I just do not get it

[LA50SHOOTER]

Guys and gals,
I am not one to complain or get involved in disputes on the forums I belong to. I am 53 and I will be honest, I have had a pickup truck load of all types of fire arms over the years. I am not a collector nor have safes full of guns. It is the only hobby I have had that I truly enjoy and never get tired of after all these years. As far as any rifle I have had it has been a custom or had a make over. I stopped building off Remington action many many years ago and went to the custom actions for any type of build I was having done.

I know that over the years the prices have increased on labor and parts. Hey, it is life and everything works that way. Their are more quality fire arm parts, reloading equiptment, bullets ect than ever before to choose from. Right now if you have the money in your pocket for a custom build it is decisions, decisions, decisions because their is so much to choose from.

This leads me to my post. I have had builds from 98 percent of your top builders at one time. I am not here to call any one out nor bad mouth any companies. They build accurate quality stuff. This comes to my question. How in the dickens on a Remington action custom build using McMillan stock, custom BDL bottom metal, factory trigger, custom barrel ect cost 5000.00 plus dollars to build. Yea, no names but I see people pay 6000.00 for a Remington action based custom rifle. I am sorry, but when you have a total of 2000.00 and less in parts and 3000.00 to 4000.00 in labor, well, I just think the screw is backed out quite a bit to pay that kind of money. Has it just come down to greed? Their are so many great smiths out their today to choose from. I will start hanging onto the things I have because if these type prices start to become the norm my days of having anything built are over.

There's an Old W.C. Fields saying that is very true and I believe we (most of us) know how it goes...........
I've spent my fair share of money on guns over the years & I believe in quality, But I won't tolerate foolishness or bankroll someone's greed.

 

[dtucker]

This thread could only get better if company names were mentioned, lot of BS out there today, I think way more in the tactical crowd than this crowd. I had a friend trade for a package gun, I tried to help and bought it, under the guise it shot good. Yeah right, 2 weeks later after parting the thing out, I was out 1400 bucks. The clown builders even managed to mill on a Manners mini chassis and bed the stock, the only action that was going to fit back in was a Stiller, 1100 stock sold for 700, barrel with supposedly 50 rds down it hit the trash bin.

This thread has nothing to do about who builds and sells rifles for this amount or turn it into a bash on a company. I have no ax to grind or grudge against people who get these prices for their builds. I do not want to see some one to start naming companys as an example. It is all about, I just do not get it.

 

[Uthink Uknow]

Ho ho ho ho ho
I know a guy north of us that has a few customers who think if a guy is any good, you have to get on a long wait line for his product. So, he takes an order or takes your SHOTGUN to work on and waits better than a year to work on it. It takes all kinds and as soon as you think you've heard everything, there's something new to dazzle and amaze you.

 

[JRS]

This thread has nothing to do about who builds and sells rifles for this amount or turn it into a bash on a company. I do not want to see some one to start naming companys as an example. It is all about, I just do not get it.

It's all about popularity and what one is willing to pay, Dan.

 

[jimmymac]

I have a LV PPC build in the works right now using high end components and being put together by a well known accuracy gunsmith. I won't be anywhere close to the dollar figure floated in the the first post. If I had to pay that, I'd have found someone else to do the work.

 

[urbanrifleman]

Ho ho ho ho ho
So, he takes an order or takes your SHOTGUN to work on and waits better than a year to work on it. .

I wonder if these guys have a massive insurance rider for all these customer guns they are keeping for better than a year, because they use a line of guns, instead of an Excel spreadsheet or even a frigging piece of paper.

The main reason I won't do builds like this, is the wait time that they have to keep your gun even when they are not working on it. It is like some weird tradition among gunsmiths that your gun MUST sit in their shop for some time before they even touch it.

Dude. We have Fedex ground. I can have my action there in two days.

 

[JRS]

Consider this, while you wait for a gun build; A large percentage of our accuracy gunsmiths are a one man shop. True craftsmanship and perfection takes time. The demand for accurate guns continues to grow, and we need to realize these craftsmen have a great deal on their plates. If you are in that big a hurry, purchase your own equipment, tell your family you have no time to spend with them, and get busy building your guns. People want cheap, and they want it right now. That's one of the reasons Walmart is so popular. You pay for cheap, and usually, you get get cheap. If your gunsmith has to purchase and provide the components to build your gun, he/she has to wait the same length of time to acquire those components as you would have to.

