Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Acceptable backlog/wait

Being in business myself I struggle with some of the wait times Gunsmiths have....

if I couldn't turn a $400 rebarrel in a month I would be figuring out how I could....

I have a Kimber 84M BA and a new Rock barrel at the smith for 5 months or maybe 6. After a couple months we/I decided to change chambering although he had the reamer by Thanksgiving.
Still no idea when it'll get done.

Am I just too impatient?

I cannot understand it either, if they have all the components and no backlog ahead of it should not take that much time.

At times in my past I have been close to 8 years behind.

I tell my customers the back log as soon as I am asked to take an order. I feel bad, but I work 55-60 hours a week 6 days a week and I have never taken a vacation. I take Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving and what time I need to hunt, which is usually 7 to 9 days a year. That's all. When I was guiding I would take that time too, but I only go with friends these days because of the back log. I don't think I should take 6 weeks to guide hunters when customers are waiting. That's why I stopped guiding.

ALL my time is spent working in my shop from before breakfast until I shower for bed. Most of the guns I make take from 150 to 500 hours each depending on what is ordered. So there is no way to go any faster.

So the back log of a gunsmith is not determined by the gunsmith. It's determined by his clients and by life itself.

Maybe not as much for most full service smiths who do mostly service and repairs, but 85% to 90% of my work is bespoke custom work, and for the last 30 years of so, I don't turn away customers if they are willing to get in line. I give a good guess as to how long that line is, but I am sometimes guilty of missing on my guesses.

Life and reality keep getting in the way of my plans.

When My mother and my sister both needed medical surgeries I had to go to them and help. That took me away from my shop for 2 months. When my Dad died I had to go and be with the family, and take care of the estate. That took about 2 months total between trips.

Then there is the breakdown of vehicles, which HAVE TO BE FIXED. I live fairly remote 13 miles from a small town, and when you have NO running vehicle, you can't wait to get the repairs done. You do them as son as the need arises.

Also problem with the wind-mill and pump. When you run out of water, you fix it that day. Nothing in the shop takes priority over that.
I have had to re-side and re-roof the house. I have had to dig trenches for retaining walls. All by hand. this is the kind of thing I never thought to figure into the back long.

And here lately we have had SNOW! LOTS of it.
It causes problems for me and for neighbors that live 1-3 miles away, and we all help each other when such things happen, so that takes me away from the shop some days. NONE of this time can ever be recovered, and these kind of things (and many others) grab hours and sometimes days away from me. These things cause the back log to drag on. It may not seem like a lot, but it does add up.

Here in 2017 I made the decision to stop taking new work until I can get the back log down to 1 year. At 60 years old, I am starting to worry about being able to do good work or even be alive in years from now. I am in very good condition for a 60 year old, but when things start to go south they sometime come on fast, as I have seen with my friends and and my Dad. So I don't want my customers to be left holding the bag even if it's not my fault, and the only way I can do this is to shorten the back log.

So I will not be accepting new custom jobs for a while now. If I am doing fine in a while and the back log gets short enough for me to feel safe, I'll open it up again.

Depends.. Is it literally just a simple rebarrel? And two, was it sent to a known, larger shop with employees??

If I have a 'simple rebarrel' I can get it done inside a week unless it's some wildcat that I have to get a special reamer for..

Building full customs take time. Part of this is my fault as I know better than not ask when to expect it complete but nothing in my couple conversations think it would be more than 1-2 months...

My first career was rebuilding engines and machining components of engines.
Very, Very similar professions.
We pretty much quit doing completes as you have more risk and less profit.
I left to work for a large federal contractor but stayed long enough to help Dad pay off everything including the building and land.
In my current position it's taboo to not provide the client an honest completion date.

Last night I sent an requesting a status or ETA. I may seek out another 'smith.

Yes Redneck.
A "simple" rebarrel to me is starting with a contoured barrel from a barrel company where I only have to thread and chamber it. And we are assume a bolt action with no thread timing/extractor cut or aligning of sights which are already mounted or machined.

That work takes me about 3 hours total from unscrewing the old barrel to final polish and first coat of bluing solution (for rust bluing)

If we are speaking of a re-barrel on a gun that has other consideration such as extractor cuts, drilled gas ports, splines, sights, Octagon to round contours, ribs and so on, the time can go up and in some cases go up a lot.

