Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Burned by gunsmith hourly rate

Who was this?

Agreed.

It should be noted that bedding a Mauser action and bedding a 700 are two different jobs. Further, there's more that one way to skin both these cats.

Says the guy who maintains no FFL, has no ATF audits, has no website to keep up, has no shop to keep up, no inventory to purchase or maintain, no employees to pay, no taxes to pay, no advertising fees, no materials to purchase, no interruptions, no phone calls to answer, purchases no machinery, and has no business to run.

I am not saying $375 is a fair price- it is too steep. But $25? BullSchnizzle...

Dang.

I used to regrind the mortar joints, run new gutter gauge alum step flashing, and drill/pin over that with counter flashing, rebuild the valley cricket and redo the steps and counters on the back of the chimney for about an extra $500-1000. And I thought I was making out good. Took me about a day to do one by myself.


As the concrete topper, used to do those for Century 21 and ERA realty and title companies when the house was being sold. 5 gal bucket, gloves, smoothing trowel, 40lbs of fast set with a cool whip bowl of portland mix in. About 2 hour job, $15 worth of materials. $150-200


Hell maybe I was a schmuck and couldve got more. Mexicans were cutting my throat on those kind of prices.

I thought making a $100 an hour...hmm I better go slow and drag this out so people dont think I'm ripping them off. Used to tell them I was going to get materials. I'd just go sit at burger king and sip coke or go bid some more jobs. lol

Wow, just wow. Anyway, resume thread.

35084Elk, Renegade 50 gave the cost to do it yourself NOT what the gunsmith should charge.

Two types of people work on guns, Gunsmiths and idiots...

Next time get the price up front

25 bucks for materials for me to do it for myself Zippy.
Did I say I was doing it for others anywhere in that post for a living.
Nope I sure didnt....


I dont pay "gunsmiths" schitt to do stuff I can do myself and do it better.

I do work for myself and friends as a hobby.
And I'm OCD as hell about the quality of what I do in my lane.
My rep amongst people I associate with is important to me
Never have asked for money other than material cost.
Never will accept it either for "work" .



Have seen plenty of work nation wide.
Skilled gunsmith craftsmen work.

And self titled " gunsmiths" some good, some down right excellent.

Seen way too many turn out hack job con artist work in my opinon also.
I cant even count the numbers of times I have unfugged "work"
done by some "gunsmith" ....
PT Barnum supposedly said a sucker is born every minute.

Word.........

Yup, real craftsmanship there.

Dan Armstrong At Accu-tig in Alaska.

There's a reason it doesn't look good...... If it took him 3 hours to do a skim bedding job on a McMillan stock he doesn't know what he's doing. He charged you hourly for something that took 3 times as long as it should.....and should have been a flat rate to start with.

I think Brownell's used to post common hourly gunsmith rates....can't remember where I saw it.

.....pay the man and move on.....if you do anything else with him it's all on you.

It's not Guam, but that's a hike!

Legends start at $15,000

If bedding is below $375, then he's charging a hell of a lot for the rest of the build process.

maybe $2500 to fit up a barrel...? $2000 bluing job..?...$5000 to work over the action?

so far we are still under $10 K,... ..add pre 64 action $600, barrel $350 , mcMilan stock $600 ,
bottom metal $600 , custom mounts $2500 ? ...decelerator pad and paint ...should make...$15K...

My gunsmith of many years just bedded and did a trigger job on a Ruger 35 Whelen for me. I picked it up this morning after he had it for a week and a half. He said he bedded it 3 times trying to get it perfect. He wasn't happy because even though it was fully functional it still doesn't look like he wants it to. Although he has gotten allot of my money over the years, he would only accept $100 for the bedding/trigger job. I know some smiths are super meticulous and churn out a flawless bedding job that costs what you paid or more. However, it doesn't sound like you received that quality of work. Sounds like you are just stuck with this bill. Just suck this one up and move on, especially if you didn't ask about pricing

You should have asked the cost before telling him to do the job.

Whatdoyaknow. Somebody finally said it.

If you can't figure out from the blood running down your leg and the difficulty sitting that you got ass raped, you ain't in a 'lesson learned' position.

There you go, you're welcome.

Ain't hard to know who and where!