 

[nakneker]

Here’s another angle too. I enjoy my custom builds it’s nice to have a rifle chambered and built just the way you want. I also have quite a few factory rifles that shoot really good. Its always fun to take one shooting when I’m shooting with friends who have their customs and one of these factory sticks shoots an itty bitty group too. It has a tendency to twist my buddy’s face when it happens. My Winchester heavy Varmints shoot extremely well, I just picked up a light Barreled Tikka in a Creedmoor for the wife that stacks 140s, a sporter Sako 6ppc repeater shoots as well as any custom I have. So it’s nice to build what you want but accuracy can be found for much less money too. Just sayin.

 

[dtucker]

I have spent count less times good money on a custom build ( no regrets ). To this date the most consistent accurate rifle I have had was I sent a old Remington 700 to Hart and had the action cleaned up and a light varmint contour barrel chambered in a no turn 6br at a length of 21 inches. It was years ago. Jewell trigger and dropped it into a HS precision stock not skim bedded nothing fancy. Off the bench at 100 yards it would always shoot in the low 2,s and high 1,s It is the only rifle I have had that I can honestly say that I shot several 5 shot 1 hole groups in the 0,s That rifle truly amazed me and I had very, very little money in it.

 

[ragsflh]

good add new gun,can not tell where 2nd shot goes,scope,see ants mate at 6 miles away,waiting list,depost 10,000 to get on wait list.bet you will have a bunch of takers

 

[Mark W]

I can understand someone paying top dollar for a readily available package gun that circumvents the waiting and frustration involved in piecing something together with a top shelf smith.

Good, fast, or cheap. Pick two!!

 

[scubohuntr]

Go over to any decent gunsmith's shop, and take an inventory of the equipment you can see standing on the floor. End mill, lathe, grinders, drill press, bluing tanks, torch. Now check out the bench. Vises, dozens of files, hundreds of screwdrivers, punches, scrapers, stones, micrometers, dial indicators, taps, drills, books. You won't even see what's neatly filed away in drawers. Jigs for welding bolt handles, fixtures for doing action jobs on any of several dozen popular handguns, specialized tooling for procedures you've never heard of. None of it is cheap. None of it is unbreakable. All of it wears out eventually.

Of course, if your gunsmith is a rifle specialist, he probably has a bit less tooling, but he didn't get to be a rifle specialist without knowing how to do all the other stuff. Each job he does has to pay its share of the many, many thousands of dollars of tools and equipment in the shop, not to mention the investment in education and experience that got him there. Parts are expensive. Insurance is VERY expensive. He needs Federal, state, and local licenses, all of which have fees. Rent or mortgage on the building. Utilities. Taxes. And he still hasn't paid himself a wage yet. Custom gun work takes a lot of hours. Your $5,000 custom rifle very likely has several hundred hours in it. Do you really want a minimum-wage gunsmith building your custom masterpiece? I don't.

Custom rifles don't pay the bills. Bugatti used to build the fastest car in the world. They sold it for over a million dollars a copy, and lost money on every one. Like a custom rifle, they were built as a labor of love. Bugatti is owned by Volkswagen, and it's Golfs and Jettas that pay the bills. They built Veyrons just because they could, and tried to keep the losses under control by charging what the market would bear. Your local gunsmith keeps the lights on by doing DCOAs on Remington 870s and Savage 110s. Replacing broken firing pins. Troubleshooting old Marlins. The odd recoil pad. Mounting and boresighting scopes. If you paid full shop rate for all the hours in a custom rifle, you'd probably be looking at triple the price. The few custom riflesmiths that do only custom rifles have long, long waiting lists, full of people who really want to pay thousands for a custom rifle.

 

[dtucker]

Not picking a fight here but I do not see a custom hunting rifle build taking hundreds of hours to build. If it takes several weeks to build 1 rifle and that was spending all your time on that 1 rifle I would think he needs to find another profession.

