Gunsmith for a living

Larry, you make a point. It seems that the most difficult thing for most shooters to do is get a barrel done. I have shooters come to me all the time, wanting to get a barrel installed. The fact is, I do it for a few friends, and probably shouldn't even be doing it for them. Like I say, I am in the Machine Shop Buisiness, not Gunsmithing. But when shooters tell me it takes 8+ weeks to get a barrel put on, (plus the shipping, any FFL involved, etc), I will lament.

Believe it, in Houston, which is the Nations 4th largest city, finding a Benchrest Gunsmith is darned near impossible. Sure, there are a lot of Gunsmiths, but they cater more to the Carters Country and American Shooting Center Crowd than extreme accuracy.........jackie
 
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Jackie,
If one of the name BR gunsmiths moved to Houston he would be very busy, but why should they. They are busy where ever they are. Say Vern opened and he was very good. Vern would probably starve to death before the great unwashed discovered him and figured he was as good as say Billy Stevens.
Butch
 
Butch, Dale Hutchinson, one of the best ever, is up in La Grange, not that far from Houston, but I think his mind is permanently programed to say, "I am 3 months behind".

That, and he is getting up in age. It seems like he was a grown man back when I was a kid. But, as I said, he is one of the best.....jackie
 
I see a pattern in gunsmiths.
They have a small store front.
They sell a few used guns.
After a few years they see that the gun store makes more money than the gunsmithing.
Come in for the gunsmithing, spend your money at the store.

The problem is, if you are smart enough to do gunsmithing AND run a small store, you can earn a lot more money doing something else.

Between 2004 and 2009, I was working as a contract engineer for a major aerospace company, some small division, working on private jet electronics. I had a bill rate of $100/hour and they would take every hour I would give them. When I had had enough for one day I would leave, but technicians would hand me metal and sketches. They could get a purchase order and go through purchasing and have it done by an approved vendor, but I was willing to do the work overnight on my amateur gun smithing lathe and mill. There was a lot of painting with di-chem, put on the surface plate, scribe with the stylus of the height gauge, put in the mill, use a boring bar to make a hole.
I would do this stuff after dinner and just charge more hours on my time.
Soon my amateur gun smithing shop had paid for itself.

What does it all mean?
If you are a low talent guy like me, you are better off finding some higher paying profession and doing gun smithing for a hobby.
 
The best advice I could give for someone that wanted to make a living as a gunsmith is to go get an education in sales and marketing.

You'd starve to death building rifles for benchrest shooters...too many of them own lathes. Look at businesses like Ed Brown and GAP for profit margins. Precision hunting rifles, you could make money on. Just my observation.
 
How True. The Gunsmith's in Houston tend to cater to a select crowd, ie, professional people with lots of cash, not much free time, and the urge to have something "special".

A few years back, I went up to Carters Country to buy something, and walked out onto the firing line to see if I knew anybody. There was a Gunsmith there with about 7-8 high dollar custom Rifles, and what he was doing was sighting each in, using the ammo the customer wanted. What it amounted to was a customer would come in, order his totally "custom", ( in reality just a prettied up Remington), Rifle, have the 'smith work up the loads, sight it in, and they would pick it up and go off to the "hunt". I suspect that from the time the Customer entered the store, to the time he picked up his Rifle, $20,000+ would have changed hands. Heck, this guy didn't even chamber the barrels.

That is who makes money doing Gunsmith work.........jackie
 
The economy has hit guns I think finally. A lot of stuff at the Julia auction this weekend went really low. You should see some of the mausers that they had and how cheap they went. Some Griffin and Howe customs est at $8-10K went for <5k, and some of Duane Wiebe customs est $20-30k went for $12k. Mint Mauser broomhandles for $500 ...I picked up a couple target rifles for $500 and $900 with good optics.
 
