Some 'smiths build full house custom guns. Some perform only metal work. Some only carve custom stocks. For the sake of this discussion-let's say your smith rebarreled your favorite rifle, bedded the action and mounted a scope.

Is it a reasonable expectation for the one building your gun to test fire it? Provide a test target?

And... yes, the gunsmith should be compensated for the service. Some shops gauranteee a certain level of accuracy. Some shops say that no one can gaurantee a new barrel will shoot to a prescribed level of accuracy. No one that I have ever heard of can build a gun to be accurate with your prescribed load and bullet of choice. Wouldn't a test target at least give the owner a benchmark.

Would you want a gun that someone built that had never been fired prior to returning it?

Open for discussion........

I'm a fulltime gunmaker & do both stock & metal work. I always test fire a new rifle I've built or one that has had major surgery (bedding, new barrel, etc.) Before I deliver a rifle I have to be sure things are right. The only way to do so--without assuming--is to fire the rifle. This allows me to deliver a rifle with confidence & shows the client what to expect. Failure to test fire a rifle before delivery invites problems. Testing a rifle is very cheap insurance, as well as, a good business practice.

Test fire, yes. Mount a scope, sit down, sight the rifle in and fire a sample group, no. I may or may not choose a good load and if not, the customer thinks his new rifle is a POS. It takes me a full day (or more) to find the best load for my bench guns and no customer is willing to pay me for that service on his rifle.

My regular guy always mounts the scope I provide, proves the work for function, and fires a few groups to make sure nothing obvious is wrong.

I wouldn't expect him to work up a load, as that is a lot of the fun for me with a new rifle, but I sure do expect to KNOW that what I paid for was put together well.

My smith does this for every rifle he builds, and I have even tagged along to "help" with the testing. As it turns out, it made him another sale.

CAS,

Thats music to my ears....



Roads

My rifle builder tests each and every gun he builds. Many times he'll test a generic load for accuracy during the firing, and he retains the target for reference. I know, because I test some of them for him. As a matter of interest, he also "breaks in" a new barrel with the "fire one and clean" method even though he, like me, doesn't believe in it. He then has one less hurdle to jump if there are complaints on the barrel, so he can go back to the barrel maker.

When mounting scopes or doing triggers, he doesn't fire them unless there was some safety or functional feature that can't be tested without firing.

Winchester (USRAC) replaced a rifle for me and sent two fired cases along with the replacement. I was also advised they fire two shots through every rifle they build, or at least the did 7-8 years ago when they were still in Connecticut. I'll bet Remington does too. I can't imagine any rifle builder NOT firing a new rifle if even only in a barrel.

If you take your lawnmower in to a repair shop because it won't start...you explain to the guy that it won't start...he bends over and unscrews the sparkplug and replaces it with another new plug and sends you out the door...
Now what do you think about that! Should he have checked to see if it would start?

if i replace the barrel, i test fire the rifle twice to exaimine the cases and to make sure it extracts and ejects. if i build the complete gun, it is tested for function and accuracy with factory loads.

Part of this answer depends a bit on the customer also. Whenever I build a rifle or rebarrel one, it's test fired before the customer picks it up. This is done as a matter of course to ensure the chamber is perfect and that the rifle will stand up to full-house loads. IF the customer wants a test target then it's going to cost more. Like another poster said above it takes time to do this properly especially if a custom load is developed.

Just last week I had a customer who had a factory Win. M70 Stealth in 22-250 that he was having accuracy problems with and wanted me to figure out the best load for a 53-55 gr bullet. Starting from scratch, it took over 5 hours to accomplish and I only charged him for 2 plus supplies... If I'm going to have to do that with a rifle I build I am going to charge for the labor to do it. One good thing is that with a new barrel it should take very little time to demonstrate accuracy. So far (knocking on wood here) I"ve not had a barrel that didn't provide excellent performance for my customers..

