On-line or other gunsmithing school

[Scarface26]

Gents,

To all the pros out there, please don't be insulted by my question. I'd like to work on my own guns and before I made too many mistakes wanted to get some education. I'm 45, married to a great wife, and have two grown kids and two under three - so on line or correspondence is the only way for me to pursue this "hobby."

I appreciate any recommendations on on-line or correspondence courses. You-tube videos the way to go? Like I said before, I'm only wanting to work on MY stuff, not start a second career.

Thanks in advance and God bless America,

Scarface 26

 

[ab_bentley]

http://forum.accurateshooter.com/threads/thinking-of-starting-a-gunsmithing-career.3905314/

School, online or otherwise, doesn't make a gunsmith. If you're serious and want serious results, there's no substitute for experience. Now for the advise, the cost of a lathe, mill, and tooling could buy enough guns and glass to outfit you until you couldn't hunt anymore. A good chuck could buy a bat action from the classifieds and most of a barrel.

Adam

 

[Wirelessguy2005]

I recently purchased the equipment and tooling to do my own barrel work. While the initial cost is high it's worth it in my opinion, the sense of accomplishment you feel from building your own rifle is great. I first purchased a number of books about how to run a lathe and studied them very closely before doing any work. Next I purchased an older American made lathe and started working on delrin and aluminum projects to get a feel for the machine. Working with easy to machine materials was a critical part of the learning process for me. Once I became comfortable with those material I progressed to 416 stainless and learned how to cut threads. After spending time learning on the older machine i upgraded to a brand new 13 X 40 gunsmith lathe made by Precision Matthews and continued learning. Overall it's been a great experience and one I highly recommend if you have the room for the lathe as well as the money to invest in equipment and tooling.

Gents,

To all the pros out there, please don't be insulted by my question. I'd like to work on my own guns and before I made too many mistakes wanted to get some education. I'm 45, married to a great wife, and have two grown kids and two under three - so on line or correspondence is the only way for me to pursue this "hobby."

I appreciate any recommendations on on-line or correspondence courses. You-tube videos the way to go? Like I said before, I'm only wanting to work on MY stuff, not start a second career.

Thanks in advance and God bless America,

Scarface 26

 

[dmoran]

Gordy Gritter's (EXTREME ACCURACY INSTITUTE) holds a 5-day class that is highly recommended:
http://www.gordysgunsmithshop.com/classesschools.html

He also has DVD's for sale:
http://www.gordysgunsmithshop.com/gunsmithingvideosdvds.html

Good luck with your endeavor,
Donovan

 

[Scarface26]

Gents,

Thanks for your replies. I will check out Gordy Gritter's.

To Mr. Bentley, I couldn't agree with you more. Seems like any boob who can spell lathe is holding himself out as a "gunsmith" or a builder of tacticool rifles. And that's NOT cool.

Wireless guy, my hat's off to you, and the above comment is not supposed to include you. If you can read about a complicated task and master it after extensive practice, then others, like me, should be able to as well, provided they're committed.

All I know about machine work is that I don't know squat. The closest gunsmith I feel confident in is four hours away, and he's in his 70's, been doing this work his whole life and I'm lucky I found him. He's building a 300 winmag on a Rem700 action for me as we speak. Any work like chambering, thread cutting, etc. he gets.

God bless America,

Scarface 26