Crooked chambers/ uneven lands

[DShortt]

Why the hell do any of you want to be gunsmith's?

Very good question. It's a calling. Best way I can think of to explain it.

 

[DShortt]

Good gunsmiths do what they do because that's what they love to do. They aren't getting rich, famous or enjoying any other form of royalty.

Meanwhile they've got liability and Federal regulations to deal with and lucky to have a comfortable bed to sleep in. Top that off with a customer base that's finicky, hard to please and prone to have a fit if anything takes too long or goes wrong. As I said earlier, I've yet to meet a rich gunsmith.

I looked into this years ago and walked away. It ain't for me. If you're going to go down this road you'd better make sure you know what you're getting into.

 

[DaveTooley]

I started out doing my own work. That led to dead beat friends wanting work done for free. Then their friends showed up and I could charge enough to pay the light bill. All the while working a day job. Absolutely loved it. Shooting every BR match I could get to. Fast forward 15 yeas and I had one employee and made a whapping $100,000 for a couple of years. He was building most of the rifles and I was doing everything else. Talk about a disgruntled employee. I was it. We parted ways while we were still friends. I went back to making $50K. Seems some people are fascinated by numbers. I never made $300K. I did very well the years I did 600 barrels. That was a special set of circumstances and a pace no one can maintain. Ask my wife, I was an ill SOB. During those years relationships were made that continue to this day. I am very very fortunate to a have special group of customers I can truly call friends. That's why I do this. That's why any of us do this.

Edit: I have 120 completed barrels sitting in my shop that the customer won't pay for. Now do the math there.

 

[urbanrifleman]

I started out doing my own work. That led to dead beat friends wanting work done for free. Then their friends showed up and I could charge enough to pay the light bill. All the while working a day job. Absolutely loved it. Shooting every BR match I could get to. Fast forward 15 yeas and I had one employee and made a whapping $100,000 for a couple of years. He was building most of the rifles and I was doing everything else. Talk about a disgruntled employee. I was it. We parted ways while we were still friends. I went back to making $50K. Seems some people are fascinated by numbers. I never made $300K. I did very well the years I did 600 barrels. That was a special set of circumstances and a pace no one can maintain. Ask my wife, I was an ill SOB. During those years relationships were made that continue to this day. I am very very fortunate to a have special group of customers I can truly call friends. That's why I do this. That's why any of us do this.

Edit: I have 120 completed barrels sitting in my shop that the customer won't pay for. Now do the math there.

I was just talking about labor on barrels. Not builds or anything else.

I'm honestly not sure why everyone is reacting so strangely to the discussion of money. I was just doing math based on what was said.

I never brought up costs or overhead. Just the labor charge verses total production throughput. I only did because people keep telling me I need a CNC machine (which I don't).

 

[urbanrifleman]

Not sure why all this stuff seems to have come up lately. But I have just got to say it. You see all these ridiculous numbers on here, then you see the threads complaining about no stocks and long waits and it will only get worse. All this demand and no one to fill it? When there is a lucrative business people step in and fill the void. Dont listen to 99% of the guys posting about what it takes to run a business or what you have to do in a day. They have no clue. I dont think I know a single custom rifle smith that does it full time with no other source of income. No pension, no inheritance, no retirement, wife with a good job, ext.

I wouldn't ever be a custom rifle smith. The "pain in the ass factor" would be enormous.

It's more art than business. But I get why guys do it at the same time. It's art.

 

[urbanrifleman]

I was a mechanical engineer for 25 years. Graduated with a bachelor's degree from OU and was in debt for 20 years afterwards. I had a six sigma black belt and a Textron six sigma green belt. Worked for international truck. I worked for Bell helicopter and to finish my last 10 years in oil and gas making heat exchangers.

I never made a $100k... ever. I certainly never took home a $100k. My take-home was less than $1,000 a week after all the crap was taken out including income tax.

The only company that had a " retirement " was international truck and I'm probably going to have to drag it out of them to get any money from them. All the other companies had 401ks which really hasn't kept its value compared to the triple digit inflation that we're in right now.

I also understand overhead. That's why I don't buy a CNC machine or a $150,000 shop. That's why I've said over and over again that people that have all this equipment and have invested that much haven't ever made a dime. So, it's not a viable business. It's a hobby supported by their J.O.B.

Those statements are not controversial or hostile in any way they are simply business facts and math.

I can make what I made as an engineer and I get to spend my money on myself and build up my business and take it right off the bottom line. But I'm incredibly frugal. And very pragmatic.

 

[AlNyhus]

Seems some people are fascinated by numbers.

Especially other people's numbers, Dave.

Looks like you settled in quickly to your new place. Thought of you the other day as I was using your tool on the pointy end of some bullets. -Al

 

[urbanrifleman]

Here's some numbers for you.

Let's assume 10 barrels a week. That's two a day. At $250 per barrel which is $2,500 per week. 50 weeks in a year not counting holidays, That is $125K per year in labor.

If half of the customers request muzzle threading add another $50k in labor a year for that.

Certainly the potential is there to make actual money.

 

[Alex Wheeler]

The potential is there in all businesses. But looking at it like that is what gets people mislead. When I was a mechanic I could do a lower intake gasket on a 3.4 in an hour. It paid 6. All I would have needed was 5 a day, and I would have made almost 200k a year. Instead I made 50k. If all you do is the gravy in any business they all look great. But thats not how it goes for most of us.

