Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Celt has left HDR

Mtn. Hunter and CAS, you got me all choked up with your offers. I would include Big Stick too, but he is an azz hole <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> You guys are great! You are still all welcome to come out and go elk hunting. The draws are this month, so get on line and get your applications in. My treat at no cost.

Bruce, I look forward to hearing from you and I can't tell you how much I appreciate you getting involved in this mess. YOu are a gentleman and a scholar.

Jeff....ah hell, I can't even put into words what I feel about you. Big Stick pretty much covered it with his elogent way with the written word. Jeff, get used to being on your knees, cuz when the law catches up wth you, Bubba in the joint is going to make you his bestest buddy. My bet is bubba will screw you just like you did all of us. There, I was mean, happy now Spike <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> Flinch

Flinch, see above and start letting your fingers do the walking. BTW - if you've got any paper from them stating anything at all in terms of work, time, cost, etc., get it ready, make copies, and send that to the folks you talk to.

I beg to differ with redneck, if you have business skills, you can make money as a smith, if you don't have business skills, gunsmithing is no different than any other business, it will fail.

There are plenty of sucessful gunsmith shops, those that combine good business practices with good workmanship.

Bruce,
good to see you here. Glad that you are getting involved in getting flinch's rifle back. Guys as bruce said he has been around for a long time I rememeber him from the old shooters days and have kept in contact with him via the chat room that rose from the ashes of the shooters chat room. tom

I just read this and am stunned!! I had to lean hard on Jeff to get my 338 Win from him in 2003, but I thought that was just because most good rifle-builder's are fickle like many good craftsman. The 338 he built me is a fine rifle and I got my money's worth. BTW, there was a recent write-up in a major gun magazine about tactical rifles, and they talked about Jeff and HD Rifles.


John Ricks quit the business becasue he wasn't making enough money to survive. He did right by me.

I recommended both of these guys on this forum and Ricks on Shooters before the Campfire.

I humbly apologize if I had any influence on anyone here to the point where they decided to use Jeff Hicks. If we do decide to have a Flinch's rifle Campfire collection fund I will contribute.

I'll also not likey recommend another rifle builder ever. It seems any of them can go whacko at any time. I guess It's for me to buy that lathe and do this stuff for myself.

Flinchy,

Instead of sending that rig to CAS and then to MtnHunter just send it to me. I have an almost new can of Rusty Metal Primer and some Farm & Fleet JD green. I�ll even give it some range time just to work out the kinks. Wouldn�t want you to break a nail dialing in that thang!!!!

I haven�t forgotten your offer either. I�ll be mule deer hunting in Wyoming this year, and that's my one trip for the year.

Seriously, I hope this thing works out in your favor.

Jeff

I too feel bad - a year or so ago - I visited HD and was treated very well --- Clay and Jeff both treated me and my friend nicely - he had his 308 painted, re crowned, bedded and a muzzle brake installed - liked it and then dropped off a 300 WM -- that was almost a 9 months ago - all he wanted was the same - been getting the run around anout missing steel for brakes ect - told one more month a coupla times.

I must now bust azz to let him know he needs to bust azz over to HD and get his shyt. I see no reason why if we showed up they couldn't just give him his stuff - if it isn't there I am thinking a visit to the local PD is in order. Stolen goods.

STARmedic aka BRUCE -------- is there someone there on Saturdays?

Flinch,
I would be happy to contribute to to the "Makin' things right fund"!

Just PM me if I can help.

Huntr

Dude!

When I shipped your Sako AV off to Del Rio the other day, I thought you'd be happy <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />.

Maybe I can get it from the post office before they deliver it.............
<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

badger

Flinch, Count me in on the fund. Just let me know where to send a check. Feel quilty that I actually got a good one from him before eveything went in the crapper! TM

As of right now there wont be anyone there on Saturday. If anyone here has equip there that was scheduled to be worked on, Give Clay a chance to make it right.

I just got word asking me to come by on Monday to make an assessment so that I can help formulate a game plan to help these guys get out from under the rock that Jeff has piled on top of them.

I have info for Flinch that I will convey to him via telephone later this evening.


Bruce

I do not know the man, but many sang his praises before all this.

