I recently got a smokin deal on a lefty 22-250 varmit rig a local pawn shop. I bought it just for the lefty action, figuring I could part out the HS stock and heavy barrel and end up with only 200 or so invested in the action.

Well, today I went to a local gunshop that I dont frequent very often to see what it would cost to unscrew the barrel. The gunsmith, not quite with a straight face, quoted me 35-70 bucks "depending how long it takes." That kinda reminded why I dont go there very much. That is at least an hour at the shop rate, probably more. What do you think it should cost to unscrew a barrel?

I could just wait and have it done when I have the new barrel put on, but that might be a few years and I would rather not clutter up the safe in the mean time. Guess Ill go see what midway wants for a barrel vise....

It should take all of 5-10 minutes.

less than that if the smith has a bottle jack type hydraulic vise.

unscrewing a 60-80 year old Mauser barrel takes about 10-15 minutes in a midway barrel vice and midway action wrench using oak blocks and rosin for gripping the barrel.

If you do go the barrel vice route, you also have to go the action wrench route which isn't worth the money for 1 action.

I gotta raise my prices...

Auger- I made my own wood reciever clamp put it in a bench vise borrowed dad's strap wrench and bingo.

Frontier Gunsmithing there .

$35 I could do, maybe. Even though it takes no tooling setup or real work on his part.

$75 is like paying to have 3 or 4 done at once.

$20, while I waited, last time I had it done.

Interesting read. I am not a 'smith or gunbuilder, but I do have a well equipped shop with a real barrel vise and bushings to fit just about everything. If you were close to me I would do it for a cup of coffee or a can of pop.

$35 to $70???? This is why "gunshops" go out of business. Should be a free courtesy job, at the most $10. Build some goodwill and develop repeat customers!! Oh, I forgot, we have not taught business courtesy in the US since about 1955.

If you where here in TN i would do it for you for nothing or let you use my equipment and get a feel of doing it yourself. My opinion this guy just didn't want to do it and the price was his way of saying no.

I had considered that. I would have much rather him just say "no" rather than what he did. This particular smith in that store, who is not the owner btw, has always been rather short with me. I dont know if he is that way with everyone or if I maybe did somethin to pizz him off. If I did, I dont know what it was.

Simple solution, take your business elsewhere, and tell the owner why.

Auger

Lets face it, just about all guns are related to hobby or recreational status. That makes it easy to forget that for a full time gunsmith with a legitimate professional shop he is not there for recreational reasons. He is there to earn a profit and make a living. So he must make a little money on every transaction. If he doesnt he will go under like so many do.

What I did not realize until I got in the business is that any minor job no matter how small costs at least a half to one full hour. It happens a lot like this......... Potential customer comes in. You shut down the lathe or lay down the complicated parts group that you almost had fitted. You greet the customer and he shows you his gun and asks about work desired. You examine it and make a quote. Customer asks more questions and while he is at it he asks to look at a couple of differant guns for sale. He decides to comission the work and you fill out all the paper work required. Take it back to the work bench, locate tools, do the 10 minute job. Put tools up. Fill out receipt and take in the money. Before he leaves he tells you about another gun problem that he has been thinking about bringing to you. Then he asks if he can use your bathroom, you look down at his kid and his legs are crossed and his eyes are bugged out so you say OK. Finally he thanks you and he leaves. You go back to your original project and you think lets see where was I, where did I lay thhose dial calipers, oh wait I finished that part I was turning the shank down not drilling the clearance hole. You look at your watch and 45 minutes has gone by.

I know not every customer demands that much of my time but the average customer uses a minimum of 15 minutes to drop off and the same to pick up a gun. Thats a half hour before you even start. In my area you need to take home after expenses at least $25.00 an hour for near poverty existance. When I figure the cost of my building, 1500 sq ft about $75,000, equipment well over $100,000, inventory, alarm system, insurance, utilities around $3,000 taxes, maintenance etc, etc. So to barely scratch out a meager existance I should be averaging well over $50.00 an hour. Chevrolet dealers now charge $125.00 an hour.

