Im just about to graduate from high school and I would like to know where I should start. I was thinking of getting a metal machine mill, and maybe a lathe. I have also been looking at those online courses that have gunsmithing as a degree, because all the schools in my area don't have it available (Miami, fl). Anybody else have some ideas on where to start?

trinidad Jr. college in Colorado is a fine place but I'd strongly recommend you find a trade school that specializes in tool and die.....you can do gunsmith work AFTER you become an artist with metals.

In the meantime learn stock finishing and checkering on your own or find someone locally that can show you.....

I got to the shop at 7:00 this morning. I left the shop at about 8:30 this evening, took a shower, and am now answering e-mails and trying to relax for a few minute before I hit the sack. Yesterday was the same thing, and tomorrow will be the same again. Are you sure you want to work on guns?

If you really insist, then the best advice I can give is to always do the very best quality work that you possibly can do, and never be satisfied with it. Do this and you will have all the work you can handle and have the opertunity to work as many hours as you please.

John

My advice to you is wait 30 years or until you have at least $500,000 of capital available.

Then plan on losing all of that within the next 30 or so years and never have time to do your own projects or live life.

Gunsmithing is not something you can make a living off of in this day and age.

Go to colege, get a good job, and do it on the side or in your spare time.
Thats really the best advice I have.

-Spencer

Take some NRA courses in gun smithing. These are cheap and can be taken during the summer in a couple of weeks. You will learn quite a bit and find out if you have the talent for the avocation. You can take these at any of the gunsmithing schools.

All the advice is good and the results will depend on your luck, skill and determentation. If you want to earn a living as a gunsmith, then a school would give you solid credentials and some placement service. If you want to make a living doing something else and do guns as a hobby or part time then the NRA courses are good. I have taken a couple at Trinidad and they were excellent. I plan to take more. There are courses offered in North Carolina and the NRA site has some links. Some of the schools haven't updated for '05 yet. Good luck.

http://www.nrahq.org/education/gunsmithing.asp
http://www.montgomery.cc.nc.us/continuinged/NRABro2005.pdf

And what do you plan to do for a living?

Here are a couple of thoughts-

Follow your dreams, but if you choose to do so you owe it to yourself to bust your ass working to achieve them.

These guys speak from experience, and I know they do not mean to keep you from discovering yourself as a gunsmith. They just know first hand that it is a difficult living to be in at this point in time. I bet they also are forgetting that they had the same dreams as you did, just a longer period of time ago.........

My suggestion is to follow up on schools, a good place to start is get Midways free catalog (800 243-3220) and read up the section they have on gunsmithing schools, then follow up with teh schools.

And also, realize the advice these guys are giving you is very very sound, so keep that in your head too!

Well, I am getting my masters in mechanical engineering, as something to fall back on should this gunsmithing idea fail. But my real passion is guns.

Here is a suggestion if you are interested in gunsmithing. Go to Tinidad and get your basic courses done for that degree in what ever. The first 2 years can be a learning time and fun time if you take the gunsmithing courses as electives. This school is a basic Jr college with several fields to study. Your first 2 years are about the same in most colleges that require certain courses to get a degree. The difference between a trade school and a gunsmithing course at a jr college is that it is up to you to pick the right course plan and get the Associate of Applied Science degree. A trade school offers a basic course in the study of gunsmithing. The Jr college offers the extra courses to transfer to a 4 year college that will be necessary for a path to that Masters degree. Been there and done that!! If you need more info I will be glad to help you. A retired gunsmith and X instructor in the gunsmith schools.

Cracky,
Your masters in mechanical engineering is going to take you five years if you are very good and fast and more likely 6 years. You going to go after the 2 years of gunsmith school then?

I would suggest that you get your mechanical engineering BS degree and start working on guns as a hobby. Your salary will allow you to buy some equipment and supply a starter shop. Then take some NRA Summer gunsmithing classes at a place like Trinidad and learn how to do some things.

I have seen some very gifted and knowledgeable young gunsmiths go out of business. It was not from skill and talent but from lack of work. There is not a host of people waiting for the next Winston Churchill to emerge from school. Once you do graduate from school you will need to find a job with an established firm building their guns. Tough occupation to make a living. Most of the smiths that I do know that have done it all their life full time still enjoy what they do. It is a labor of love.

quote:

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quote by Mark Follow your dreams,

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I used to say the very same thing.....until I discovered that dreams and nightmares are found in the very same place.

