urbanrifleman
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Whoa, Mr. Hostility, maybe you should play well with others. Dang.
The business side of gunsmithing
- Thread starter VA_XTC_Shooter
- Start date
Whoa, Mr. Hostility, maybe you should play well with others. Dang.
urbanrifleman
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My one piece of advice would be to not spend any money. Probably best you not have a shop at all. You really don't need to make that much money if you're not spending money. Nothing sucks up money like brick and mortar.
My advice, DO NOT EXPECT IT TO PAY YOU for at least 2 years . It’s not a wise , profitable, or easy business. Too many laws , federal , state and possibly local .
Very expensive tooling , insurance, and security. Liability insurance , even if you’re incorporated, enough to cover you and your families assets.
Remember, your work is your selling point . Be unique if possible, find a niche. Don’t expect to be good at everything. Federal licensing is required.
Sorry for being such a downer, but most forget the large requirements of starting a gun business.
BE A PLUMBER !!!!!
Very expensive tooling , insurance, and security. Liability insurance , even if you’re incorporated, enough to cover you and your families assets.
Remember, your work is your selling point . Be unique if possible, find a niche. Don’t expect to be good at everything. Federal licensing is required.
Sorry for being such a downer, but most forget the large requirements of starting a gun business.
BE A PLUMBER !!!!!
This is very true, to a point. Metal working shops stink, wood working makes dust and stinks, cleaning guns stinks, you, and for sure your wife, don't want that as your house experience. You also might not want customers in your house.
You will need tools and gages, remember when you are doing it and getting paid, you can't hack your way through a project. Your end project needs to look like a professional did it. Customers showing off their new toy will either get you new customers or doom you to failure.
DShortt
Gold $$ Contributor
Pointing out the obvious is all. I noticed you tend to do the same quite often.
shortgrass
Silver $$ Contributor
IF you can get those jobs! You need that reputation for excellence in that field to get that work. And, it'll take some time to develop that needed reputation. You'd best be well versed and real good at several other basic gunsmith tasks to fall back on, to fill in those hours when there is no chambering to be done. Very few can make a "go" of it just doing barrel work and 'building custom rifles', especially just starting out.. As for the paperwork/business end, do the required paperwork in a timely manner (ATF and IRS paperwork) , don't buy what you don't have work for (when it comes to tools and tooling) or have a market for (that sells). And, like Walt pointed out, you can't hack your way through.
My question is, if y’all won’t inlet a stock than how will a rifle get built ?
Ccrider
Gold $$ Contributor
Inletting stocks = Niche.
Do it. Do it well. Figure out how to do it cost effectively. You make money.
Maybe learn how to bed as well as a related service. Workout an exclusive deal with Bc to finish all of your customers’ stocks.
Perfect these things and do them only. You may make a decent living.
Or, go and get your heating and cooling certification and start your own business.
Do it. Do it well. Figure out how to do it cost effectively. You make money.
Maybe learn how to bed as well as a related service. Workout an exclusive deal with Bc to finish all of your customers’ stocks.
Perfect these things and do them only. You may make a decent living.
Or, go and get your heating and cooling certification and start your own business.
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butchlambert
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Well, he is telling the truth.
Andrew you nailed it, from my stand point anyway.
Thank you
I'm working my niche, and working on the gunsmiths.
They can chamber and do action work and let me concentrate on finishing.
We all make more money working together!
A lot of a gunsmiths work is under paid.
Powder has doubled, primers have tripled.....
Yet inlets, pillars, bedding, chambers, and finishing has all but stayed stagnant in pricing.
urbanrifleman
Site $$ Sponsor
My point was that I see guys on here who do it for a hobby and spend more money on equipment than I have ever spent, and I do it for a living. Heck there's a few guys on here that look like they have $100,000 worth of tools and machines in their garage or home shop.
I was speaking to a rep who knows some of the other people that do what I do and he was telling me that they have sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of CNC equipment and huge shops. I have no idea how these people are making it spending that kind of money on gear. The payback in this business would be 100 years.
That was my point.
I bought my lathe from a gunsmith and he works out of a shop next to his house, he doesn't have a sign and only has a few basic machines. He also has a 6-month backlog to do builds. Apparently every law enforcement officer in his area knows who he is. They keep him well backed up.
urbanrifleman
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Shillen and Criterion haven't changed their barrel pricing in 20 years.
urbanrifleman
Site $$ Sponsor
Did anyone see the shop that Eric cortina built that he put on his YouTube videos? That shop he built had to have cost $250,000? He probably has $100,000 in machines, maybe even twice that. And his business is making a muzzle brake? I mean, how does that make sense? It must have been some kind of write off or something for his other business. But if you were setting out to make muzzle brakes there's no way you could spend that kind of money you could never justify it.
There seems to be a lot of that in the home gunsmith business thing. It's difficult to make a living because there's so many people doing it as a hobby and supplementing it from there high paying job that they actually support themselves with, and they do gunsmithing and chambering for fun and keep the market artificially low. Or many of the guys are drawing a huge retirement so they really don't need the money.
There seems to be a lot of that in the home gunsmith business thing. It's difficult to make a living because there's so many people doing it as a hobby and supplementing it from there high paying job that they actually support themselves with, and they do gunsmithing and chambering for fun and keep the market artificially low. Or many of the guys are drawing a huge retirement so they really don't need the money.
jelenko
Gold $$ Contributor
So, how much did all the equipment in the shop cost to enable you to do the barrel finishing. How much is that amortized over the total number of barrels? What are the on going, recurring costs to keep the shop open? How much should be put aside to repair and replace the equipment?
What's left for the gunsmith to live on?
butchlambert
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Not true. Shilen had a price increase about 10 years ago and last year also.I know a few smiths that have CNC equipment that do very well.
jelenko
Gold $$ Contributor
Shilen increased their barrel blank prices ~ 20% last year.
Before they did, they were a really good deal price wise.
butchlambert
Site $$ Sponsor
Sir, $100,000 in equipment and tooling ain't a ton of money. We all have unique circumstances. I know a few smiths that do very well. They have a unique niche and do not repair $300 rifles.
urbanrifleman
Site $$ Sponsor
Ten years huh? What was it 20 bucks?
I never said there weren't smiths who had CNC equipment.
I have no idea how that business is ever going to repay any of that stuff. There's not enough revenue in it.
Let us just say that a CNC machine cost $50,000 And that would be a pretty cheap one. How many chamber jobs would you have to do to pay that back? 300? That is a lot of chamber jobs. I just don't see the throughput ever paying for these machines. If you were to actually go buy them like the other industries do.
urbanrifleman
Site $$ Sponsor
I can go back and threads on this forum that are 15 years old where people are quoting prefit prices from Shilen that are nearly exactly the same as they are today. We can nitpick over how small of a percentage it has been.
In 2002 I bought a loaded pickup truck in Texas. It was a quad cab lone Star. I paid $22,000 for it. You try to go buy that truck right now it's probably $60,000. At least.
His main business is as a general contractor
A lot of his machine/tooling investment was initially for doing his own rifle work, it’s nice he’s expanded to brakes, tuners and dies.
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