There is a tremendous number of part time gunsmiths who operate out their garage or some low overhead situation who can charge much lower fees and still pocket a little money. Heck I was part time once myself so I know how that works. But when you deal with a full time experienced and well tooled gunsmith dont think he is a crook if his fees seem a little high.

Having said all that, $35.00 is not out of line at all. But $70.00 would be pretty steep for removing your barrel.

One more thing. If I am doing several things to gun at the same time, prices are adjusted accordingly. For example if I am glass bedding a rifle and customer wants the trigger tuned as well. The fee for the trigger work will be about half normal price since the gun has already been disassembled at that point.

"Having said all that, $35.00 is not out of line at all."

well said.

Let's say I've got a small garage, you come in and say, ...."I need you to run my car up on your hoist, and adjust my left rear brake shoes,.....nothing else."

"I recently got a smokin deal ......" don't mean everbody else is going to make you one,....does it?

GTC

I walked in to a shop on Tuesday that I'd never been in before to have that very same thing done. Walked out with barrel removed and payed nothing. Not expected, but very kind.

agreed with Cinch. Maybe you take the barrel off for free. Maybe that customer comes back with that action later and wants you to put the new barrel on, order him a stock, fit the stock, add and tune a trigger, etc. Then that customer goes and tells his buddies what a great guy you are, etc. etc.

There's more than 1 way to look at everything, but $75 is stupid.

Interesting thread... Craftsman definitely has a point. My gunsmith charges me nothing. But then he always has 2-4 of my guns sitting in his rack waiting for work to be performed. And unfortunately, my work gets put on the back burner. But then, he is a personal friend, and I don't expect him to put me in front of paying customers. (Not that he does my work for free, either...) I have a half-dozen different 'smiths that I use for different work.

My gunsmith buddy has a couple of days a week that he is closed to walk-in traffic, so he can get things done. He's never closed to me, but I respect the fact that shootin' the bull with me doesn't earn him any $, so I only go there when he is open.

If Auger01 walked in to his shop, he'd likely charge him only $10-$20 and do in on the spot likely thinking he'd make a bunch more in the long run...

Grasshopper

we did a job a month or so back repairing a tokarev pistol that someone has fubared. He had the parts, and just wanted em installed. We charged him $10 for a sear stoning, extractor fitting, and cleaning.

Came back the next week and ordered a custom hunting rifle on a VZ24 mauser action.

I understand that they are in a business to make money and that the light bill isnt going to pay itself. I did not expect him to do it for him to do it for free. I was expecting to pay 20 or so and I probably would have grudgingly paid 35. While I dont buy a ton of stuff at that shop, I have bought powder, primers and miscellaneous gun supplies there in the past. The shop even has a nice Sig 556 that I have been trying to convince myself that I "need", but given the surly attiude that I got along with the open ended quote for a simple job, its going to be a very long time, if ever, before I go near that place again.

I agree. If you have to charge for the light bill, why act all surly and salty. $35-$75 is a very large variance for the same amount of work. As a previous poster suggested. If you don't want the job, just tell the person, don't quote them a ridiculous price to get them off your back.

Something I've learned in the food industry. If a customer comes in, has a great time, and leaves happy and full, they will tell (on average) 2-4 people. If a customer comes in and has a bad experience and leaves dissatisfied they usually tell 9+ people.

You're only hurting yourself, and the light bill by running people off with high quotes.

Some shops understand the concept of future business and customer service, some don't. I'd imagine the guy at this shop figured you are the cheapy type customer and his only chance to get some $ out of you is to gouge you for removing the barrel. He figures you aren't going to have him do the barrel job, so why should he do the work for a minimal fee.

