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I just do not get it

dtucker said:
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.
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You are spot on, a friend and I were disscussing that last night.
 
I completely understand spending good money on a build, lordy lordy I am 1 of them. I have always looked at what all the parts are going to cost and factor in the labor. I am not bashing Remington actions but when I see these prices I stated on a Remington action and tuned factory trigger it really makes me giggle a bit. Yes I have seen and had Remingtons trued up and shoot with the best of them. In the end it is still a Remington and will never be a quality custom clone nor bring the resale a custom will. And a factory tuned trigger on a 5000.00 to 6000.00 dollar custom tactical or hunting rifle which I see many times just makes me giggle even harder. Hell.......just thinking of it kinda wants me to break out a glass of ice and put a little Crown Royal in it.
 
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It’s a free market, most of the builders charge less than what the OP quoted. If you guys don’t like it, vote with your wallet. Personally, I think riflesmiths have to eat and they never have a guaranteed steady income, so what some of them charge doesn’t bother me enough to complain about it.
 
I would say a fully tricked out Remington 700, with a really good after market trigger and nice stock should be about 2.5k. I wouldn’t spend anything passed that. My buddy dropped 8k into his custom rifle. Parts were 5k and then 3k in work....:confused::eek:
 
300_whisper said:
I would say a fully tricked out Remington 700, with a really good after market trigger and nice stock should be about 2.5k. I wouldn’t spend anything passed that. My buddy dropped 8k into his custom rifle. Parts were 5k and then 3k in work....:confused::eek:
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Consider this:The 2nd most expensive gun I ever bought was a little over $3k and I bought it here, used. The package included:
Borden Rimrock BR action
Terry Leonard Redwood stock
1-6ppc barrel, used (Bartlien)
1-6ppc barrel, new unshot (Hart)
Luepold 45 power Comp scope
Dies and brass
It's the most accurate gun I own and that's with the used barrel.
 
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scubohuntr said:
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.
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come on now. NO custom LR rifle takes "hundreds of hours". Well wait, unless the gunsmith is an incompetant fool and starts over 10 times.

You are taking a custom action which should be true and chambering and crowning a barrel.

We all know who he was referring to and they are bedding it to a fiberglass stock. Mill the stock for bottom metal/trigger guard and action IF the maker did not already to that . Drill for sling swivels. My bet is already shipped to them milled and sling swivels installed and pillar bedded.

Pillar/glass bed

assemble, and adjust the trigger.

Mount the scope base rings and scope.

You have less than $2500 in the rifle in parts and another $1800 for the scope and at most a $1000 in labor. Dies, bullets and brass another $300

ONLY way you have hundreds of hours is IF you have specially hand filed/milled and contoured barrels and actions, massive engraving and high dollar wood stocks with 20 coats of finish and that is not the subject of the discussion.
 
BountyHunter said:
come on now. NO custom LR rifle takes "hundreds of hours". Well wait, unless the gunsmith is an incompetant fool and starts over 10 times.

You are taking a custom action which should be true and chambering and crowning a barrel.

We all know who he was referring to and they are bedding it to a fiberglass stock. Mill the stock for bottom metal/trigger guard and action IF the maker did not already to that . Drill for sling swivels. My bet is already shipped to them milled and sling swivels installed and pillar bedded.

Pillar/glass bed

assemble, and adjust the trigger.

Mount the scope base rings and scope.

You have less than $2500 in the rifle in parts and another $1800 for the scope and at most a $1000 in labor. Dies, bullets and brass another $300

ONLY way you have hundreds of hours is IF you have specially hand filed/milled and contoured barrels and actions, massive engraving and high dollar wood stocks with 20 coats of finish and that is not the subject of the discussion.
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That’s a good point. My smith said that if he has all the parts, no distractions (retired, family, grandkids) he said he can knock a build in about 7 days. That’s with drying times with bedding and paint taken into account. His turn around time right now waiting on parts and his work load has been 3 months. His going rate for a full Remington build is roughly $1100.
 
