sponsored by, endorsed by or authorized by any of these companies. Modifying a manufactured product may void that manufacturer's warranty, and that consequence is yours, not ours.

Claims of infringement

If you believe material on this site infringes your rights, email contact@apexcoatingstn.com with the words "IP Notice" in the subject line, identifying the work, the URL, and your contact details and authority to act. We investigate promptly and remove infringing material.

Work we may refuse

We reserve the right to decline any order, at any point, for any lawful reason, and to refund you rather than produce it. We will not produce content that is, in our sole judgment:

  • unlawful, or intended to facilitate something unlawful;
  • a hate symbol, or targeted harassment, defamation or a threat against a person or group;
  • a real person's name, likeness, signature or personal information used without their consent;
  • counterfeit, or an imitation of currency, an identity document, a badge or a professional credential;
  • obscene, or sexually explicit material involving anyone who is or appears to be a minor;
  • gang identifiers, or content celebrating a mass-casualty event or its perpetrator.

If we decline after payment but before production, we refund in full. If we decline after production has begun because of something you failed to disclose, we refund the unworked balance only.

Turnaround and delivery

  • Most standard jobs are completed within 3–5 business days of design approval and cleared payment. Bulk runs, multi-color Cerakote and full custom design work take longer.
  • Every date we give is an estimate, not a guarantee. We do not offer rush guarantees, and we are not liable for a missed birthday, wedding, retirement, deployment or holiday. If a date is critical, tell us before you order and we will tell you honestly whether we can commit.
  • Risk of loss passes to you when we hand the finished item to the carrier. Once it is scanned in, a lost or damaged package is a claim against the carrier and your insurance, not against us.
  • Shipping addresses are your responsibility. We ship to the address you give us. Re-shipping a package returned as undeliverable is billed at cost.
  • We do not require a signature by default. Ask for one in writing if you want it, and we will add it.
  • We are not responsible for delays caused by carriers, weather, supplier backorders, equipment failure, utility outages, labor disputes, civil disturbance, government action or any other cause outside our reasonable control.

Magazine engraving — shipping restrictions

We cannot ship magazine engraving orders to California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington or Puerto Rico. This list reflects our understanding of magazine capacity restrictions in those jurisdictions on the effective date above, and it is not legal advice.

Firearm and magazine law changes constantly, and it varies by county and city as well as by state. Our restriction list is a courtesy, not a compliance service. You are solely responsible for confirming that any item you order — magazines, grips, coated parts, engraved components — is lawful to receive and possess at your delivery address. If you order something you cannot lawfully receive, you are responsible for the consequences, and we will not refund an order refused, seized or returned for that reason.

Pickup and uncollected items

Apex is a service-area business without a public storefront. Drop-off and pickup are by arrangement only, at a time and place we confirm with you in advance.

  • Please collect finished work within 14 days of our notice that it is ready.
  • After 30 days we may charge storage of $5 per item per week.
  • After 90 days from our first notice, an uncollected item is treated as abandoned. We may then dispose of it or sell it to recover unpaid charges and storage, to the extent Tennessee law permits, and we will apply any surplus to your account. We will make reasonable attempts to reach you at the contact details you gave us first — so keep them current.
  • We assert an artisan's lien over any item in our possession for unpaid charges relating to that item.

Warranty, and what it does not cover

We warrant our workmanship as set out in our Refund and Return Policy: if an item arrives with a defect in our work, or does not match the proof you approved, contact us within 14 days of delivery with photographs and we will correct or remake it at no cost.

That is the entire warranty. It does not cover:

  • normal wear, holster wear, handling marks, fading or patina over time;
  • damage from misuse, abuse, impact, over-torquing, improper cleaning, solvents, bore cleaners, brake cleaner or ultrasonic cleaning;
  • color variance between Cerakote batches, series and substrates — color is matched by eye and by batch, and exact repeatability across separate orders is not achievable;
  • engraving depth or contrast variance across different alloys, tempers and coatings;
  • artwork you supplied and approved, produced as submitted;
  • pre-existing damage, wear or defects in an item you supplied;
  • corrosion or failure originating under an existing finish we coated over at your instruction;
  • any manufacturer warranty on your item, which we neither administer nor guarantee.

Safety: have your work checked before you use it

Coating and engraving change surface dimensions and can affect fit, clearance and tolerance. We do not test-fire, function-test, headspace, zero or gauge anything, and we do not perform gunsmithing. Before returning any coated or engraved firearm component to service, have it inspected, assembled and function-checked by a qualified gunsmith, and confirm it is safe. You assume all risk arising from the assembly, handling, carry and use of any item after it leaves our shop. Nothing we sell or finish is warranted as fit for defensive, duty or competition use.