But we have good friends that the marriage seemed to not be going smoothly and he ended up disappearing for a few days and ended up with no job, seems it turns out that he was in an accident, got suspended from his job and all because he was caught either doing Cocaine or in possesion of same.
So although I don't condone our friends actions, it does give some idea what may have contributed to it.
Wife now hates him, but I don't.
Life can be a bitch.
I have been lucky.

Bruce,
You seem like a stand up guy. It's too bad you weren't there all along.

Hopefully Clay can make things right and start over. From all accounts, he really got screwed in this deal worse than any customer, and it speaks volumes that he is gutting it out to make things right instead of cutting and running like another piece of [bleep] who posted on this thread.

Ever since I read Stick's post about having them build a rifle just to spite Jeff, I've been mulling the same idea. I wonder if they've got a good 223AI reamer in house?

You guys are gonna have me tearing up if you don't quit....

John

Yeah..group hug<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Mike

LMAO!!!!! i swear i nearly pissed myself when i read that. Hope you get your stuff back Flinch the way you've bin screwed around makes me sick.

I probably should have clarified my post. You can make a living but you won't get rich...

It depends on how aggressive you want to be, how much money you have on hand (not borrowed) to set up a shop, your residence area and how much competition you'll face, both in residence and in skills/specialty.

I have strived to attract enough business to keep ME busy. I have no wish to add personel for several reasons: Quality control, government red tape, excessive paperwork per employee, size of my shop etc... Adding another smith would cost me a LOT of money and I have no desire to do so.. It would also take another 3-4 years to attract enough additional business to make it pay unless I got into AR-15 type stuff. I want to retire from full time work in 5 years. Maybe if I was 35 I'd go for it. At 57, I"ll pass.

As I stated above, I make a living but I'll not get rich. That's ok. If I wanted to get rich I'd be in a different business, but WITH that comes usually a lot more stress, more hours, more risk. BT,DT.. No thanks.

To anybody who wants to get into this business, you better have a minimum of $15,000 just for minimum tools, then you have to find a suitable working area AND you'll have to fight local laws/ordinances since you will be working with hazardous materials. Insurance will cost a LOT and it's mandatory. There are only a handful of companies in the US that will insure a smith, and they charge dearly. Your operating expenses will eat up any profits for the first few years until you build up a customer base. Most people will not trust any newbie to handle their pet firearms, and I can't really blame them. The majority of my business comes from word of mouth and repeat customers. That takes time so you better have either a second job or a spouse with a salary that can handle the bills until you get going (or both)..

For six years I worked a second job from 4:00 am - +/- 8:00 am feeding 500+ head of dairy cattle for a local farmer. I was lucky; they're a great bunch to work for and the time slot fit well. The obvious problem was that I only saw my son from after school until about 7:30 pm.. I was finally able to quit just this last April and now I have to make it on my own. Like many businesses, there are slow times and very busy times. December, April-July usually sux.. The rest do well and Sept/Oct really is the heaviest traffic.

Wishing the very best of luck to whomever tries to get into this business...

Hmmm... it looks like Celt (sad use of a fine moniker on this one) has left the internet, too.

Pards have been pleading with me,to take the plunge.

I think a man could both offer a Skookum product and poke loot in the Bank,rather easily.

My train of thought is geared at a series of zero fluff,Meat and Taters Rifles. Basically,it is an untapped Market.

Lotsa fluff out there and not a whole lotta grit........................

Where I see most smiths failing is in ineficiency, trying to offer too much to too many people, and not specializing and filling a niche, efficiently. If you invest your time making tooling and work in batches, you can dramatically reduce the amount of time required to do the machine work required for most functions. Don't want toxic chemicals, then only do stainless barrels and bead blast them. Don't buy every chambering reamer under the sky, stick to the standards. Don't accept work that doesn't pay, and don't waste your time on guys that have all sort of neat ideas but no cash in hand. Do communication via e-mail, and promptly let folks know the status of their projects. Charge a reasonable rate, I can't see with the overhead, tooling and knowledge why a smith would charge less than $60/hr. If your charging chump change, clients will figure your work relates to that. Say you get 30 hours billable work per week, that's $90k gross a year, not rich, but once you dial things in, you should be able to batch and turn out a decent number of rifles. If you want to make more $, then you'll have to expand the shop, and hire more folks that you pay $30/hr and bill out at $60/hr.