Much of the work I have done in the past is restoration or recreation of older styles like what was common on 1910 to 1920 Mausers and Mannlichers. Some are simple to do but the contours are not what you can buy today, so I start with round blanks and do all the exterior machining myself as well as the shanking, threading, clambering head-spacing and polishing. On some of the guns like the 1903 Mannlichers, the extractor cuts are meticulous, but on the Mausers they are simple flat faced breach ends. What takes the time is the countering and polishing.

So simple jobs are not always what the customers think are simple. Many customers understand the work, but some don't.
I am sure you have found the same things to be true.

Daveh, what is the project you are tying to get done?

Just rebarrel a Kimber 84M barreled action. I sent the bare action in .257 Roberts and Rock drop shipped the blank in a factory contour.
The reamer arrived ~ last Thanksgiving.

True and lap, etc the action as necessary, thread, chamber, beadblast, crown and headspace. Collect $$ and ship...😀

BTW- the Kimber is a mini M70 and requires a small action wrench.

Well if I were to do such a job it would be done fairly fast. No turning, just shank, thread and chamber/headspace. Such a job will take about 90 minutes to 2 hours.

Depending on how much work is in front of you it could take from a week to at the outside 2 week.

I used to slip this kind of thing into the mix. In other words, I am doing full-blown custom work and I go back and forth between the 3 jaw and the 4 jaw chucks. If I had a job that requires the 3 jaw I would slip in a 2 hour job, just because I need no additional set-up time to do such a simple job.

Turn the shank on a center so it's perfectly concentric.

Cut it to exact length - .003 for thread crush.

Thread it.

Chamber to within .010".

Polish barrel if necessary.

Install barrel in receiver.

Head space by hand to +.002" with an extension on the reamer.

Done.

I am not taking any work myself for 2017 and probably none in 2018 because I am so far behind I just had to shut down taking on any new work. I worry about getting too deep.

But speaking as someone that has done this kind of thing since I was in 9th grade, I can tell you such work is not difficult or very time consuming.

Exactly why I can't seem to drum up patience to wait months for something you can do before your first coffee break....

It's now a part of the way of doing business. If a gunsmith tells the whole truth the customer will probably go elsewhere. Nobody likes to wait but gunsmiths have a lot of things that pop up that they can't afford to turn down. Typical case- He takes in a rifle build. Once he pulls the old barrel and blueprints the action you are not going to take back your rifle. A new customer walks in and needs 3 shotguns cleaned. That's quick money the shop needs. Rifle project gets put off. next day its a trigger job on a new rifle, another cleaning and a recoil pad. Before you know it its a month behind. The rifle build customer will wait but nobody will leave a rifle to get a scope mounted for 2 years. Ask the Gunsmith when your rifle will be ready. Never say "take your time" or "do it when you can". Call often and check on the progress, the squeaky wheel gets the grease!

Another consideration is how fast will the gunsmith correct a mistake they made.
Last fall I sent a custom action and takeoff fluted barrel to a gunsmith to have it installed. I specified in the written instructions to have the flutes indexed (that should go without saying any way) and I specified that he ship it back to me insured and included sufficient funds for the return shipping to cover the insurance.
I did receive it back fairly quickly but he failed to insure it and when I looked at it, it was about half a flute off of top center. I contacted him about it and he said no problem, I'll fix it. I got it to him in early November and after several promises to have it done within a week of the contacts, I finally waited a month before contacting him in late January, at which point he shipped it.
I had again specified insurance and again he did not ship it insured. We are talking $1900 in materials. It was done correctly when returned but the customer service and failure to purchase insurance was absolutely unacceptable. I did email him to politely point these things out but haven't heard back from him.
You gunsmiths need to know that being a man of your word is just as important as the quality of your work. Folks understand that life gets in the way sometimes but we don't like empty promises.

Some gunsmiths have metal working skills. Some gunsmiths have business skills. Some gunsmiths can communicate in a timely manner. A select few have all those skills.

Yes it would be ideal of a gunsmith would have a minimum backlog, delivered when he promised, and communicated delays in a timely and clear manner.

Due to the nature of the business, it is necessary to keep some back log of work to balance out work flow and cash flow. If a smith is able to get 90-95% of jobs he bids running say a 6 month back log, that back log makes it easier to run his business vs. say shortening it to 1 months to get 100% of the jobs he bids.

So long as the smith is up front about his lead time vs. saying he'll get it done in 1-2 months and there is no progress in six months I have no problem. I really just want the job done right, and if that takes 6 months or 12 months, so be it.