Cracky,

I get asked this question about four times a year and I always have the same response. "Get some college under your belt, at the least, an AA degree." Someone once asked Harry Pope, the barrel maker, why his barrels were so much better than everyone elses and one of the reasons he gave was that he he had a college degree. From M.I.T. I believe. It does not have to be a Bachelor degree but get some education beyond high school. If you want to work for yourself, take several business courses and a class or two in economics. If you are going to get a Masters degree even better.

Unlike Chic I know of no gunsmiths that have gone out of business because they had no work. Infact I have never had any of my friends that have started a shop and then closed it complain about not having enough work. Their problem mostly was they did not charge enough for their work and then said that "there was no money in gunsmithing." Gunsmithing on your own is a very diffucult task these days, and takes a lot of effort and hard work.

I should tell you that I am closeing my one man shop this summer. However it is not because I don't have any work it is because I am merging with another company. You will find plenty of people that tell you how hard it is, how much they work, and how little money they make. I don't doubt them for a minute. However you can also find plenty of people that are making a living working on guns. Some of them are working on their own, some for a small company and others for a large company, like Remington. You have to find a system that is a good fit for you. You'll also have to decide who you want to listen to. As for me I always figured I rather surround myself with people that have been succesfull. If you find out that gunsmithing is not for you or working for yourself is not for you, make the change and move on. At least you can say you tried. Life is the longest thing you'll ever do, so take your time and do it right.

Take Care, Michael

When you say gunsmith, do you mean repair, or custom gunamking? Custom work is hard enough to make a go of, but repair today is is much more difficult. The engineering school is the way to go. But unless you have a specific need for an MS, forget it. In real world terms you are looking at 5 years for your BS + 2for the MS. Take it from an ME graduate school veteran, it is of very limited value. An MBA would have been much more valuable, though still not worth it.

If you plan on making custom guns, doing both wood and metal work, you need to figure on at least $50k worth of equipment (it will go to $100k in the end). THen there is a building, power, phone, web pages, insurance, marketing, travel, attorney, accountant, etc, etc, etc, etc. You need to ask yourself if you have the money in hand to actually get started. If you don't, how will you get it?

WHat I always first ask some one when they tell me this is "Can I see your business plan?" After the blank stare appears permanantly frozen to their face, I ask about their experience in managing business at any level. This draws the same response. This is not meant to be mean or negative-just reality. The world does not care if you like guns or not. You have to find a way to make it work on your own. THis is not an easy thing to do, but it can be done.

If they are still wanting to do it, I tell them the only way I would even consider it is if they went and worked or at least observed a full time gunmaker work in his shop. I don't mean for an afternoon or even a week. I mean long term. It does not have to be every day, but at least 4 days a month for at least a year. This is the ONLY way you can see what reality is. It is like what I do for a living. People think it sounds so glamourous. I tell them that the novelty quickly wears off. Gun making does so in spades, as the compensation can be iffy. Oh sure, anyone can say "up your prices", but who will pay the new rates? Spend time with a full time maker who has been doing it for years and learn what it means to do what you are talking about. After doing this, I imagine that you will see part time gun making as a better option, at least for the forseeable future.

You are young and there are just a lot of basic life lessons to learn. Start reading a business book for every gun or hunting book you read. Read a business book for every two gun or hunting magazines you read. Start learning form successful business people in your area. I don't care if they even know what a gun is-it doesn't matter. Business is business. Each has its little idiosyncracies, but basically they are all the same. Understanding this fact is important.

If any of this sounds like too much trouble, time or moeny, you REALLY need to hitch up with a successful business person right now. Especially at your age, a good mentor is worth their wieght in gold. I am a part time hack who was fortunate enough to live 1 1/2 hours from a Guild memebr who took me in. He spent a lot of time teaching me the mechanics of gunmaking, but just as importantly, told me many persoanl experiences with business decisions. ANd I saw a a lot of the business end from ebing in the shop off and on for 2 years. You can only learn this by being there. No way for em to stress this enough.

It is tough as hell to make a go of it gunamking. But hell boy, life is tough. It can be done, but you must have agood plan, good mentor, and a good education. And i don't necessarily mean a college education. I mean business and life education. Good luck. YOu can do it if you want it bad enough. But most people don't want it bad enough.

I was thinking of doing custom guns more for my own self in the beginning, and maybe later doing them for the general public. I know it is hard work but guns are really the greatest passion I have in life. I love to learn tons of things about guns all the time.

What is this trinidad place everyone is talking about?

Thats good that you someday want to join the ranks of the overworked and under paid. Keep doing it for yourself and for a few really good friends and you will always love-it!

Hmmm....I am a hobby machinist, not a professional gunsmith or machinist for hire, so take this for what it's worth. My wife got the grammaw fever four years ago, and we moved 3000 miles to no house and no job, for the first time. I am used to the no house part, the no job part was different. The other end of the deal, after giving up a perfectly good job with nice people to move where her children live, was no more jobs. We eat or starve on freelance money ( not gunsmithing by the way ).

