Planned gunsmithing shop purchase: what are the most common jobs?

[HangFireW8]

Kestral brings up a good point. You can offer a safety check bundle for $25, which will quickly pay for the headspace gages required. I think I already mentioned the accuracy package (crown, trigger job, glass bed and align scope).

[Geezer in NH]

New EO from Zero, Get a Manufacture's license and pay your ITAR fee before anything.

[weaselfire]

Yes you can net $1,800 a year. As a woodworker, you could net that just doing custom grip panels for 1911s.

Ask the guy you're buying from what the mist common jobs are. Locally, scope work, sighting and hunters going out tomorrow suddenly figuring out their deer rifle won't fire. General Smith's will do almost everything. Your market locally isn't large enough to specialize much.

You're not going to do a two year resident gunsmith school, even if you could get accepted or afford it. Go to the American Gunsmith Institute and get their free introductory package. Their basic gunsmith course will fit your needs and the knowledge you gain is invaluable.

Gunsmithing is a skill and, like woodworking, needs hands on practice to perfect. Combined with the AGI knowledge, you'll start feeling confident in about two decades.

Get over not knowing anything. Very few gunsmiths knew what they were doing when they started. But once you understand how firearms are designed and how the parts work, you can figure out any of them.

Good luck, keep us posted.

Jeff

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

[lightload]

You might offer a good deal to the local police or sheriff departments and clean and inspect their weapons for a nominal fee. Not related to this suggestion is another thought.

When working on a $2000 shotgun, a mistake might cost you a lot of money and a lot of hard feelings. But the same mistake on a Mossberg pump will still make the owner mad even if the cost to you is not terribly high. So I think that if I were you, I would consider having one price for putting a recoil pad on a Mossberg and a higher price for putting one on Browning or Beretta. The higher price would pay for the extra time that might be needed.

I agree that gun owners are picky and as a rule wish not to pay much for repairs. The funny thing is that the same guy who will pay a lawn mower mechanic $125 for a small repair will holler and scream for paying a trained gun smith the same hourly rate.

Another activity that will eat up your time is ordering parts. First they have to be located, and if they are mis-identified either on your end or the vendor's end, you have lost even more time. Too, ordering them one at a time will mean that the postage(likely high)can be a significant part of the item's cost

[GOPHER SLAYER]

I have some very sound advice. Don't do it. I gave a friend that advice and he bought the gun shop anyway. He had a good location here in Southern California but it didn't take long for him to hate to go to the shop. Too many people coming in just to talk guns. I think he closed in less than two years and he was making money. If you make friends with the customers they will expect some freebies but if you charge them then you are no longer friends. I can go on but I suspect you will go ahead with your plan to have a gun shop. If you do go forward you must remember that this is not a hobby, it is a business. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

[cold1]

Value your time, specialize in a few areas, dont be afraid to turn down work.

I am not a gunsmith nor do I own a business. I have specialized in a very specific form of refrigeration in a very niche market. I do work for a business entity because I dont want to put in the 60-80hrs a week that being a business owner requires. With all of that being said:

Value your time: The people are coming to you for a reason, they dont want to do it or they dont know how to do it. They come to you because you do. Charge accordingly. You have the knowledge, tools, time, talent etc.. whatever you have they dont. Take your time and do it better than anyone else. Charge more to fix someone elses mistake. Dont be a butt about it, but let them know that it takes extra to "fix" something that shouldnt be "broken".