I think you should pursue your passion, if thats gunsmithing than do it. But the stuff I read is just so misleading and I think its unfair to the new guy thinking about doing this.

 

[Ranger188]

@DaveTooley,
Edit: I have 120 completed barrels sitting in my shop that the customer won't pay for. Now do the math there.
Give them 30 days to pay up or you'll sell them here.
I'm sure you would move a bunch of them.

 

[LVLAaron]

@DaveTooley,
Edit: I have 120 completed barrels sitting in my shop that the customer won't pay for. Now do the math there.
Give them 30 days to pay up or you'll sell them here.
I'm sure you would move a bunch of them.

If they're part of government (sub)contracts it's not that easy.

 

[Dimner]

I wouldn't ever be a custom rifle smith. The "pain in the ass factor" would be enormous.

It's more art than business. But I get why guys do it at the same time. It's art.

I think for some people there is a sense of accomplishment that I can totally get behind. They make a rifle and it wins, that's gotta be a great feeling. They make 10 rifles, and 3 win, even better feeling. That sense of pushing the envelope, and pushing it more.... I see that being more fulfilling than shooting BR competition. Just me personally.

I know that isn't the only thing that drives people make customs, but man, it's gotta be a huge perk.

 

[urbanrifleman]

I think for some people there is a sense of accomplishment that I can totally get behind. They make a rifle and it wins, that's gotta be a great feeling. They make 10 rifles, and 3 win, even better feeling. That sense of pushing the envelope, and pushing it more.... I see that being more fulfilling than shooting BR competition. Just me personally.

I know that isn't the only thing that drives people make customs, but man, it's gotta be a huge perk.

I get that feeling when someone puts on one of my barrels and shoots a half inch group at 300 yards and texts it to me.

 

[LVLAaron]

I think for some people there is a sense of accomplishment that I can totally get behind. They make a rifle and it wins, that's gotta be a great feeling. They make 10 rifles, and 3 win, even better feeling. That sense of pushing the envelope, and pushing it more.... I see that being more fulfilling than shooting BR competition. Just me personally.

I know that isn't the only thing that drives people make customs, but man, it's gotta be a huge perk.

Same here. I enjoy building them more than I do shooting them. It's probably because I can work in the comfort of my own shop vs. trips to the range and getting up early for competitions.

 

[Dimner]

I know we got sucked down a rabbit hole in this thread... but it's timely for me.

In the next few years, I'm planning on taking a machinist classes at my local community college. I have always wanted to work a metal working lathe and also a mill ever since I made that brass chess piece on my visit to Greenfield Village/Henry Ford museum when I was an early teen.

I would love to eventually own my own lathe and mill and do all kinds of little projects that I wish I had the money to pay a craftsman for (custom sights, chambering, bolt work, etc). Projects both within the shooting hobby and out. I know this is a wide open question, but what courses do you all think would help?

 

[DShortt]

I know we got sucked down a rabbit hole in this thread... but it's timely for me.

In the next few years, I'm planning on taking a machinist classes at my local community college. I have always wanted to work a metal working lathe and also a mill ever since I made that brass chess piece on my visit to Greenfield Village/Henry Ford museum when I was an early teen.

I would love to eventually own my own lathe and mill and do all kinds of little projects that I wish I had the money to pay a craftsman for (custom sights, chambering, bolt work, etc). Projects both within the shooting hobby and out. I know this is a wide open question, but what courses do you all think would help?

If you have no or next to no experience then start with the very basics. If you have never been introduced to mechanical drawings a mechanical drawing class will be very beneficial. If you're going to be gunsmithing you'll definitely need to be able to understand chamber drawings and reamer prints. You'll need to be very proficient and accurate using all types of precision measuring tools. Also, you will need to use basic hand tools extremely well. A machinist once told me power equipment doesn't automatically make you any better. It just allows you to screw things up a whole lot faster.

 

[urbanrifleman]

I do also.

I've spent my life investing in tools. Some small some large. They all had the purpose of either making me money or making my job easier. I've done 24+ chambers in a day. A long day. There is always add work on most of the barrels I do. That means saving time to do that part of the job. My work load changed when I was asked by a manufacture to do all their barrel work in North America. That required moving to a Haas TL-1. I would still be doing it on a manual machine if not for that.

I'm doing 6 barrels now. The pic is 2 minutes 58 seconds of run time. I have to hold tolerances that are in the +- .002 range. You couldn't work to those tolerances and get the same finish on a manual machine. But that's the work I do and the results trickle down to the one off barrels.
Lots of very good smiths out there.
YMMV


View attachment 1459549

I was talking to my buddy on the phone while I did this. I told him to put a stopwatch on me. It took me 2 minutes to prep the tenon. It took 3 minutes to thread it.

 

[DShortt]

And how long did it take to set it up? I presume you didn't toss it in a 3-jaw chuck and just let 'er rip?

 

[DShortt]

Well, maybe you did......

 

[urbanrifleman]

And how long did it take to set it up? I presume you didn't toss it in a 3-jaw chuck and just let 'er rip?

But that setup wouldn't make any difference anyway because if you had it on a CNC you would still have to indicate it in That's not what I was talking about.

Even if you buy that fancy CNC machine it's not going to save you the cycle time of indicating it in if that's the way you like to cut chambers.

But I figure you already knew that.