Over the weekend I was competing in a .22 rimfire benchrest match and spoke to my gunsmith who is in the top 3 of rimfire benchrest gunsmiths in the country. He told me that he is going to stop doing any gunsmithing and will relinquish his license due to ITAR and the cost of the mfg license. This guy has smithed rifles that have won National Championships and who have set world records. He is the undisputed top sporter class gunsmith in the world. This will be a great loss to the rimfire benchrest community.
Is he going to do anything else about it or just roll over?
He's retired from his primary career and he just doesn't do enough work to be able to absorb the cost of the license. He also can't afford a big fine nor does he want to spend his remaining years in prison. The guys who pump out large volume of guns will be able to absorb the cost or just raise their prices a little, the small volume, super high quality smiths who do small niche work like rimfire benchrest, will either have to drastically increase their prices or just go away.
