Gunsmith courses
- Thread starter gregnsara
- Start date
Aguila Blanca
Staff
I'm not sure what the "SIG" part of your screen name signifies, but if it's Sig Sauer ...SIGSHR said:
I just took the Sig Sauer Academy 1911 Armorer's course. It was made VERY clear to us in the class that armorers only replace worn parts with new, factory parts. Armorers do NOT fit parts, file parts, modify parts, or alter parts. They replace parts. This has nothing to do with "belittling" armorers. This is what the course teaches: armorers are parts changers.
Per the Sig Sauer Academy, if "Interchangeable parts-won't," the armorer is done and the gun is sent back to the factory. Period. Full stop.
It all depends on the level that the armourer is at. If he belongs to the REME (UK), he can do everything a school trained gunsmith can do. Ditto with the guys in the AMU like my buddy or the USMC Armourer level. Now, lower echelon guys are parts swappers and the higher they go, the more skilled they are and the more difficult the tasks they are allowed to perform. I just found out that the WW II German regimental armorer had a truck which housed an entire machine shop (mill/lathe/grinders) on it. What a prize of war one of those would have been.
Most law enforcement armorers are just parts swappers, like the lower echelon military guys. Get it to work reliably and back in the hands of the user.
Since Sig was mentioned, I was also trained by Sig. When the extractor on my P220 broke (older West German, circa 1987 so the part had over three decades of service) I tried to order the part. No go. Wouldn't sell me one. I explained I was trained by Sig to replace them. Still no go. I explained I was a TSJC trained gunsmith. No go. Had to go to their custom gunshop for their man to fix. Finally found the part elsewhere and installed it myself.
SGW Gunsmith
Moderator
I was fortunate enough to serve an apprenticeship shortly after high school in a local manufacturing facility. School during the day, tool room work and learning on the second shift. My instructors were all journeyman tool makers who fled Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, and Germany when it got too hot in the kitchen over in Europe. Not very patient with too much chatter and wanted more listening and watching more than anything else.
Seems that trade may be coming back into play with the present administration, and that's where I'd steer a young fella as soon as he finishes up his enlistment for high school. Try to get into a manufacturing firm that will teach and train them on machining equipment, both manual and CNC.
If you can learn to make a part from scratch, do some welding, heat-treat, lathe turning along with milling, or surface grinding, that would be good but if you only do disassembly/reassembly, then you are an armorer, not a true 'smith.
Parker O Ackley wrote in one of his gunsmithing tomes that it would be difficult and not practical to make a firing pin for the early Remington Model 12 .22 pump guns. I had to try that challenge, and it's the top firing pin on the right. Was it practical? Nope! Hourly rate would probably put the cost over $500.00, but I did do it
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Also made an obsolete tap and heat-treated it to make several parts where the tap was unavailable.
Seems that trade may be coming back into play with the present administration, and that's where I'd steer a young fella as soon as he finishes up his enlistment for high school. Try to get into a manufacturing firm that will teach and train them on machining equipment, both manual and CNC.
If you can learn to make a part from scratch, do some welding, heat-treat, lathe turning along with milling, or surface grinding, that would be good but if you only do disassembly/reassembly, then you are an armorer, not a true 'smith.
Parker O Ackley wrote in one of his gunsmithing tomes that it would be difficult and not practical to make a firing pin for the early Remington Model 12 .22 pump guns. I had to try that challenge, and it's the top firing pin on the right. Was it practical? Nope! Hourly rate would probably put the cost over $500.00, but I did do it
:
Also made an obsolete tap and heat-treated it to make several parts where the tap was unavailable.
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SGW Gunsmith - you're a lucky dude to have apprenticed under old world tradesmen. A couple of my classmates had to make firing pins as part of their exit exam. Most laborious part I had to make was a aluminium loading gate for a SAA revolver. A little bit of mill work and then a lot of time with a file. The original part was plastic and it had snapped and couldn't be glued. Was it worth the time? Heck no. Like for you though, it was worth the experience. My instructor who taught us how to do it is now the Dean of Instruction and I don't know if the instructor who replaced him does that.
Agree 100% that we have to get back into the trades and restore the trade schools to prepare the kids for factory work. If we want to grow our economy, we need to produce for export. We need to bring trades back in the schools too. I was too stupid and should have attended trade school when I was in high school. At least I could have learned cabinet making like my brother. Now I have to learn from books.
I get the old world training whenever I attend the NMLRA classes at Bowling Green. I've been lucky to have had classes under the first three master gunsmiths of Colonial Williamsburg (Wallace Gusler, Gary Brumfield (dec.) and George Suiter). Suiter is retired and attended TSJC and told me some stories about the place in the old days (like a stupid barfight a classmate provoked. George crawled out rather than get involved).
Agree 100% that we have to get back into the trades and restore the trade schools to prepare the kids for factory work. If we want to grow our economy, we need to produce for export. We need to bring trades back in the schools too. I was too stupid and should have attended trade school when I was in high school. At least I could have learned cabinet making like my brother. Now I have to learn from books.
I get the old world training whenever I attend the NMLRA classes at Bowling Green. I've been lucky to have had classes under the first three master gunsmiths of Colonial Williamsburg (Wallace Gusler, Gary Brumfield (dec.) and George Suiter). Suiter is retired and attended TSJC and told me some stories about the place in the old days (like a stupid barfight a classmate provoked. George crawled out rather than get involved).