Specialize in a few areas: I dont know enough about gunsmithing so I can suggest which areas to even look at. I can tell you about my industry and why I specialized. Most folks get into HVAC then 1 or 2 people fall into refrigeration, then maybe 1 or 2 out of those 1000s in refrigeration end up specializing even more. Everybody and there brother "knows somebody that does HVAC" on the side so competition on repairs and installations are cut throat. I would equate that with the AR platform in the gunsmithing world. With the actual refrigeration there is not as much demand, but there is also not many people that "do it on the side". It is a different world from HVAC and not too many people can make the switch. it requires a deeper understanding of the refrigeration cycle, different gasses, different equipment, etc.... These guys get good to great money and the only competition is from other companies that are licensed like them. I would equate this to a really great, established gunsmith. Then there are people like me that have taken it one step further and have specialized in one particular field (Ultralow temp and cryogenics) I am not good with the everyday run of the mill HVAC systems, I can hold my own in "regular" refrigeration, but I excel at my particular field. I think in terms of my field, my equipment is setup for my field, my knowledge is specialized for my field. It is a niche market, but my name is known to all of the major manufacturers and we have a great working relationship with each other. There is no real competition in my area, I know the other people in the area that do it and we know each others strength and weaknesses. We routinely send work to each other for various reasons. I would equate this with the gunsmith that only does one or two things but does them better than anybody else.

Dont be afraid to turn down work: Since you have already stated that the gunsmithing will be a side business and not your main income, turn down the work that is not going to pay you enough. I turn down work all the time because people want me to do "just enough to keep it going". That is not how I work, you pay me a premium and you get premium work in return. If you do not like my estimate, then there are plenty of "hacks" out there that will take your money and give you what you want. You can then bad mouth them, not me. Of course i put it in nicer words but that is the gist of it.

Lastly there is what I call "stupid money". If its a job I dont want or a customer i dont like to work for, I price the job stupidly high. If they are stupid enough to pay, then its high enough that I would be stupid to turn it down.

[Andy]

Thanks for the continued thoughts everyone, there aren't many posts in this thread that haven't been helpful to me in one way or another, even if it is just to approach something cautiously.

Many of the posts have made a good case to work toward a niche specialization and that does seem like sound wisdom. I will have to mull over what that could be for me, there certainly are a lot of options.

There are a few people who have written posts that I believe are genuinely meant to be helpful, but are somewhat negative along the likes of "don't do this for any reason, all that will happen is you will lose money and/or hate it..." sort of thing. If you're one of those guys I would ask that you please go back and read all my responses and make sure you understand the situation I am in (this being a side business) and the questions I am asking. I appreciate your input but if the advice is always not to do it then there wouldn't be any gun stores. We have already purchased the place and will be opening it back up in the coming months so whether or not to do it is not an issue, how to do it successfully is. Please give me advice on that, that's what I'm looking for.

On a slightly different topic, what do you guys think are some simple metalworking tasks that can be done on lathe/mill that can make money in a rural area? Any specific fields or professions worth advertising to? It seems like in woodworking there is at least a time or two a year where I would gladly pay $50 for some part I need today to get a key thing done (even if it is a $10 thing online) and I can see from the limited training the owner gave me that a good bit of those things are easy tasks I could do in an hour or less on the lathe or mill.

For example I kept breaking these special $20 countersink bits I needed to use on some ipe flooring a year or two ago. The gentleman I bought the shop from modified a different countersink I had to a better design and that has lasted longer than 4 or 5 of the $20 flawed design ones would have. That part was easily worth $50 to me but it only took him 5 minutes to do. I would like to make sure people know my business as a place to get those kind of non-gunsmithing problems solved as well so any thoughts on that are appreciated.

[shoot-n-lead]

Excellent advice!!!!! Your mark ups need to be 110-120% above total cost to either do the work, or obtain and sell the product.

You must completely adhere to these numbers religiously! On every job or sale. Anything less and you will go broke.

Also, you really need to be able to assess your relative skill level, and not trying to be negative here, but it sounds like you don't have any. This is a problem as any gunsmithing skill that requires machine work or competent hand work, is not something you just pick up by being shown how to do it on one or two cases. It takes literally years of doing these operations to become competent enough to get it right the first time, every time. Kind of the reason why people go to a gunsmith in the first place.