Redneck,
As a customer, I would personally not ask a gunsmith or anyone else to do my load developments. But if I did I would pay for their time, you cheated yourself by not charging the full amount of time you spent that you could have been working on something more profitable.
I don't expect anyone to work for free.

It would depend. If I send a rifle in to Charlie Sisk for accuracy work, I would say certainly, the proof should be provided with targets that I am getting what I paid for.

If, however, I have a rifle sent in for a new Shilen barrel that Charlie is going to install, I fully expect the rifle to be fired for proper functioning and chambering but I do not expect a target back showing a particular level of accuracy. I have not paid Charlie for accuracy work, only a new barrel and chambering. In short, I would expect to get only what I paid for, no more, no less.

my 'smith has test fired the 338-06 he built for me. he said he did it to see if it would shoot better with the barrel freefloated or bedded. in this case he said it did much better bedded. personally since i asked him to do a wildcat cartridge i didnt expect it but apparently one of his local regulars loads this cartridge so he did some basic work with it. he shot a smaller group with it than im prolly capable of or even need. being this was my first custom rifle i had no prejiduces either way.

Rattler

MColeman,

The local shoppe here always has people coming in wanting their rifles sighted in and ready for hunting season. They get real busy in Sept and Oct. with people wanting their rifles sighted in for them. Although I have never heard a customer ask specifically, the owner tells me he has several people each year ask for "custom" ammo and he turns them away. He's told them how much that would cost ... and they don't care .. they would pay. I always thought it would be a cool part-time gig, but I can also see the headaches involved with such an operation.

Straydog, I know you're right. This particular fellow is a very good customer of mine and I'm pretty sure I"m going to get a rebarreling project out of him this year. He had already spent the better part of a day trying to get this rifle to group well with 50+ grain bullets and was at the end of his rope. That's why he gave it to me to see what I could do. He's somewhat new to reloading, maybe about 2+ years experience.

I guess I see another side of this situation. Most gunsmiths don't have a shooting range in their back yard around here so firing a rifle for groups would be a fairly large order- especially with several rifles to work with at a time. About the most I would expect is what is usually done- firing for function to make sure everything works as advertised. However, if the rifle doesn't shoot up to expectations I would hope that the 'smith would make it right without extra expense.

In fact, a gunsmith I used for quite awhile lost my business when I was unhappy with the accuracy of a rifle he built for me. His comment to me and my buddy who had also had a ton of work done by him was "you guys worry too much about what it does on paper". Along with a few other problems we had with him over the years ended our relationship with him. Thanks to the forum I can easily find good quality smiths anytime I need one, usually several.- Bob

Redneck,
I think you just nailed the key point. It's that added service you provide that helps you gain some extra business down the road. The service I've gotten from my smith has resulted in me keeping him fairly busy.

Another way to look at it is that if the smith can prove up front that everything works and stuff is screwed on correctly, it may just save some time down the road re-checking everything.

True many gunsmiths don't have shooting facilities nearby, but all can get a barrel or trash can, fill it with cheap house insulation, and fire into the barrel to at least check the chamber and test function of it.

Been absent for a long time, but this post caught my attention!!

Only rifles I got in trouble with were ones I did not adequately test fire.

Lesson learned the hard way! Plus made an unsatisified guy out of an otherwise nice customer.

All guns are test fired for function.

If scoped, I sight in at 100 yards and run some of my loads through. Tells me real quick if the guns shoots OK. If not, I find out why.

I like to include a target when the rifle is shipped.

The big bore DGR's I fool with now take a lot of test firing, sight regulation, etc. I may have 100 or so rounds down the barrel before shipped. Did not do this much shooting in the past, but experience and a few guns "back in the shop" have taught me otherwise. A plus in shooting the heavies this much has taught me a lot about recoil management, stock construction and dimensions for a good iron sight picture, what a stock needs for withstanding the heavy recoil, and a few other things about high recoil big bores. Yes, I have had stocks break when the rifle was rifed, sort of an unpleasant experience!!! Best for this to happen at the range instead of out in the brush.

