I want to become a gunsmith.

M

mrawesome22

New member
What would I need to get started? Are there classes I can take? Should I start out with a book? Where I live there are absolutely no smiths. So I figure I'll have to do it myself if I want it done right. Kind of my life philosophy. I shoot my .22-250 so much that I know I'm gonna eventually need a new barrel and would love to be able to do it myself. And I know that word of mouth would eventually be "Take it to Zack, he'll be able to fix it." I'm usuallly pretty good at anything I put my time into. Except guitar LOL. It just never clicked to me. Could I get things to cut chambers and the like, or is that something that would take hundreds of thousands of dollars? I look in midways catalog and see things like go and no-go guages and have no idea what that is. Maybe gunsmithing needs to be an apprentice thing? Any suggestions? Thanks guys.
 
A good way to get started is to attend one of the good smith schools to get the basics. Then find a job somewhere working for a smith to gain some experience.

Please note. I mean no offense or disrespect but it is extremely difficult to make a living as a gunsmith. There are many good smiths out there but talk with anyone of them and they most likely will say the same thing. You have to really love doing it with a passion. In most areas people would love to have a 'local smith' The reality is they don't/can't pay one what it demands to make a profit. This is generally the reason some places don't have one. I know of many guys that did everything they could do and just could not make it happen financially. You have to be very good and stay very busy most all the time to stay even. I think the misconception is that people think smiths make lots of money. The reality is tools, a shop, overhead, supplies, FFL, shipping, taxes, parts, gas prices, etc are expensive. The gun business is very fickle. Thats why I say you have to really love doing it because when its tight, you can still be happy doing gun work.

I don't mean to paint a dim picture but just being real. I have been in the gun business for 18 years and only in the last few have I felt like I could be on my own. It is not easy. Trust me. I wish you all of the best in your endeavors.
 
Having been there and done that, I have to agree with the previous poster. Making a living as a gunsmith sounds glamorous, but it is very hard to make it happen in real life. I was a smith for 3 years, and during that time I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I didn't make any money to speak of. I would have done better financially if I had been working for McDonalds and put in the kind of hours I put in at the gun shop.

One reality you will constantly run into is that guns are cheap and repairs have to be cheap or the guns get retired and a newer gun takes its place. A $200 rifle that needs repairs, cleaning and rebluing will probably be sold and replaced.

Custom rifle work is the best way to get noticed, but takes many hours and a lot of attention to detail to do it right. Once you get a name for fine work and accurate rifles, you can start making wages.

My recommendation would be to take some gunsmithing classes and learn the trade, even if you only ever use it for yourself and your friends. If you do manage to make it and are successful, congratulations. If not, you have at least learned something useful.
 
I hate to keep saying this, but gunsmithing is a business. If you don't want to learn how to run a business and deal with all the hassles involved, forget it. Too many people think that liking guns or doing one trigger job qualifies them to be a gunsmith.

If a local community college has a small business course, take it. Learn about local zoning laws, licenses, insurance, etc. No matter what you hear, getting an FFL is the easy part; getting a state or local license can be a lot tougher. Insurance premiums alone can eat you up.

Getting started isn't cheap. Those "things to cut chambers" (they are called reamers) cost $50 to $100 each. Gauges run another $150 or so. And that is for ONE caliber. You will need a lathe and a drill press as a minimum, with a milling machine a good idea. And you have to learn how to use them; if your drill slips and you mess up some customer's $10,000 shotgun, you won't get away with saying "sh*t happens." (Especially if he has some shells on him when he gets his gun back!)

Jim
 
Here's my standard response to this question:
==================================
Here's the hard, cold facts about gunsmithing.

If you're planning on being in the business as a pro, you're not going to get there with a correspondence or some kind of online course.

Businesses that hire gunsmiths want people who they KNOW have learned the job and can do the work.
That means a diploma from a GOOD attendance school like Colorado School of Trades, Trinidad College, Lassen College, or one of the others.