On the other hand, craftsman is spot on. The local smith can get nickled and dimed to death on the dreaded "5 minute job" No job takes just 5 minutes of total time, and yet the customer figures well if the shop rate is $60/hr, and it only takes the smith 5 minutes to unscrew the barrel, it should be a $5 job.

Perhaps the best compromise practice is for a shop to have a minimum charge of 30 minutes or 1hr shop rate for all jobs. The smith could also add, while I've got your gun apart I can do an inspection of the action for you, and if the shop has an u/s cleaner it's no biggy to toss the action in there and provide it back to the customer cleaned up.

Thus a win/win, the smith get's the shop minimum to make it worth his while, the customer gets more work done then he'd planned.

Unknowen customer first time 25.00. regular customer's get a break depending on how regular. I will reward a regular faster then an unknowen. Maybe just me but if I was a regular and heard of a first timer getting a better deal than I do. would PMO.

I like the shop charge thing, but make it a fixed amount up front.

Don't give somebody a $40.00+/- and say "depends".

Taking a barrel of sometimes can be more than a 5 min job depending on the action and how the barrel is installed. Every barrel i have removed has been 15 min or longer. Some Rem 700 barrel where put on to stay and are very hard to remove and this is why i said if Auger was here i would let him use my equipment to remove the barrel himself. The most any Smith should charge would be 20 bucks or less for the job no matter how hard or easy the barrel screws off.

Just like our shop...even if it takes 5 minutes we always charge a full hour shop rate unless I feel like giving it away for free, which as others have mentioned depends on who you are and what kind of mood I am in.

It might only take 5 minutes but you do have to stop what you were already doing and get it in the vice, then get back to what you were doing.

The (now passed away) local gunsmith removed a barrel from a Mauser some years ago. It took him five or 10 minutes but a lot of that was talking. After he was done I asked him what I owed, he said, "Oh, five dollars." We did more business on account of that and I steered a good bit of business his way. Helluva nice guy and he is missed in the community.

Yeah, he stopped another job to do the barrel but the good will brought him all the business he wanted.

BTW, he had made himself an interesting barrel vise. It was an overbuilt hydraulic ram type, about five times stronger than most I've seen, and run with an electric hydraulic pump.

we're building one with an old bottle jack.

Seems to work wice as fastas the dual bolt midway style with half the effort.

Quite some time back while while going over shop rates and doing a little adjustment here and there I addressed this very subject of a customer walking in and requesting a small job you can probably do while he waits. In my area there are no strangers and pretty near everyone who uses my services consider them selves a friend as well. And I want them to. Consequently I get a lot of nickel and dime stuff and I must show a profit or lock the doors. After reading Bob Brownells input on keeping a gun business in the black and much deliberation on my part I decided if I could something really quick, for example a customer had a rem 700 that would not feed and I removed his upside down magazine box and put it back in, I would not charge them anything. If it required me to set up on my work bench or get a special tool out I would charge a half hour minimum ($25). I always advise the cust what something will cost before doing the work. One exception is when they want their scope bore sighted it's $10.00. Fast, easy and it promotes good cust relations.

As for the barrel removal. If the rifle still has the stock and scope base on it I dont think I could disassemble, get out the action wrench, find the correct blocks for the barrel vise, rosin everything, remove the barrel and put everything away in less than 30 minutes. If the barrel is really tight or it slips in the blocks it would be longer. I would probably charge $25.00. If they brought just the barreled action in and no scope bases ready to go and it came off without any heroic efforts I would probably want $10.00.

I do agree that the surly attitude is uncalled for. If this guy is the owner he wont last long. If he is an employee he should shown the door.

I have one piece of advice for gun nuts who need the services of a skilled gunsmith occasionally. Find out what he likes. It might be Guiness beer. Or Cohiba cigars. Or home made chocolate chip cookies. When you need a small job done or even advice take some goodies along. I bet he will remember you the next you need something.

