thinking of becoming a gunsmith

08 February 2003, 07:43

i am thinking of going to school to become a gunsmith. i am looking for information such as start up costs, what kind of equipment will be required, can i make a decent living, etc.

any information, and suggested websites would be greatly appreciated. thanks

08 February 2003, 07:50

Paul H

Do a search function on this forum for similar threads, as there is lots of good information in those older threads. I'd also set the time frame for back to one year old threads.

The general consensus is, gunsmiths are generally not paid what their services are really worth, and it takes alot of capital to get a shop tooled up.

If you go into a technical or engineering field that pays well, then you can afford to set up a shop, get into smithing part time, and if it is your passion, then jump into it fulltime.

I personally could not handle the stress of having the overhead of a shop and equipment on loan, and trying to make the payments. If you go the latter route, and have a shop that is paid for, and build up a clientel over time, then you don't have the same pressures.

10 February 2003, 04:19

Mingbogo

I wonder how much does a typical gunsmith make a year? Would a salary of 65k a year be too much to ask? I just like the idea of working for myself and I hope to have a chance to do that one-day. Thanks.

[ 02-09-2003, 19:44: Message edited by: Mingo ]

10 February 2003, 04:58

Bill Soverns

I would guess that 65K is about twice what a smith makes a year.

10 February 2003, 05:38

JBMauser

take your question to this forum, A lot of gunsmiths sit there to help home smiths out.
http://www.roderuscustom.tzo.com/cgi-bin/ib3/ikonboard.cgi
Best of luck. JB

10 February 2003, 07:11

Cold Bore

quote:
Originally posted by Bill Soverns:
I would guess that 65K is about twice what a smith makes a year.

Probably a fair bet.

You have a select few, high profile, 'smiths that everyone looks at and says "He's making a killing". For every one of those, you probably have 1000 others plugging away day-to-day, paying the bills, doing something they love, and not much more.

My take on it is that most 'smiths get into it cause they really enjoy what they're doing, not because they expect to retire rich.

11 February 2003, 13:47

Paul H

quote:
Originally posted by Mingo:
I wonder how much does a typical gunsmith make a year? Would a salary of 65k a year be too much to ask? I just like the idea of working for myself and I hope to have a chance to do that one-day. Thanks.

Assuming a one man shop, a smith would have to be a really good business man to pay himself $65k a year. Depends on how one sets up their shop, how much overhead they have, how much their operating exspenses are, and how many hours a day they want to work.

If the smith charged $35/hour, and was able to perform 40 hours a week billable time, have almost no overhead, and then he'd be able to pull it off. The reality is, the smith would have actual billable time of more like 20/hrs a week, and would spend the other time interfacing with customers, ordering parts, making fixtures, and all the other things that don't bring in a nickle, but still have to be done.

Also the typical smith doesn't just build custom guns, he does a fair bit of repair work, and if he charged what it actually took him to perform many repairs, he'd have few customers.

The only shops making good money are not one man shops, and their profits are based on their business skills, not their smithing skills, they are also not general gunsmiths, they specialize in a paticular type of firearm.