Show up looking for a job as a gunsmith with a correspondence course diploma, and they'll file your application in the waste can.
This is just the way it IS.
They need PROVEN skills and knowledge, and you don't get that by mail or online.

You can get a correspondence course and start your own business, but I'll take any amount of money that you'll bust out in less than a year.

A machine shop course to teach you how to run a lathe and milling machine is very good to have, but DO NOT think that being a good machinist makes you a good gunsmith.
Most good gunsmiths are good machinist, but most good machinist's are NOT qualified to be gunsmiths, and often are terrible at it.

Military armorers are NOT gunsmith's.
For the most part, they're parts switchers. They remove defective parts and drop in new parts.
If a gun needs more involved repairs, they're sent to a higher level to the REAL gunsmiths.
True military gunsmith's have a much higher level of training, and are almost always career military personnel. Getting into this level isn't easy.
At the very top are the true gunsmiths working for military marksmanship or special operations units.
There are very few of these people and they're the absolute cream of the crop with many years of training and experience.

Some people recommend learning as an apprentice.
This can be a good way to start, BUT... It all depends on WHO the teacher is.
The person you apprentice with may himself be a hack, and may be teaching you to be a hack too.
You'll have no real way to judge.
Plus, unless the teacher is a nationally know gunsmith AND is known for turning out qualified students, his training is also worthless when it comes to getting hired.

Again, employers hire people with good credentials, and the word of an unknown gunsmith isn't good enough.

Starting up a gunsmith business takes BIG bucks for machinery and tools. You'd be starting off COLD with no customer base, and you'll starve out quickly for simple lack of paying customers.
Remember, something like 40% of all business's bust out, no matter WHAT they are or who's running them.
That's simply new business attrition.

Also, remember as a self-employed gunsmith, you're NOT a gunsmith.....You're really a business man who gets to spend a few hours a day doing gunsmithing.
MOST of your day is spent doing business man things like filling out forms for the government, talking to potential customers, ordering materials and parts, and dealing with unreasonable customers.
If you're lucky, you'll get to do a little gun work somewhere in there.

The only way to make it starting out on your own is to have a "day job" and gunsmith on the side.
Still, very few make it this way either.
It's tough to put in 8 hours on the main job, then come home and do a little gunsmithing, and STILL have to do all the business man stuff.

If you're really serious about this, bite the bullet and go to the best attendance school you can.
At least 6 months to a year before you graduate, start looking for a job.
By graduation day, you should have a FIRM job offer.
Go to work for a company like one of the gun makers, a custom gun maker, the government, a police department as an armorer, or for one of the industries who employ gunsmiths for research projects.

Spend some time working for the OTHER guys. THEY'LL be doing all the business man stuff while you put in a solid 8 hours gunsmithing and really learning the trade.

After you've built up your skills, established your reputation as a known quantity in the industry, built up a customer contact base, and bought the equipment a little at a time, THEN you can go out on your own.

However, you're STILL subject to that 40% bust-out rate for new businesses.

Last, DO NOT expect to make a lot of money as a gunsmith.
If you figure it by the hour, most self-employed gunsmiths are making not much more than minimum wage.
Few if any of them are working ONLY 40 hour weeks.
 
There is some personality and salesmanship involved also.You need to look good,speak well,and be able to tolerate endless customer stories that you could not be less interested in.Same with gun store owners and outfitters.If your customers want you to be successful, you will be way ahead of the game.
 
A couple of thoughts.

Dfariswheel, even the high level military armorers are not general gunsmiths. They may be top notch at building match guns from the standard GI guns but not many know anything about guns that are not in that class or are not U.S. military weapons. (I recall one M16 expert who didn't have any idea how to remove the bolt from a Model 1903 - a couple of generations too old for him.)

ZeroJunk, all true, but that is the reason a gunsmith has to hire someone to mind the front. If he spends time BSing with customers, he gets nothing done and goes broke. Same with the guy who fixes his friends' guns free. In any business, sad to say, nice guys go broke. And the hobbyist goes broke faster.

