I most likely missed the golden age of Gunsmiths doing actual Gunsmithing, given my relatively young age.
BUT, I live in a heavily populated area, in a reasonably gun-friendly location... and for the life of me, I CAN NOT find gunsmiths willing to do anything more than put glocks, or ARs or some other 'lego kit' gun together.
Took me almost 2 years to find one that was willing to even try and repair a hammer and trigger for my H&R 195 pistol. And only because he could do it by hand mostly and didn't need to rely on his clapped out milling machine. Which, takes me to the second issue of every gunsmith having clapped out machines that can't hold tolerances - or super small lathes that barely fit tiny barrels. Yes I know machines are expensive.
I understand that the smithing part of gunsmithing is hard, not everyone wants to spend all day checkering stocks, reprofiling old parts/making new ones, or relining barrels.... but the sheer number of what I consider to be incompetent gunsmiths who just assemble modern plug-n-play firearms, and wont touch anything that requires even small amounts of custom work is maddening to me. I have reached out to every 'gunsmith' I can find listed, or have been refereed to locally. Somewhere around thirty to forty.
Still looking to get some parts reblued, still looking to get four holes indexed and drilled properly, still looking for barrel fluting....
So, thankfully I know a good machinist for the last two.
Checkering is gonna be a whole new level of searching, and most likely not gonna be local I bet...