I should have done this fifteen years ago, instead of wondering whether I knew enough, or was good enough, or had enough balls. It's a better life, although it is 60-70 hours most weeks and unusual to get a few days off in a row. I'm ruined as an employee after four years of planning my own time ( and taking lumps when I plan it wrong ). There isn't much money in it yet but I haven't bought a box of Pepto-Bismol since we left.

This is the other question; do you want to work on your own, or do gunsmithing as a sideline? You may find it to your liking to do mechanical engineering as a day job, and work on your own or with a gunsmith in the evenings. You will find an engineering education to be useful in crafting guns, although it might be just a little overkill unless you are planning to design them as well as build them, in which case you will compete with some exceedingly good engineers ( and some who are not so good ). It is my opinion at this point that a young engineer is best off working for an engineering compay to learn the engineering business, rather than working for a manufacturing company and learning what the company wants you to know. I also think that education is for more than getting a job. You will find ways to use whatever education you soak up, whatever you do for a living wage. Over-educated is human-resources talk for " might cost too much and talk back to the managers ". The fellows in Utah used to say, education is expensive except when compared to ignorance.

Good luck.

Well, I was going to do it in the sidelines at first, and do my mech engineering during the day as my real job.

Cracky,
Tinidad is a Junior college in Trinidad Colorado. The gunsmithing school, I believe, was started by P.O. Ackley. I have attended a few summer sessions and they were way more fun than work.

There are also some gunsmithing schools on the east coast and Mark Stratton has taught the NRA program at one or two of those. I will see if I can get you to chime in here. I have been giving you the "Mark Stratton speech" to the gunsmithing career idea. I started it as Marc did as a part time occupation and then went full time. I also have an engineering background to "fall back on".

Trinidad SJC

Yikes, Trinidad is waaaay too far for me. I would go if I wanted to gunsmith fulltime.

Marc_Stokeld,
Did you happen to have Roger Ferrell as your mentor? I was just doing a bit of deductive map quest searches (curiosity was killing me).

No, it was David Christman. I used to live by him, but not now. We still talk on the phone about once every 2 or 3 weeks. He is a firm believer in helping the next generation learn the trade. He spent so much time teaching me gun business facts, as well as the mechanics of everything. And he can do a hell of a job pulling me out of a jamb over the phone too!

Unfortunately, I have had a lot of physical problems in my life. Toby Leeds and Dennis Potter reslly encouraged me to step up in gunmakeing a few years ago. This was within a week of me meeting David, so it all fell into place. Toby has doen a lot to help me as well. I have done some metal work for his personal rfiles, and right now I ahve an action in the shop where I am doing the metal and he is doing the wood for one of his regular customers. His encouragement has really kept me going when it would look like I would be physically unable to do any work with my hands. I actually met you back at the '99 Guild Show. Toby let me stay with him in his room and fed me (things were "tight" back then, to put it mildly!). He did this so all it cost me was a plane ticket. His and Dennis's encouragement to go to Reno was a very good thing for me.

But David is the one who let me make chips in his shop for so many hours. In a lot of ways, he is still the best friend I have. THis latest round of physical probelms has been a bad one,a nd he is always encourageing me to face the next day. THe man is a saint in my book

And When I read your post a couple of weeks ago about you, David, & Jim at Maurice's when you were talking about actions, it really brought a smile to my face that night. ANd I needed it at the time. I have been taking so much medicine that I have a lot of trouble ocmmunicating for the past many months. It has been frustrating becuase I will sometimes read a psot I made the day before, and it either does not make sense, or just as bad, often comes across with a tone that can be kinda harsh. Luckily, I am getting off of the medications and my personality is coming back to normal.

There seems to be some professional gunsmiths actually making a living from the trade responding to this post, so I would like to pose a question loosely related to this thread.

How do you deal with the public, answering the phone, waiting on customers, etc and still have enough time to get your work done?

Lately I've been tied up more than half the normal working day with customers, causing me to work evenings after supper and on week ends. Lots of long hours which causes stress on family relations.

I have a small gun sales front, do most of you do only gunsmithing and no sales?

Do you have hired help to wait on customers while you stay at the bench?

I am considering being closed to the public in the am and open to the public in the pm so I am garunteed of getting at least a half day of productivity in.

Marc, you could have no better mentor and friend than Dave. Always laughed at Ottmar calling him Gator. I need to call him one of these days. Sincerely hope you on the mend.