BountyHunter said:
come on now. NO custom LR rifle takes "hundreds of hours". Well wait, unless the gunsmith is an incompetant fool and starts over 10 times.

You are taking a custom action which should be true and chambering and crowning a barrel.

We all know who he was referring to and they are bedding it to a fiberglass stock. Mill the stock for bottom metal/trigger guard and action IF the maker did not already to that . Drill for sling swivels. My bet is already shipped to them milled and sling swivels installed and pillar bedded.

Pillar/glass bed

assemble, and adjust the trigger.

Mount the scope base rings and scope.

You have less than $2500 in the rifle in parts and another $1800 for the scope and at most a $1000 in labor. Dies, bullets and brass another $300

ONLY way you have hundreds of hours is IF you have specially hand filed/milled and contoured barrels and actions, massive engraving and high dollar wood stocks with 20 coats of finish and that is not the subject of the discussion.
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My bad, I guess I have a different definition of "custom". Of course, the original complaint was a $6K rifle, and your JiffyLube quasi-custom example is $5600, so 6K apparently isn't out of line at all.
 
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scubohuntr said:
My bad, I guess I have a different definition of "custom". Of course, the original complaint was a $6K rifle, and your JiffyLube quasi-custom example is $5600, so 6K apparently isn't out of line at all.
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$6k for just a Remington action "custom" is highway robbery! My example had $1800 for scope which is not part of the $6k. It is part of the $11k package
 
Wow! How did I miss that one? Good deal, there. People may hesitate because of his low post count and he's new. Hmmmmm. I only have 2 6.5-47s. Hmmmm...........but yeah. Every once in a while, a gun like that gets sold here. Patience is a virtue! $3000 with a good scope, great dies and new brass. That's around $2100 for the gun and it's not even used.
 
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Ok I'll buy it, spray my pixie dust on it and sell it to you for only 7. I'll throw in 5 of my custom made stocks, too.:eek::eek::eek::eek: I get to do "load development " tho. I never know how many hundreds of rounds that'll take.:rolleyes::D
 
With some of my factory Tikkas shooting exceptionally well I wonder sometimes about the worth of a custom. The thing is that with a well built and tuned custom is the confidence you have in it to deliver results.

Very hard to put a price on that...
 
jimmymac said:
That's interesting. The only reason I've gone custom is to be more accurate. For years, I knew I was shooting to my various rifles capabilities and not the other way around. In my quest for ever smaller groups, I got tired of the gun being the limiting factor, so I took the plunge on a custom and haven't looked back. Of course, I'm not talking about a deer gun here.
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I totally get jimmymac, there have been times that I have considered getting one built but have never really pulled the trigger on one, money is not the issue, heck I drop more money in Vegas on one night that easily exceeds the cost of a custom built. I guess my shooting is not as serious as the majority of shooters here are, I just like it to go bang.
 
ms6852 said:
I totally get jimmymac, there have been times that I have considered getting one built but have never really pulled the trigger on one, money is not the issue, heck I drop more money in Vegas on one night that easily exceeds the cost of a custom built. I guess my shooting is not as serious as the majority of shooters here are, I just like it to go bang.
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Looks like you need to move to Vegas.
 
magic mike said:
View attachment 1035780

This was the most expensive guitar I ever built . Totally hand made from raw materials. It is hollow and weighed 5-1/2 pounds. Took me two months to build it and it sold at retail for $4,000. Made a less visually impressive one for Eric Clapton and it sold at auction a few years ago for $14,500. Ya just never know what people will pay for something. It's up to the individual to educate themselves so they don't over-pay or get snookered. What ever's fair..............in the eye of the buyer.
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Looks a lot like a PRS.. We have made a few from scratch geetars.. Never sold any to Slow Hand though. I do have a 1950's Gibson 125 that was my dad's, and a Fender Strat from 62. What is the luthier's name may I ask?
 
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