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I just finished making six fairly intricate parts for a guy....lathe and mill work and they needed to be identical. He looked at them and said with a straight face: "I could've made these if I knew how to do it and could run those machines."

I can't imagine being a full time 'smith and putting up with stuff like this.

That is truly insulting. I would have asked him what he does for a living and broke it off in his azz. People have no idea the talent needed to produce true precision out of metal, let along in a repeatable way 6x.

I have noticed that a fair amount of good gunsmiths are short tempered and put up with very little from customers. After reading a few of these comments I can understand why. I worked part time at a gun shop and it was very annoying when people would call the shop and it seemed like they just needed someone to talk to. A fair amount of people seem to think that gun parts for old guns are a dime a dozen and easy to find. Such is not the case.....

This should be called the "People actual gunsmiths hate to see walk in the door" thread.

He didn't mean it that way....he's a good guy that I do a lot of special projects for. He used to ask if he could hang over my shoulder and watch. I don't work that way and need to be in the mood before chips start flying.

Good shootin' -Al

One of my gunsmithing school instructors had a saying that he was fond of, he often said "Customers are b astards" !

Le Mot Juste comes for Larry David," The customer is almost always an idiot and an azzwhole."

One of my pet peeves is about the guy that comes over with a project he needs done and then starts to tell me how to do it.

Understood, but that door swings both ways. A knowledgeable customer might inquire of the gunsmith how he would approach the job, in order to have confidence in the smith. I have encountered a few smiths who have to lord it over the customer, maybe adopt the "crusty craftsman" persona.

Case in point. I sent a Remington 700 LA .30-06 to a well known gunsmith to be rebarreled to .338-06. I specifically stated that I wanted it to be no heavier than the factory original. When I received it the barrel was about heavy varmint. When I called the smith he haughtily informed me that that chambering required a barrel that heavy. I guess nobody told the manufacturers of .338 Magnums that they had to have a heavy barrel. At a minimum, before starting the job, the smith should have told me that, in his opinion, the barrel would have to be heavier than the .30 caliber factory barrel. I also asked that the lug be pinned. It was not.

Business transactions like this should be conducted with honesty and mutual respect, and good communication. If the customer and smith can't agree, then they should not undertake the job and should go their separate ways. No harm no foul.

Sort of related. It's pretty obvious that time is money, and nobody in business can afford to spend excessive time talking with customers, especially when small low $$ jobs are involved. Yet, I recall a local smith, the go-to guy, who would talk your ear off. Lots of stories to tell, funny, complained about crappy guns, etc. He did great work, timely, fairly priced, had a soft spot for kids' guns. I wondered if he worked late into the night to get things done.

I've known doctors like that. Some run an assembly line practice, hardly communicate, but I've encountered a couple who would talk your ear off, one with hunting stories, with a waiting room full of patients.

Just people being people.

That's what UPS, Fedex, and USPS are there for, depending on the part you're looking to ship.

I started gunsmithing for others in 1976. I was mostly self taught but did absorb much from other gunsmiths I knew at the time. For the first twenty years of my gunsmithing career, I worked for retail shops and I liked that arrangement, although it took about five or six years before I started making real money at it. I can tell you, the 1970's, up to the early '80's, were kind of the golden age for gunsmiths. Parts were readily available and relatively inexpensive, knowledge was freely shared, and opportunities were abundant. I did everything from Mauser modifications to full custom rifles. I built winning BR rifles and high power rifles. I worked on (literally) thousands of S&W, Ruger, and Colt revolvers. I worked on shotguns of all sorts. I made stocks from the blank and finished a ton of stocks from Fajen (Boy, do I miss them!).
Times change though, and I soon found it easier to make a living as a machinist, a carpenter, and most recently, a campground owner. I still enjoy my gunsmithing but it is now, once again, more of a hobby than a vocation. I even started a You Tube channel where I can pass on some of the arcane knowledge I have picked up over the years. Maybe some of the hobbyists can appreciate the work done to repurpose barrels, alter military actions, and some of the accurizing techniques used for getting the best out of rifles from the last century.
I have to say, there are young gunsmiths today who are interested and who are already more capable than I was. Their youth, and still-functional brains, will allow them to do better work than ever. I suspect they'll make their money elsewhere though! GD

Greydog what's your channel? To old to be a gunsmith now but I still love to learn.

Will Henry's Workshop. I have a way to go to reach even amateur production status, but I show how to do things with modest equipment and limited skillset! @WiilHenry'sWorkshop-Gunsmith. Today, I plan to set back and re-chamber a 9.3x62 which has excess headspace.
So a demo of set-up, measurements, and reaming technique. GD

Adds way to much cost.

The fuel spent driving to and from a gunsmith of any distance is probably the same or more than shipping, even if you have to send it through an FFL. But I guess it's easier to complain about it on the internet than find an easy solution. Most of the gunsmith work I have done is shipped. Shipping really isn't a big deal, and it's worth shipping from a time perspective, as well as finding the best person for the job instead of trying to make a machinist work who doesn't really know precisely what to do.

From the gunsmith's point of view, shipping and receiving can be a real issue. For a one-man shop, it's a huge time suck; especially if, like me, the smith is 20 miles from the post office. In addition, there is getting to be more risk associated with shipping. Of course, some gunsmiths prefer personal interaction, while others do not. GD

$40+ both ways for FFL send, since most of the stuff I need worked on is on a serialized part (or rather firmly attached to it.) $80+ shipping costs is a bit more than a 1hr drive, both ways. But I also typically do like to talk to the person doing the work face to face and go over the fine details, of which there are typically several.

Greydog is the real deal. He's active in another site we both frequent and always has helpful advice and tips based on experience. - Al

Thank you for the kind words, Al. GD