Anyone can bolt on a scope and have a decent chance of getting it right. You can bolt on piece parts of a dizzying array with no more skill than the ability to use an Allen Wrench. No body really needs a gunsmith for this type of work and working on your AR is kind of part of the deal. Like Working on your Volks Wagon was in the 60's and 70's.

I am a highly skilled machinist/toolmaker with 35 years experience. I sweat blood when tapping holes in the Receiver of one of my essentially junk guns!!!!

Just handling someone else's expensive gun gives me chills knowing that if I sit it down on a metal chip or bump it on something I cause damage I can't easily fix. And this responsibility is what stopped me from becoming a Gunsmith along time ago.

Once again I am not trying to be negative here, but rather show you some of the reality of the road you are looking at going down.

You need schooling from a real school, 2 years minimum! Then you need to work under some one who actually knows what they are doing after that.

Only then would I consider going into business in this capacity. You are also going to need about $100K to get you thru the first year or so, unless you are independently wealthy and don't need to work anymore. As a one man shop your overhead is not just the shop expenses, it is your total expenses to live work and eat. Most people don't consider these extra costs when looking at going into business. You will consider them when you pay the bills at the end of the month.

Randy

Did you read the part where he said that he was not depending on this for his living?

[doc1876]

Did you see that obummer just signed a new law requiring gunsmiths to have a $2500 a yea licence???
Type 07FFL must register for ITAR 22CFR 122.1

[KenH]

Geezer mentioned that in post (edit to correct) #69, and I was getting to the $2250 (or is it $2500/yr?) license cost. There is almost nothing you can do that's not required under that darn executive order he signed....... and I'm VERY scared it's going to get worse with Hillary!!!

Here's a link to the info mentioned:

http://www.accurateshooter.com/featu...for-gunsmiths/

Down toward bottom is the scary stuff (bold 'n underline for emphasis: "For the purpose of this subchapter, engaging in such a business requires only one occasion of manufacturing or exporting or temporarily importing a defense article or furnishing a defense service. A manufacturer who does not engage in exporting must nevertheless register."

[Geezer in NH]

ITAR has always been required for an 07 manufacture.

The BATF many years ago added bluing and other steps in gun smithing as manufacturing. Obozo's EO was not the start or solution as any other of his Eo's IMHO.

[weaselfire]

First, it's not an executive order. It's a clarification letter from DDTC, the Department of State. Any 06/07 FFL might have needed to register prior to this, what changes is that some functions that BATFE did not classify as needing a manufacturer's FFL may now be included.

There are a lot of gunsmith functions that do not require ITAR registration. There is a ton of incorrect information on gun forums. Get your facts, talk to the agencies for clarification and, if needed, consult a lawyer.

Jeff

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

[weaselfire]

Now, to all those that recommend not becoming a gunsmith because you can't earn any money. Thousands of gunsmiths are making a decent living already and thousands more join the field every year. There are plenty who fail, but it's not the business of gunsmithing that makes them fail. Plenty of small businesses, about 90% currently, fail in the first year. Of ALL businesses in all fields. Not a reason to not open a gunsmithing shop.

The OP asks about what jobs he can do in his area and nobody on the internet, unless they are in that area, can provide the answer. He'll need to do the research in his area for his business goals. That's part of being in the 10% that succeed.

Jeff

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[Ballistics in Scotland]

Lastly there is what I call "stupid money". If its a job I dont want or a customer i dont like to work for, I price the job stupidly high. If they are stupid enough to pay, then its high enough that I would be stupid to turn it down.

Your advice is mostly good, but people don't get together and discuss their specialised refrigeration jobs with other specialised refrigeration enthusiasts. Let a customer find a gunsmith, even a desperately hungry gunsmith, who does that job for a quarter of the price you named - or would have done it for a quarter what he did pay you - and you might as well rent a billboard to publicise it.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

"On a slightly different topic, what do you guys think are some simple metalworking tasks that can be done on lathe/mill that can make money in a rural area? Any specific fields or professions worth advertising to? It seems like in woodworking there is at least a time or two a year where I would gladly pay $50 for some part I need today to get a key thing done (even if it is a $10 thing online) and I can see from the limited training the owner gave me that a good bit of those things are easy tasks I could do in an hour or less on the lathe or mill."