 

[Intheshop]

A bit of levity?Well....not really;

Somebody has to clean the toilet?I don't think it's a dang bit funny but,was running a decent $$ job today and the shop sink was,no bueno.1930'ish? mop sink donated 30 or so years ago.Never cleaned the trap,today it finally gave it up.Stop everything,take it all apart.

Just sayin,and this isn't any sort of excuse for poor biz practices.....there's right much going on "behind the scene" that gets lost on folks not working for themselves.

 

[Texas10]

This thread has nothing to do about who builds and sells rifles for this amount or turn it into a bash on a company. I have no ax to grind or grudge against people who get these prices for their builds. I do not want to see some one to start naming companys as an example. It is all about, I just do not get it.

I think what you are seeing is that there is a fair amount of cash flowing into the economy for the past several years. You might have your own theories as to why the Stock Market has risen to such astronomical heights without frequent sell offs, or why gas prices have been unusually stable since the 2008 crash and bail out. Whatever the reason, its pretty dang unusual, and this is apparently how the economy performs when there isn't any behind the scenes manipulation of the stock market (today's market "correction" notwithstanding) going on.

What with all the hype of shooting 1000 yds (or further) I believe a whole lot of "wanna be's" are willing to drop a ton of coin for a good shooting "1000 yd" gun. And generally speaking, when it comes to buying something you know little about, paying more will usually get you more. You can't pay a Chevy price and expect to get a Ferrari.

I see a big market consolidation underway, mergers, bankruptcies, going out of business sales. In a couple of years, your choices for a custom shoot'n iron will be more limited, and with that, prices higher. Several years ago a local business called Tracking Point tried to market a highly accurate, self guided, long range sniper rifle. It seemed a quantum leap in firearm precision, and looked like it couldn't lose. But today, it's all but gone. Wrong market, or wrong timing?

$11,000 may just seem real cheap in 10 years or so.

 

[carlsbad]

Your post will split responses between Rem fans and Rem haters, and probably get no meaningful answers.

My thoughts are, whether you are building a rem or a custom, the things that take a build to this price level are subtle and seldom discussed. A great smith (not a good smith) can do it with a Rem or a custom. The product at this level, should be perfect. Building a rifle at this level, might be cheaper with quality custom action than it would be with a mass produces action, just because of the hours that would go into making it perfect. --Jerry

 

[Dusty Stevens]

Your action sits in the safe while the builder waits for your pretty stock that may be there in a month or may even take 12mo. If your action isnt there he works on one that is. And when hes waiting on parts for other rifles he may set up and true actions for 2 days. If yours isnt there in the safe guess what? When he goes to cerakote actions he does a dozen and he may be planning on doing that on friday, so if your action isnt there guess what? When all your parts finally comes in and he takes an hour to call you to get your action he chambers the barrel once it gets there but guess what- yours needs cerakoted and hes gonna do a cerakote day next week. If your gunsmith is worth anything hes gonna true all the remingtons in his safe on a truing day while hes waiting on parts. That may be 35-40 actions. Hes not gonna fire up his cerakote stuff to do one action unless thats all he has. Think about this next time your gunsmith giggles at you holding your action hostage cause you just dont want it sitting in his safe gathering dust. If you got a gunsmith that only does one gun at a time and can do your work in a week theres a reason he aint busy. And remember those conversations where you call him once a month for 2 hrs to talk about freebore and new reamers? Guess what he aint gettin paid for that.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

This isnt even counting the boring bar he broke on your bolt face- now hes working for free

 

[Alex Wheeler]

Some of us do it because we love it and take great pride when someone wins a match or sets a record with something you built. Others do it to make money. Both are fine. I know one thing, those guys selling $6k Remingtons are spending a lot of phone time hand holding. In a way I do not envy them. I like my customer base.

 

[msinc]

Welcome to the U.S.A.

Yep, my thought exactly. Here's the thing about anything very high priced...it doesn't really matter what some individual pays for anything. He wants it, it's his way and so he paid for it. That is really his cross to bear and I could care less. Now when it starts to get attention that matters is when there are others willing to pay what he did or more for the same thing. I still could care less either way, but I see it as this; if you buy something way over priced and cannot get your money back then you probably made a mistake. If you bought something way over priced but there are other buyers out there then maybe not so much a mistake. Obviously, if you bought something and sold it for more than you made the right decision. Timex or Rolex...they both just tell time.