Rollover took way longer than expected - anyone else?

• •Just went through the process of rolling over a significant chunk of my old 401k into a new Gold IRA, and man, was it a slog.
• •I was hoping for something snappy, you know, a week or two top?
• •But from first contact with the custodian to actually seeing the precious metals in my account, it was just over six weeks.

Just went through the process of rolling over a significant chunk of my old 401k into a new Gold IRA, and man, was it a slog. I was hoping for something snappy, you know, a week or two top? But from first contact with the custodian to actually seeing the precious metals in my account, it was just over six weeks. Six weeks! Felt like an eternity, especially with all the talk about market volatility these days. I had about $300k from my old military 401k that I wanted to get diversified away from the dollar and the endless money printing, and waiting for that to clear just gave me hives.

The majority of the delay seemed to be on the old 401k administrator's side. Lots of paperwork back and forth, needing a wet signature here, a re-fax there. It felt intentionally bureaucratic. My new Gold IRA company was pretty responsive, but they can only move as fast as the slowest link in the chain, right? I'm based here in Honolulu, watching the news from Asia and the dollar's global standing, and the urgency for me to get these assets into something tangible felt pretty high. Diversifying out of pure paper assets has been a long-term strategy for me, especially after seeing global shifts over the past few decades. This rollover was a big step in solidifying that position.

Now that everything's finally settled, I'm feeling a lot better. Just seeing the weight in ounces instead of just a fluctuating dollar amount on a screen is a huge relief. But it makes me wonder, is this typical? Or did I just get unlucky with my particular old 401k provider? For those of you who've done similar rollovers, what was your timeline like? Did anyone else experience these kinds of delays, or was it a smoother ride for you?

Also, out of curiosity, for anyone who's recently done a Silver IRA rollover, did you find the process equally drawn out, or perhaps quicker since silver is a bit more liquid? I'm considering adding some silver down the line but if the transfer process is that painful again, I might need to brace myself.