I attended the Colorado School of Trades in Lakewood back in '75 just long enough to figure out that I'd never be a good gunsmith. (I can replace parts, and I can shoot 'em, but I just can't really do that "gunsmith magic.") However, the instructors at the school were excellent, with about 9,000 years of accumulated experience.
I still remember one of the stock making teachers, Dean Wentworth. He had a glass eye that never pointed in the right direction. He was a "wood wizard". It was rumored that after his parents died, he went around their house ripping out all the doors, door frames, and cabinet fronts because they were rosewood. He supposedly had enough to last a couple of lifetimes of making endcaps, forends, etc.
Interestingly enough, Wayne Novak and Art Lekie (sp?) of Behlert were in attendance at the same time I was.
Tidbits: the school had a state-of-the-art alarm system which was so sensitive that it had been known to alert from stocks swinging in the breeze, or large mice running across the floor. It was said that the alarm system was better than that at the Denver mint. It was also a
fact that an alarm alert from the school had a
guranteed 30 second police response time, MAX. The mint was a 2 minute time.
They were very concientious about safety, too. You put on your safety glasses as soon as you walk through the door, and they didn't come off 'till you were out of the shop area.
No ammo was allowed. If you needed to test fire a gun, you went to an instructor, and he would draw ammo from a locker, and then the two of you would carry gun, ammo, and a blaze orange flag on a 3 ft. pole to the test room. He would take the brass back with him. If you needed to test feed, you would be issued dummy ammo in the appropriate cal. along with a similar flag with a "D" on it to affix to your bench while you tested.
One fellow thought he could slip by the rules and brought in some -06 ammo for testing the feed. As he closed the bolt, the gun fired, and the bullet hit the cement floor and richocheted upward and hit another student on the rim of his safety glasses. He was damn lucky, the bullet bounced off the frames, and he escaped with a bruise and a black eye.
Two instructors grabbed the offender and litteraly THREW him out of the building, informing him if he ever set foot on the property, he'd be arrested for trespass, and that he could just kiss his tools, books, etc, (about $400 worth, a damn considerable sum in '75) goodbye. He was never heard from again.
Every Thursday was trap day, when whoever wanted to could take off to the range with one of the stocks instructors and shoot trap all morning. The school also allowed every student 5 hunting days off each year.
I highly recommend CST. You may be able to find an equal elsewhere, but you won't be able to find better. I'll be so bold as to state that the only way you'll learn the art of gunsmithing better than you could at CST would be to spend years apprenticing under a master gunsmith.
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Shoot straight & make big holes, regards, Richard at
The Shottist's Center