It can sometimes be a real hassle when gunsmithing jobs start to back up.
I have a real store with a real inventory and that takes up about 1/2 of the day, internet shipping takes up another 2/3, so as you can see, I have roughly -1/6 of my day to do smithing.
But in all seriousness, if you want to be a gunsmith, you cannot make a living on that alone, you really need to have a store that can support you full time.
It may require that you put all your gunsmithing dreams on hold for awhile until you get a customer base and a steady cash flow.
That point is key, because gunsmithing by no means gives you a steady cash flow.
For example, in the past week to two weeks, I've taken in roughly $1500+ in gunsmithing work.
That is killer and almost never happens.
Next week, it wouldn't surprise me if I take in $200 - $250.
So on those weeks, which you will find are many, if I did not have a store and the internet especially, I would quickly be strapped hard for cash. You will find yourself in the same place if you choose to put yourself in that position.

-Spencer

quote:

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Originally posted by Craftsman:

How do you deal with the public, answering the phone, waiting on customers, etc and still have enough time to get your work done?

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Craftsman, I have never had a store front at my shop. All I have ever done is gunsmith full time. I use to have a sign on my building that had my business name on it. I took it down after about two years. All it did was get people driving down the high way, that my shop is on, to stop by and want to LOOK at guns. Then they found out I did not have anything to look at but that I specilized in antique rifles. Then they told me about their grandpa's gun and the great hunt they had with it and........... Gun people like to talk. I am not a puplic speaker and don't get paid to talk.

I have a business plan that I revise every six months. It has all sorts of information in it and a lot that pertains just to me but here is the basic outline of it. I work from 6:30 a.m. until 4:00 in the afternoon. When a job comes in it gets put into one of three catagories. Small jobs, Medium jobs, and Large jobs. Small jobs are things that can be done in three hours. Medium jobs can be done in a day or two days. Large jobs the sky is the limit as to how long they could take. 200 to 300 hours usually. I do not answer the phone untill 9:00 in the morning. From 6:30 untill 9:00 or 9:30 I do a small job. It gives me cash flow right from the start of the day. Then the rest of the day is spent on a large job. Medium jobs are done on Fridays. This also gives me cash flow while I am trying to get a large job done. It is also nice because one of the questions that people always ask me is how long to get it done. I can look up at the list hanging on the wall and count how many jobs and add a few days(for small jobs) or weeks (for medium jobs) for unforseen things and give a pretty good time table. If I have no small jobs then I break down a medium job and try to work it in as best I can. At 3:40 everyday I put my tools down and clean up my shop. Put everything away and sweep the floor. This helps to calm me down if I have had a bad day before I spend time with my family. Does it always work. No, I have screwed up and made life diffucult for myself and family. I also must say that I did not always work from a plan and when that happened I would really have problems getting anything done.

My business plan also includes things about my family. Because I need to make sure that the two do not conflict. I have three growing children and refuse to short them out of time and effort on my part. I try not to come home a grump because I had to do something twice or spent five hours on the phone. I figure that I spend around twenty hours a week on "paper work". That includes phone calls, billing loging in and out guns, Paying bills, ordering, filing, Talking to locals that come in, ect. I try not to work Saturday but I will work a few. Like today. I also will checker at night from 8:00 to 10:00. My kids go to bed at eight which is why I can start then.

A one man shop is extreamly diffucult to opperate this day and age. I am not sure that a two man would be that much better. A three man shop would be great. On person to do all the paper work for the other two who are doing the labor. Or a combination of this like four people in a shop and two in the office.

Hope this helps,

Michael

I run a gunshop and employ three full-time gunsmiths currently and have had up to five in the past. As a gunsmith your chances are limited. For the skill you need to make minimum wage in this business you could make four times the money in other fields. As a gunsmith you do get to play with guns and if that is really important to you then it may be worth it. I recommend you complete at least an AA degree in business management first then attend Colorado school of trades for gunsmithing. This will get you an apprentice position in a shop like mine. You won’t make me money for three or four years as you will be too slow. By then you will know if you really want to pursue this field. A good smith will have well paying jobs available with some of the manufactures but you will have to live in a city and do some production work (not as fun). Once you have some experience behind you and develop “speed†then you have a chance to run a shop. One big problem for one-man shops is the time spent talking to customers. They all want to chat with the gunsmith and you don’t get any work done till after hours. In my shop the customers talk to a counter man that has put years of gunsmithing time in instead of taking up the workers time. They couldn’t get one fourth the work done if they had to talk to every customer who wants to know if we can drill and tap or what twist is best for their pet project. Most of the trade school students end up in other fields and just hobby for their own pleasure. The correspondence courses are a waste of time. The ultimate gunsmith training is at the technical college in Ferlach Austria. They teach old world as well as modern methods. A dedicated student there can go far. It’s like graduating from Yale. The school is taught in German and runs 4-5 years. It’s free but you furnish your own room and board. I’m trying to convince my kids to attend but seem a little daunting to them so far. If I was younger I would want to go myself. Good luck and take care, Marshall Jones- Jones’ Fort

