Guys,

I am very seriously considering the purchase of a CZ 550 Safari Magnum in 416 Rigby.

It will need to go to the shop for bedding and cross bolting to be sure the stock wont give up at some point.

What is the range of reasonable shop charges for such services on a brand new gun?

thanks,

If you have a Brownell's catalog, they have a suggested price list for gunsmiths somewhere in their catalog. I don't have a current one, but last time I looked at it the figure was $45-60 per hour for shop work.
I would expect your job to cost between $60-100 depending on your smith and where your located.

You can do this yourself for about $20.

mstarling,
I just took a look at your web site and was very impressed, you do wonderful work.

Most gunsmiths tend to undercharge for their hourly shop time. I have worked in the engineering field for most of my life and once in management I had to figure those rates. There are a lot of things a person doesn't even think about that comes into the calculations. But basically a multiplier is derived and it comes down to the amount of productive time in hours available in a year divided into the cost of a reasonable salary and all the other costs that go into mainaining the shop. That mulitiplier then inflates the hourly rate so that the smith can not only make a living but pay for those costs incurred in doing the work. The thing that gets most people is when you factor in vacation time. They object to paying for you time off. But in reality you do or at least a small percentage of it. Yu will also pay for those items that are normal, electricity, heat, equipment amortization, clean up time, equipment maintenance time etc. You will also pay for those times the smith is advertising his work at trade shows. Of course when you get a gun bedded you might on pay for a very small portion of it. The same thing happens when you get work done on your auto. If that shop does not make a profit it goesout of business.

Sorry, I know this response didnt answer your question but I thought it might be worth talking about it.

BTW, the multipliers usually run around 3.0 +/- but if the smith wants to do more of his own work cleaning up and sharpening tools it will go up from there and his billable hours will go down.

[ 03-12-2003, 21:32: Message edited by: Customstox ]

Sure appreciate the kind words on the knives ... for those interested the website is at knife web site

I do understand about the calculation of costs to include vacation, sick leave, days off, etc. If one has standard complement of days off + a months vacation + 5 sick days a year ... the remaining 1700 or so hours have to cover those costs.

I am not trying to "get a bead" on someone I think is charging too much. I really don't know how long these operations take and don't know what a good smith is aiming at for an hourly charge. Actually was trying to get a ball pack so I could generate a budgetary estimate for the acquisition of a rifle.

Have more time than money right now ... good work cost what it costs ... some things may have to be delayed depending on what they cost.

thanks!