Except for the workmanship warranty above, everything we supply is provided "as is". To the fullest extent the law allows, we disclaim all implied warranties, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement.

Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by Tennessee and federal law:

  • our total liability for any claim connected to an order is limited to the amount you paid us for that order, plus the customer-supplied item cap set out above;
  • we are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost business, lost data, loss of use, or the cost of substitute goods, even if we were told those losses were possible;
  • we are not liable for personal injury, death or property damage arising from the assembly, handling, storage, carry, discharge or use of any firearm or component after it leaves our possession;
  • we are not liable for any legal consequence you incur from possessing, transporting or receiving an item that is restricted where you are.

Some states do not allow certain exclusions, and where that is the case the exclusion applies only as far as the law permits. Nothing here limits liability for fraud, or for anything that cannot be limited by law.

Your indemnity

You agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless Apex Coatings & Engraving, its owner, employees and contractors from any claim, demand, loss, liability, fine or expense — including reasonable legal fees — arising from: artwork or instructions you supplied; your breach of these terms; your misrepresentation of your eligibility or of what you sent us; any violation of firearms, magazine, export or import law connected to your order; or the use or misuse of anything we worked on for you.

Your privacy, your photos, your project

Our promise

We value your privacy. Under no circumstances will we share your order details, photos, videos or any other media, other than what would be required by law enforcement or valid legal process. All photos and promotional content are shared only with the written consent of the client.

That promise is binding on us and is set out in full, with the detail of how we handle files, images and personal information, in our Privacy Policy. In short: your job is yours. We will ask before we post anything, and "no" ends the conversation.

Using this website

  • Product photographs show representative work. Finishes, grain, wood color and engraving contrast vary between individual pieces.
  • We work hard to keep prices, availability and descriptions accurate, but errors happen. Where a price or description is clearly wrong, we may correct it, cancel the affected order and refund you in full, even after you have paid.
  • Site content, photographs, layout, code and design are ours. You may not copy, scrape, republish or use them commercially, and you may not use automated tools to harvest them, including for training machine learning models.
  • Do not attempt to disrupt, probe or gain unauthorized access to the site or its systems.
  • We aim to keep this site usable with assistive technology and welcome reports of accessibility problems at contact@apexcoatingstn.com. Tell us what you could not reach and we will help you complete your order directly.
  • The site is provided as it is, and we do not promise uninterrupted or error-free operation.

California Proposition 65

WARNING: Some products and coatings can expose you to chemicals, including lead and nickel compounds, known to the State of California to cause cancer and reproductive harm. For more information go to www.P65Warnings.ca.gov.

Disputes: talk to us first, then arbitration

Step one — talk to us. If something goes wrong, email contact@apexcoatingstn.com with your order number and what happened. Most problems are solved this way within days. Neither side may begin a formal proceeding until 30 days after written notice of the dispute.

Step two — arbitration. If we cannot resolve it, any dispute arising out of or relating to these terms or your order will be resolved by binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, seated in or conducted remotely from Robertson County, Tennessee. Judgment on the award may be entered in any court with jurisdiction.

What is carved out. Either of us may bring a qualifying claim in small claims court instead, and either of us may seek an injunction in court to protect intellectual property.

No class actions. Claims are brought individually. Neither of us may bring a class, collective, consolidated or representative action, and the arbitrator may not preside over one.

This section is part of the agreement. Arbitration is a condition of ordering from us. If you do not accept it, do not place an order.

Governing law and the rest

  • These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Tennessee, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Where arbitration does not apply, the courts serving Robertson County, Tennessee have exclusive jurisdiction.
  • These terms, together with the Privacy Policy, the Refund and Return Policy and your written quote, are the entire agreement between us. Nothing said in conversation, text or social media changes them unless we confirm it in writing.
  • If any provision is held unenforceable, the rest stays in force and the unenforceable part is narrowed to the minimum extent needed.
  • Not enforcing a term once does not waive it.
  • You may not assign this agreement. We may assign it in connection with a sale or reorganization of the business.
  • There are no third-party beneficiaries to this agreement.
  • We may update these terms at any time by publishing a revised version here with a new effective date. Changes are not retroactive: your order is governed by the version in force when you placed it.

Contact

Apex Coatings & Engraving
Greenbrier, Tennessee 37073, United States
Email: contact@apexcoatingstn.com
Phone: (615) 862-1660
Hours: Monday–Friday 8:00–17:00, Saturday 9:00–14:00 Central

Service-area business. Drop-off and pickup by arrangement — contact us for the address.