Good post, and very close to how I do business... That's why these same customers keep coming back.. Quick service, fair prices and good work..

Be an azz and charge a bunch, and many times you won't be seein' 'em again.. Not worth it - ever...

I took an action to Karl Kenyon, he lived 2 mi. from here, told him I wanted the barrel taken off and a used tube installed. He jumped right on it, had to cut the shoulder a bit to get the headspace right, took him about 30 min. When I pulled my wallet, he just waved me off, headed into his house and left me standing in the shop. This wasn't the first time he'd done that. So I left him $50 on the bench, got to looking around, the lighting over his worn-out lathe wasn't good, so I bought a 4' flourescent light and hung it over the lathe. Still think I took advantage of him, after all it was Karl Kenyon.

He sure is a great guy, watched him work for over an hour on a kids' .22 for free. He built triggers for the top 10% of BR shooters at one time. He's moved now, living in a care center in SLC, IIRC.

I popped one out of a 700 last week for nothing...ya gotta help out gun nuts once in a while...not like it's a big job, but in a shop environment it's not really feasible to work for nothing...word gets around....

When a job like that comes in I ask if they want to do it.Some have no idea what it is like to work on them.
I have a base price that i charge,if it doesn't take that long no biggie.Oh they all get cleaned for that charge.Sometimes a problem is fixed just by cleaning .Wonder what it would be like to get 70.00 for poping a barrel off?

What he said, and NOT directed at auger- at all-
however I have a couple of customers who about every 10 months call and request a complicated quote....every...ten....months....
never did a lick of work for them. Now when they call,or email I ball park a price without researching those babinga tips, case colored sling studs and metric bi-pod..
Profits not a crime. 70 bucks might apply to some war torn mauser that was fired 500 times in a row and rolled in snow a few times.
Some new CZ's are a biotch to pull the barrel too



LOL, aint that the truth!

I know there are all kinds of people in this world, and no reason to expect that gunsmiths are any exception, but I've often wondered if some have read tales of certain old masters who were known to be crusty old bastids, and they figure that is the "gunsmith persona" they have to adopt.

Just my half-assed theory.

Paul

In the 1960's there was a gunsmith here who was extremely talented. He had part of his left arm missing and still could build the most beautiful hunting rifles including elaborate checkering. He was the grouchiest crusty old guy you ever saw. He had an attitude about like the "soup natzi" on Seinfield. He would chew you out and throw you out of his shop for the slightest infraction. Yet he was so good at his craft that people would patronize him anyway. In fact old guys still come in to my shop and brag about the time they got thrown out of "old man Morton's" shop. They talk about it almost as if it were a right of passage in those days.

You would never get me out of your shop....

I've never been charged to remove a barrel. I also won't take a barreled action to a local smith to have them unscrew it if I'm sending it off to have someone else work on it.

Just seems... wrong.

I guess I could, and force them to take some money. That would be better than giving USPS more money.

Sometimes when they are finished they leave with a new outlook for what it takes to get the job done.I do the same with reloading,just watch them a lot closer.Maybe it's just me it's had to be a grump.

My current build is on an old A series action and the smith really had trouble getting the barrel off. He didn't charge any extra as he is doing the whole build for me, just said he really had to work at getting it off. Is that a common issue with older REmingtons?

CWH2
A customer had me pull his barrel so he could ship it for installation of a muzzle brake. After quizzing the guy, it turns out the person doing the muzzle brake work did not even have a FFL. The cust shipped the barrel only and after getting it back had me re-install the barrel. It was pretty crude work to say the least. I have a reputation for doing the best muzzle brake work around. But this character paid me $45.00 to remove and re-install a barrel so he could ship it to a quack and pay him about the same money I charge in the first place. Now this young man was in college too. Some folks just cant see the forest for the trees.

Moose
My experience removing Rem barrels, about 80% are medium tight, about 10% are not very tight at all, and 10% are real buggers.