And people wonder why John Ricks, D'Arcy Echols, Mark Penrod..... have so many satisfied customers.

Chuck

The little 'extra services' that one provides will almost guarantee a steady business in the future. I always try to do that for customers. I'm fortunate enough to live 2 miles out of town and can test fire rifles to 100 yards right in my backyard. All rifles I've built are tested for function and chambering before delivery.

This reminds me of a (now) funny story that happened to me last year about this time. A fellow had dropped off a Ruger M77 at the local sporting goods store and was complaining of 'light strikes' and wanted me to check it out. As soon as I got it home I loaded 3 rounds of 30-06 in the magazine and went outside for an initial test fire. All three chambered, fired normally and ejected properly. All primers had nice deep dents in them. Tore the bolt apart to check for any foreign item that may have interferred with the firing pin when the customer had it. Nothing. Everything was clean, no burrs, proper tension etc. In short, I found nothing wrong. Sent it back. Next day, the store owner calls and tells me the guy is back, getting light strikes and is mad. I told Mike to send the guy out to me with the rifle and we'll take care if it right now.

The guy comes out, sort of calmed down by then and shows me the unfired rounds with very light dents in the primers, none would go off. I gave him a set of 'ears', donned my own and told him to follow me. Outside we went. I loaded those SAME rounds in the magazine, jacked one into the chamber and proceeded to fire every one of them. You should have seen the look on his face. He couldn't believe it. I loaded and fired 10 more rounds until he knew damn well the rifle was fine.

Here's what was happening. He's RH and when he chambered a round and dropped the bolt handle, his forefinger was JUST touching the bolt when he was gripping the rifle and it was moving the bolt up JUST a tad, but enough to ensure the firing pin could not get a full run at the primer.

Was he embarrassed?????? Does a starving dog like a T-Bone?

He's been a good customer ever since.....

Do you really think customers would be willing to pay me between $2-$300 to sight in their rifles and work up a load? I'm not talking about loading their ammo....I ain't about to get into that liability issue. Ask some of those customers that say they don't care if they'll pay $300. I may be overlooking something.

If you think $300 is too high remember that I can chamber 2 barrels in a day and not burn any components plus take me a nap after lunch.

Knowing the amount of time this AR handloader spends working up a good load, not to mention the burned components, I can't see how a gunsmith who's primary income comes from building rifles could offer that service and make it anything close to worthwhile.

My smith doesn;t flute barrels for the same reason. He could never charge what the job is worth once you consider setup time. The work he misses out on doing during that time pays much better. He comes out way ahead by sending those jobs out.

There is an outfit in Arizona that will go through the whole process of working up a load. From what I understand, they do a great job, and charge accoridingly. It is significantly more than $300.00.

For what its worth, by the time I do everything from prep brass to mount the strain gage and all, I have 8 to 10 hours invested if everything goes well. But then again I am a little slow.
Charlie

I guess I'm just a little stunned that there might be guys out there building complete rifles, that don't shoot them. I was fortunate to work for a rifle builder for a while and we had at least 20-30 rounds through everyone. And yes it did take a lot of time and components. And yes that cost was built into the cost of the rifle.

Amen to what Chuck said!

I had Jeff Hicks (HD Rifles) rebarrel/true action, pillar bed, new trigger, 8x40 mount conversion, and coat my Rem .300WM.

He patterned the rifle and sent me a pic of the group. Can you say aspirin? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Anyway, Jeff guarantees a .5" 3 shot group. I've only shot it twice since I got it back and my groups are approaching his promise. I have no doubts the rifle can shoot the way he promised. Me on the other hand, I have a little ways to go yet. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

If you have all the work I had done, I would expect it to be shot. As for load build up, that's another beast. Jeff used FGMM on my rig.



Mac