Jim
 
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convenience

I would like to have a local smith, but none around. I don't mind the idea of sending a gun off to a known good smith so much, as the fact that nowadays some shippers want to make it such a hassle to do, that I might just pass on some custom work and get rid of guns with problems. I would suspect that a local smith around here would have another job to get the groceries and do gun repairs on the side. I have seen the handiwork of some people around here doing "repairs" and "restorations" and am not that impressed.
 
My gunsmith is a farmer by day and does the majority of the gunsmithing for the state prison and the local and county PD. Right you are about not earning that much money! I always tip him or take him stuff that I could do on my own, but am too lazy or have other things to do like tinker with the truck.

As far as machinist not making good gunsmiths I would say that this is a general statement. I was a machinist for several years and during that time I repaired or customized most of my guns myself. I even made an AR upper and lower (yes the lower is registered with the BATF) and a rifle stock similiar to the AR30 stocks but it takes AR buttstocks. Also made my own one piece picatinny mounts and rails for myslef and a few friends. Now most machinist can only setup and follow blueprints, but there are a few who have the creativity and smarts to be "fabricators" and build/design/redesign, same can be said of gunsmiths.
 
I just picked up a rifle from the local gunsmith this afternoon.He is very capable,expensive,and busy.His counter hours are 12:00 to5:00.He's been doing it at least twenty five years.He can make you feel important while he is getting rid of you.I don't know how much of his success is his personality,but it's a lot.
 
"Dfariswheel, even the high level military armorers are not general gunsmiths"

True, but I meant the REAL top military gunsmiths who do the work for elite units like Delta and Naval Special Warfare Development Group. (Used to be known as SEAL Six).

Since these units deal with a very wide variety of weapons including a wide range of commercial civilian firearms, they belong in the very top rank of custom 'smiths.
These elite units are constantly using or trying out commercial firearms, and their gunsmiths have to be capable of working on them, and modifying them.

One colleague recently told me that he knows for a fact that an elite "they" have experimented with the new S&W .500 Magnum pistol.
Not that they are actually using it, but that like all such units, they are constantly looking for something that might fill a special need.

These military gunsmiths are the equal of any civilian 'smith.
BUT..... these people are the very top of the military gunsmithing structure, and they are VERY few and far between.

That's why it's largely a waste of time to try to become a good civilian gunsmith by going the military armorer route.
Most armorers, military and civilian police are "parts switchers" for minor problems, with real gunsmithing problems sent up to the REAL gunsmiths.
 
Find a day job that will allow you to earn a living. You will starve as a gunsmith. People just don't want to pay you what your time is worth. I gunsmith on the side. I limit my work to 1911s and Glocks.
When I lived in Atlanta I did a lot of trigger jobs and setting up guns for IDPA and IPSC. I made enough money to buy all the personal guns I wanted.
The hardest thing to do is charge your friends for work. I told all of mine that they were charged just like everyone else. If you don't do this you will find yourself doing a lot of free work.
 
Making money or being happy

If you want to be a gunsmith you had better want it for the love of the game and not the want of money. I had been in middle management positions for 25 years. Worked my way up to a sizable salary and high standard of life. After turning 45 I woke up one morning and realized life really sucked. I had ulcers, a drinking problem and was working on ruining my second marriage. I don’t know how but I bless the day this reality hit me. The only things in my life that made me happy were the outdoors and working on my firearms. Very soon after this realization I quit my job, went back to school for gunsmithing and took some classes to become a Maine guide. Now I make less money in a year than I did on my end of year bonus, and know what, it is all worth it. I get up in the morning and feel good about myself. Money is important but quality of life just blows it away. If your willing to eat mac and cheese 3 times a week so you can work 60 hours a week than go for it. I did and I’ll never go back.
 
Giunsmith?

Dear Sir:
iIagree with previous statements - most all the GOOD gunsmiths die poor.
Keep you job and start slow and support your hobby that way,
Harry B.
 
i do my own stuff. I live in san antonio and and managed to get aholdof some of bob day's old machines, one of them came with rediculously old begginning machining primer. read it once, figured the rest of it out myself. i can get exactly what i want, exactly how i want it, and i usually come out pretty cheap. the most important thing is to go slow and not get ahead of yourself. Get a book, get some tools nothing fancy. nothin to it
 
You wont get rich gunsmithing, but if done right you CAN make a dicient living.