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Vern said:
History:
THE QUESTION IS....
If I were to try and go to school for it again is it very likely in most areas that you can make a good living at it or is it still for most the part time thing that requires another full time job in order to pay the lions share of the bills?????
Click to expand...
I can think of three Full time Gunsmiths I know and all three are or were very busy. None are Getting rich one is quite well known and has a years backlog and is not even accepting new work has a very nice well equipped shop and makes a very modest living from what I have seen. The second one more locally known mostly in Pennsylvania and Maine is backlogged almost a year and is on full retirement from a major corporation and is still financially modest enough he sometimes travels with me to Maine shoots. And the third was also a very successful smith that did mostly rimfire in the end but he was young had a family and a regular job with a fire department and real benefits came along and the money was pretty decent so he felt it necessary mostly for the benefits to become a paid fireman. None of the Smiths had a motorhome or large homes and all were very successful at least their reputations were excellent.
However in these times when jobs are few and far between it might be a viable option if you can go a couple years minimum before making a profit. As to making a "Good Living" probably make more like an average living and not right away.
 
Ben,

I saw the same thing at Ohio Gun Collectors this past weekend - prices haven't dropped for many a year, but I finally saw some softening this show.

About gunsmithing for a living - it is a hard business. I have done work in my own shop and have worked for other large gunsmithing firms in their establishments, but only part time. I could do this because I "retired" early after earning a six figure income in the international sales and marketing arena for many years. That income paid for my tooling. People always ask about how to become a gunsmith, and my response is "it is a calling", like becoming a preacher. If you have to ask about how to become a gunsmith when you are over 15 years old, it is probably too late to ever become a serious practicioner. The truth is that if you have the skills to do the gunsmithing work well, you already can make 2-3 times that much money in manufacturing. I worked in an engineering environment, studied gunsmithing books, bought machine tools, worked on my own projects and my friends projects for years and years - part time and for little pay. I got to be fairly advanced at some aspects of the trade and also have over five years of "retail" gunsmithing experience behind me as well. The amount of knowledge required is not learned in a few years at a trade school, although that might make you a reasonable parts changer. I'm sure everyone is a little different and some have greater aptitude than others, but the trade is not lucrative to any but the highest talents. It has to do a little bit with the value of the goods we work on - if we worked on $60,000 Mercedes, we could charge $100 an hour and not blush, but we work on $100-3000 pieces (mainly) and we can't charge the same money. It's a shame...

Scott
 
my view

I have owned my gunsmithing business for 2 years now and as some have said it is difficult at times. If you begin in this business building a name is going to be the thing that is the most difficult and I am still working at it. I am doing OK so far but I am doing it by not having a car payment the house is payed for and only bills are electricity and insurance mostly. Also I am single and never had kids which keeps expenses low. I spend every bit of the profit putting it back into the business and to be completely honest if I owed on anything I would have been hurting by now and looking for suplimental income. It is a very hard business to get started and get a name built up but you must keep pushing on or you will never make it. I know I got started in benchrest because I saw that is where all the information was on super accurate guns. I love my job, I know I will never be rich, and if I can keep doing this I will, but if a time comes where I am not making enough to get by it will become a part time business. I truly understand the 8 weeks out being a problem on a barrel etc. and I do not have a wait time like that personally but I practicaly live in the shop. Most guys have a family and a life, but right now gunsmithing and benchrest shooting is mine. I do not want anyone thinking I am advertising just saying it is difficult and the pay really is not very good compaired to other jobs that you can do. Next time you take your gun in remember this guy is making very little profit doing this and does it because he loves it and loves the people he meets. I am proud to say I have meet the best people ever in the last 2 years of doing this and hope that trend continues. You guys are awesome and thanks for shareing your knowlege with someone who is just tring to serve you in the best way I can. See you at the range.
Brandon Johnson
 
shevelin said:
Ben,

I saw the same thing at Ohio Gun Collectors this past weekend - prices haven't dropped for many a year, but I finally saw some softening this show.

About gunsmithing for a living - it is a hard business. I have done work in my own shop and have worked for other large gunsmithing firms in their establishments, but only part time. I could do this because I "retired" early after earning a six figure income in the international sales and marketing arena for many years. That income paid for my tooling. People always ask about how to become a gunsmith, and my response is "it is a calling", like becoming a preacher. If you have to ask about how to become a gunsmith when you are over 15 years old, it is probably too late to ever become a serious practicioner. The truth is that if you have the skills to do the gunsmithing work well, you already can make 2-3 times that much money in manufacturing. I worked in an engineering environment, studied gunsmithing books, bought machine tools, worked on my own projects and my friends projects for years and years - part time and for little pay. I got to be fairly advanced at some aspects of the trade and also have over five years of "retail" gunsmithing experience behind me as well. The amount of knowledge required is not learned in a few years at a trade school, although that might make you a reasonable parts changer. I'm sure everyone is a little different and some have greater aptitude than others, but the trade is not lucrative to any but the highest talents. It has to do a little bit with the value of the goods we work on - if we worked on $60,000 Mercedes, we could charge $100 an hour and not blush, but we work on $100-3000 pieces (mainly) and we can't charge the same money. It's a shame...

