Smithing Questions

C

captianpattson

New member
Hi, I'm considering looking into gunsmithing as a possible future career along with other machining services. I had a couple quick questions for you seasoned smiths out there:
1. Can you recommend any good books on the subject?

2. Is it legal to manufacture your own firearm (obviously excluding automatic firearms) without any sort of license or permit?

3. Does it need to have some sort of identification number?

4. If you manufacture a firearm, apart from a business license, is there anything special required to sell them? (start a firearm company)

I appreciate your help and any advice. Thanks!
 
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In order:

1. The Jerry Kuhnhausen shop manuals are some of the very best. These were written as training aids for new gunsmiths. Each manual covers one brand of gun in great detail. These detail how guns are repaired the factory way, not the shade tree gun plumber way.

http://www.brownells.com/.aspx/cid=0/k=shop+manuals/t=P/ksubmit=y/Products/All/search=shop_manuals

2. You may manufacture a legal type of firearm for your OWN use.

3. No number is required unless you decide to sell it.

4. In order to manufacture guns for sale you have to have Federal Manufacturer's License, along with various Federal and state business permits, insurance, and others.
 
Once again, this topic has been covered, in detail, at least 20 times on this site and others. I strongly suggest doing a search to find and review those posts.

Obvious points would be just how good a machinist are you and can you run a business? Gunsmithing requires more than a screwdriver, a mill bastard file and an FFL.
 
gunsmithing as a possible future career along with other machining services
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That "other machining service" bit is the key. I bought out a gun repair shop years ago. When I put the adds in the yellow pages I put it in twice, once under gun repair, once under machine shops.

The machine shop bit kept my phone ringing off the hook. There are tons of machine shops, but few will take on small jobs. The light machine work will pay the bills, feed the family and support your gun smithing.

My problem was I was working full time, plus running a national guard unit. I worked my butt off. It got to where I was starting to hate my hobby.

Also you'll need someone to answer the phones, talking on the phone doesn't make you money, the machine time does.

The problem with gunsmithing is people come in to BS, talk about projects they'll never put money in. Not so with general machine work. These customers are on the clock for the most part. They want to drop the project off and get back to work.

If you're good, and keep at it, over the years you'll be able to move away from the general machine shop if that's what you want. Keep at it for 20-30 years you'll build a name and will be able to make it. In the mean time your wife and kids are gonna want to eat.

The light, general machine services is where the money is at. Its gonna take up a lot of your time because there is more work they you can imagine.

To give you an example, around here, anything below $1000 is considered "small" projects and normal machine shops wont take the time to talk to you.
 
Kraig is 100% spot on about the demand for small run machine shop services. There is a huge need out there and guys that can do quality work, in all metals are few and always in demand.

Heck when you figure your time for many gunsmith jobs the "other work" may, for much of the time pay better.

Keep in mind here quality work will mean that you have a 2 or 3 bay shop filled with large, to larger machine tools that run off of 3 phase power. This is not the realm of mill / drill combo machines, shop smith machines or any of the cheap imported stuff. No going to cut it for the needs of serious customers and is only going to break and wear out quickly. I say this as I have seen more than one person waste their time and money going this route.

Prior to going the gunsmith route read all the ATF regulations 5 or 6 times and decide if you really want to go for it. There is much to be aware of from the legal side of things, much of which is not stated in the regulations, such as "conspiracy" and constructive possession charges.

In short ATF might, view a guy with machine shop full of tools, 20 AR-15's and 30 M16 parts kits as being ind "constructive possession" of 20 machine guns or conspiring to make 20 machine guns. Of course one might have all that stuff for 100 other legal reasons BUT if ATF charges this you are going to have to defend against it and likely see the ruin of you enterprise. There are 1000 more details to all of this however the point is it's a field where the details, regulations and application of regulation can turn into a mine field so tread carefully, and consider carefully.
 
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