Assuming you have the equipment and knowledge. Mainly a good lathe and milling machine. With those two, you can make many of the other tools and fixtures you need.

The way to make it, is dont be afraid to take in Small Machinest jobs.

Like many I wanted to be a gunsmith. Attended a few classes, (NG, NMing 1911s & M14s). Built several 1000 yard bolt guns for my NG unit. I was running the states marksmanship unit, I could get the parts but couldnt get the guns (1000 yard bolt guns, plenty of M14s 'n such), so I started building them. We could buy replacement parts, (which is anything but the action) but with a bit of creative budgeting, I got actions, (I wont go into that).

Where I made the money was taking in "small" machine shop jobs the big shops turned down.

Just an example: Making some wierd screw for a 100 year one rifle (prior too using standard threads for example) Might take you 45 minutes, and another hour arguing with the customer why he has to pay $25 or more for a 20 cent screw. Or getting a contract from Firestone, resurficing Fly wheels $25 a piece (15 min, floor time to floor time). Or bluing diesel injectors for 75 cents a piece. Why not, you have to fire up the bluing tanks anyway.

My problem was I made the mistake of putting two adds in the phone book, one for Gunsmithing, one for General Machine work. I worked my ass off. Mostly on the machine work, people dropped the job off and went back to their job of making money, Gun customers dropped the job off and wanted to BS all day then bitch because you were taking too long.

Not to mention I had a full time job as a LEO and was running a National Guard Unit.

All I did was ruin a good hobby. I got burned out quick.

I have a good retirement (from both LE and NG) and though I have the time, I'd rather spend it fishing, shooting, or playing with my grandkids.

The point being, if, as I said, you have the basic equipment and a bit of knowledge, AND KNOW YOUR LIMITATIONS, you can make it IF you dont get on an ego trip and turn down small machine work. It will pay the bills. If you let your ego ("I'm a gunsmith, I dont do that little junk machine crap"), you'll starve.

To prove my point, look around your location at Machine shops, lots of big ones, few small ones. Thats where the money is.

Everyone is getting into the CNC stuff, which means there are lots of good used manual machines out there at good prices. Just take your time and you can do some pretty good work on these old machines. Howe didnt use a CNC machine.

Again, dont let your ego get in the way. First priorty is eating and feeding your family.

Now I want do anything but build my own guns, or for my kids and grandkids.
 
Dfariswheel

I strongly suspect you never had a thing to do with these"elite military armorers", or repairmen, depending which branch you were in. I dealt with them and armorers from other countries, and none of them had a snot nosed attitude. If we needed parts or a second opinion, we got on the phone and talked to each other. As far as not knowing certain weapons, the average smith never laid hands on over 50% of the guns out there. Armorers that work mainly with small units do not really get a lot of experience with belt fed guns and mortars, but none of them I met seemed afraid to learn.
 
As a retired gunsmith of more than a few years, I agree with the above.
Find a good smith and use him. It's a labor of love.
You might want to find a couple of beat up rifles or shotguns that are still mechanically sound and work on them as a hobby.
With todays guns becoming more and more plastic, factories not selling parts and the economy, just use a good smith.
I sold my equipment and now use a great smith.
I should mention that many people have a hard time with shippers not wanting to pick up packages.
My smith has my weapons picked up at my door by Fed-X and saves me money on the shipping because he has a shipping contract with them. I don't know how many smiths do this, but it saves a lot of time, money and problems with the shippers. He does this for all his customers who request this service.
Any weapon you send has to be double wrapped and you do not want anything on the outside of the box that identifies it as a firearm.
PM me if interested and I'll give you the gunsmiths name and info. He's the best smith I have ever seen. Fast turn around and fair prices.

Best Regards, John K
 
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