While passing on my story of the con-gunsmith, Posted as "Gunsmith taking me for a ride", one of the young airmen in my shop let me know he had ordered a gunsmith course. He is a young guy, with a young wife and they are living on a fixed income. He showed me the website, but i forgot it. The name of the company is American Gunsmith Institute. I was wondering what you guys think of these kinds of mail-order courses. This kid doesn't need to be wasting money. But I don't know enough about gunsmithing to tell him one way or another.

Some time back I was curious about building an FN-FAL rifle from a kit and ordered AGI's tape on this weapon. I was really surprised at the quality and amount of information. In fact I ordered 16 ore of their tapes covering some semi-auto pistols, revolvers, semi-auto rifles etc. It was money well spent. As far as the AGI gunsmithing course, I don't think a novice can get enough information out of something like this unless he is working in the business, using metalworking machines and experiencing the work itself. They definitely would be a great help to someone like that. There is no teacher like hands on experience.

I also have bought some of the AGI tapes and they are worth the money. I don't know about the full course unless you are working with the tools. It 's like any other craft. You can only get so much out of a book, but tapes are great for visualizing the work.

AGI is pretty good,I have several of their tapes and books.They used to have a program that involved doing some work and then sending it in along with photo's I am told.<BR>I Really have nothing bad to say about them.<BR>However if the young airman is looking for a trade with which to support the family I would point him elsewhere.The profit/time margin requires a heck of an investment in equipment and tooling,and in the end a guy will need a primary income for years before getting to the point of having enough experience and time to make a living off of his work.<BR>I also would advise against General 'smith work.It pay's well for small general repairs but the headaches are HUGE!I can't stress this enough.Wallyworld and cheaply made diposeable guns are killing the general 'smith.That leaves poor folks with hardware store guns as clients.I lost my patience several times in the last year and have started turning away work just to avoid the frustration..<BR>Tell your bud to look into custom work and get a background in machine work first,then look into rifles.The market is getting weird and freakish for those that just do repairs.<BR>E4E

Appreciate the info. I've passed it on to my buddy. It turns out he only wants it to learn the basics. He bought the lessons for about 250. He's not looking to make any money on it right now. He just bought the lessons to see if it was something he would like to pursue in the future. Since the company doesn't seem to have a bad reputation I'm not going to try and talk him out of it. Who knows maybe after he is done he can teach me a thing or two. <BR>Thanks,<BR>jim