There are three high level gunsmith schools I know of in Europe:

1) Ecole d'armurerie de St. Etienne (France)
2) Ecole d'armurerie de Liege (Belgium)
3) Hohere Technische Bundeslechmanstalt fur Waffentechnik (Ferlach, Austria)

Most require a high school level diploma from a technical school meaning that the students already have a base as machinists. They go on to some heavy studying in building by hand over and unders, side by sides, kipplaufs, etc. Slicking up a Colt 1911, or tuning a Smith&Wesson revolver, are not on the course schedule. Besides, you would need to speak French or German.

As another engineer chiming in I'd say follow the others advice. Get a degree, get a job, and then learn smithing on the side.

The reason many young smiths fail is due to lack of business skills. Business skills is also the reason some shops of mediocre abilities make lots of money.

Here is something to consider on the business side comparing engineering to gunsmithing. If I were to start my own consulting firm, I would have very little overhead, computer and software, and some time spent billing and other admin. I could bill out at 2 to 3 times what a gunsmith charges hourly rates while working in the comfort of my own home.

That's with 7 years experience in a specialty field, one that has paid pretty decently while working for others and learning the field. Not all engineering specialties will have those options, but it has me totally forgetting about starting a smith shop. I could always buy some machines for "r&d" work, and write them off as an expense.

Sorry to get into this thread late, but I just returned from doing the Mule Deer Foundation Convention in Reno this last weekend.

Gunsmithing and custom gun building in a tough business to be in and get started. I started right out of high school going to Trinidad State College and got a AAS degree in gunsmithing. But looking back after 35 years, all I got at Trinidad was a good foundation to build on. General gunsmithing is not a way to make a living. If you're young and in to fast cars and faster women, gunsmithing could be a problem.

To make a living in the industry choose an area of interest and specialize. Learn everything there is to know about the subject. I tell my students that they are going to have to live through the bad years. The bad years are the time you spend learning the craft. You know what good work looks like but your skill level hasn't reached top of the trade yet. If your interested in custom gun work, go to the Guild show each year. The more work you do, the better at the craft you will become. Don't be afraid to make a mistake, but after you do, learn from it.

My first experiance with the guild was in the late 80's. I had been doing a lot of checkering but I hadn't seen a lot of other people's work. I went down to Reno just to look at checkering patterns. I brought a notebook just to sketch what other gunmakers were doing. Each year after I would choose another detail to look at and sketch.

Maybe you need to take some of the NRA's summer classes to find out if this is really something you want to do. I might be a cheap way to find out if you have what it takes. I'm no longer teaching, but the schools at either Trinidad or Montgomery Community colleges have good summer programs.

Good luck..

I would like to be a rock star, photographer, comedian, prophet, or gunsmith.


But society made me an engineer, and I can do gunsmithing at home until the money is gone.

Best advice? Find a rich woman. As my dad once told me "You can marry more in 5 minutes than you can earn in a lifetime"

Jeff

Another engineer chimming in...

Get an education first... in whatever field you want. I say this because its nice to have something to fall back on should your gunsmithing ambitions don't work out.

From what I can see (from several threads on all forums), gunsmithing is a iffy business, you gotta have the customer to support yourself. In other words, your business skills must be top notch to even make a mediocre living as a gunsmith.

I got my BS in EET and completed several MS courses in IT, and I have a fairly good job and buying expensive guns is no problem for me. But currently my job supports my family, a nice house and many things people take for granted. I don't work as an EE, I work in the computer field. However, many people have engineering degrees and work in other fields.

I will tell you this, getting an engineering degree is a tough task, many hours poreing over books and studying for exams, labs and tests. All of these can make you better person in the "real world". I think you would be better investing the first 5 years getting a real degree to enable you to find a well paying job, at the same time working part time on the job and maybe even going to gunsmithing school and do 'smithing on the side until you decide to go full time...if it comes to that.

Good luck in your endeavors!

I was teaching an NRA Summer class on tooling at Montgomery Community College in Troy North Carolina a few years ago and a student asked me what the keys to success were? I told him to marry well, find a girl who had money or a good job. That's what I did.

Also take some business classes and learn what to do with a dollar once you have it. I know a lot of wonderfull craftmen who fail because of their business skills.