Scott
Click to expand...

Good post Scott...and it hits home. I think I was about 15 when I made my first blackpowder cannon on a belt drive lathe at the farm. I didn't know how to sharpen a toolbit, but I picked up a book and figured it out.
 
What a depressing thread :) Seems most smiths are either completely backlogged, not worth using or about to get up and walk away with all their downpayment $. Having always lived in "coprorate world", small business intrigues me. Upon passing a small store, I often wonder "how many $x items do they have to sell each day to pay for rent, staff, materials, insurance, power, maintenance, marketing, etc...and then have any left to keep as the owner. Numbers just don't add up to me.

Guess my old barrels will have to suffice longer.

Kenn
 
BD,
They're a lot of good smiths out there. Some aren't worth using and probably a very few walk off with your money. You will find some very good honest smiths in this state of Texas. Yes, the good ones are behind. You just deal with it or buy your own equipment and do your own work. BR shooters know that the barrel makers are 4-6 months behind. We just don't wait until the season starts to do our barrel ordering. Order your barrels now for next year. Make arrangements to ship your rifle to coincide with your barrel arriving and you are good to go. Of course this applies to hunting rifles also. Most gunsmiths are behind because they are waiting on components. Have all your stuff together and they can turn it quick.

Hang in there Brandon, you're one of the goodguys.
Butch
 
Just read through this thread .... I've got a question ..... how many "quality" rifles can a good smith produce in a year? I guess by quality I mean a rifle that the smith was meticulous enough during the building to make sure everything he/she did was as good as he/she could deliver? And spent enough time shooting/testing to verify that it "could shoot"

Forgot to specify ..... benchrest quality rifles .....
 
Fred Nickel said:
And spent enough time shooting/testing to verify that it "could shoot"

Forgot to specify ..... benchrest quality rifles .....
Click to expand...

Very few BR rifles are tested by the Gunsmith's that build them. A Gunsmith does the best job he can then turns the rifle over to the customer who then finds out if the barrel and other components are good.
 
If I didn't do my own, I still wouldn't want to have somebody put rounds down my barrel. I don't think a smith could spend enough range time and supplies without charging $200+. Most people that spend money with a smith are wanting to do their own tuning and evaluation.
A smith could do a great job tuning a rifle, but nobody would pay them for it.
Butch
 
Every year at income tax time, I wonder why I'm still doing it, then I get a call from someone telling me how his rifle is shooting and it makes my day.
 
AZLarry said:
I think the best way to slide into any new profession is to start small.

Example: Instead of going out and buying a lathe, buy a nice set of wood chisels, drill press and etc. to inlet and pillar bed gun stocks for a year or two. Take machining classes at local community college. Take the one week NRA rebarrel class at Trinidad.

After awhile convert your garage into a small workshop, get a local business license, get a FFL. Have the wife to the paperwork....hopefully!

Contact local gun shops and pass out business cards detailing your expertise. Go shoot at matches, meet people that need work done, advertise on benchrest.com

Just my opinion but it seems most of the best gunsmiths specialize. Like doctors, pick one thing you are good at and like to do. Maybe do machining (rebarrels, action work) only, engraving or custom stock work.

I'm a full time machinist and stand on my feet all day long. It does not get any easier with age....
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Pretty close to what i did.

40 years ago i started out as a professional photographer. made a good living for 20 years. the market changed dramaticaly in the 90's and i got into computer programming. i have been doing that for 20 years now, and make an excellent living.

10 years ago i started building a small gunsmithing business, more or less just to build custom guns for myself. i joined a private gun club with over 500 members. About 5 years ago i started competing with the guns i had built. people started to take notice of my work and now i have more business than i can handle.

while i don't build BR rifles per se (most of my work is handguns), people are starting to take notice of my rifle work.

the nice thing about gun people is that they always seem to have money to spend on guns regardless of the economy. while that might change in the future, it's fine for now. all my tooling is fully paid for.
 
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