Andy,
That is a great idea you've thought of. You should try to visit with local manufacturers, especially if they are making steel items, if there are any in your area? and make personal contacts.
I have worked in the industrial electrical manufacturing industry for several different manufacturers all my adult life(30+ yrs). There is always a division of teh company that makes sheetmetal partsand maybe machined parts as well for the final product. They frequently need specialized steel parts, even if they can make the items themselves, they'll get busy and won't have time to make the parts themselves...it happens all the time. Some are as simple as a custom milled bushing that fits a metric hole and a SAE size shaft. There is BIG money if you can deliver quickly. It's all about making personal contacts, so they think about you, when they need those parts, and generally, they need the parts "same day".


in regards to this...

"There are a few people who have written posts that I believe are genuinely meant to be helpful, but are somewhat negative along the likes of "don't do this for any reason, all that will happen is you will lose money and/or hate it..." sort of thing."

I'm sorry, but those type of comments are the nature of any internet forum...just ignore them if they aren't helpful to your situation, everyone will be happier in the long run.

[cold1]

Your advice is mostly good, but people don't get together and discuss their specialised refrigeration jobs with other specialised refrigeration enthusiasts. Let a customer find a gunsmith, even a desperately hungry gunsmith, who does that job for a quarter of the price you named - or would have done it for a quarter what he did pay you - and you might as well rent a billboard to publicise it.

Yes they do. Our customer base is very close nit and they do compare cost and services. There has been times that even when I price the job stupidly high, they took it and did not complain.

We have had desperately hungry refrigeration guys try to break into the business for a quarter of what the professionals charge. They get a few customers to bite, usually the ones that are a pain to deal with or the ones that just want it done cheap. 99% of the time they screw the pooch and the customer ends up calling a pro and paying more because the pro has to fix what someone else screwed up.

I am not saying this to imply your statement is wrong, I guess I am looking at it from someone that is established in the business and can afford to turn away a customer. Sometimes it is cheaper in the long run to turn away that PITA customer or job because you know that one way or the other you will loose your butt on that job.

No offence meant by the rebuttal, just clarifying from a different point of view.

[doc1876]

First, it's not an executive order. It's a clarification letter from DDTC, the Department of State. Any 06/07 FFL might have needed to register prior to this, what changes is that some functions that BATFE did not classify as needing a manufacturer's FFL may now be included.

There are a lot of gunsmith functions that do not require ITAR registration. There is a ton of incorrect information on gun forums. Get your facts, talk to the agencies for clarification and, if needed, consult a lawyer.

Jeff

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I just was sharing the information that was give me by one of the better gunsmiths around. This is what he has been told to keep his business open. If this is wrong, and I hope it is, then good. if not I wanted to pass along the information for him to be aware of.

ON another note, I don't see this subject in post #67..........

[doc1876]

http://controversialtimes.com/news/b...m_source=ConAm

[Geezer in NH]

Look at the ITAR lists. Make a machine screw you are liable for the ITAR fee as it is considered as being used in a weapon. BTDT pay to play is the name of this. don't it will be a Federal charge.

[weaselfire]

http://controversialtimes.com/news/b...m_source=ConAm

Yep. 'Cause if it's on the internet, it has to be true.

Now hit the source:

https://www.pmddtc.state.gov/regulations_laws/itar.html
https://www.pmddtc.state.gov/

And there is nothing that turns making a machine screw into performing manufacturing on an ordinance item.

For the OP, you may or may not need to deal with ITAR. But you're going to need to go through BATFE to get the FFL first. Talk to your local field office and get some guidance from them on what you may or may not need.

Jeff