Long, but great gunsmithing video

Great video, could you imagine waiting a year to get your gun. Do you think his guns are valuable compared to the plastic ones everyone thinks are the best since chickens laid eggs. My taste run towards the stainless models . Even my favorite trap guns stainless Bt99 plus. It put me in the record books on the All American Trap team. Still nice to see the old way start to finish. I made a stock for a LC Smith ideal grade once YUPP took me a long time in letting but it turned out great still in my safe. Have some gunsmiths as friends , they told me I couldn't have picked a harder one to do by hand. From a tree in my yard to a stock in my safe on a beautiful old double gun. Had some good offers to buy but the pride of doing it free hand just makes it not for sale. Besides my oldest daughter has her eyes on some of them. Even Hank Peters , famous for his stock making gave me a good job on it. Use hang out with good men at the shooting clubs I belong too.
 
Great video, could you imagine waiting a year to get your gun. Do you think his guns are valuable compared to the plastic ones everyone thinks are the best since chickens laid eggs. My taste run towards the stainless models . Even my favorite trap guns stainless Bt99 plus. It put me in the record books on the All American Trap team. Still nice to see the old way start to finish. I made a stock for a LC Smith ideal grade once YUPP took me a long time in letting but it turned out great still in my safe. Have some gunsmiths as friends , they told me I couldn't have picked a harder one to do by hand. From a tree in my yard to a stock in my safe on a beautiful old double gun. Had some good offers to buy but the pride of doing it free hand just makes it not for sale. Besides my oldest daughter has her eyes on some of them. Even Hank Peters , famous for his stock making gave me a good job on it. Use hang out with good men at the shooting clubs I belong too.
I applied for a gunsmith apprenticeship at CW back around 1982 or so.

Had I gotten accepted my life would have been totally different.

They told me at that time that the wait list was up around five years plus.
 
I applied for a gunsmith apprenticeship at CW back around 1982 or so.

Had I gotten accepted my life would have been totally different.

They told me at that time that the wait list was up around five years plus.
It's always been that way I think, even tho there are some decent home study courses that are very good. I did one forty plus years ago and then became disabled paralyzed ended up being affected in all four limbs and internally . I worked hard to get back walking but had drop ft from throwing my leg and locking the knee back to walk and stand I wore my knee out and spurs on my hip. I walked my way back to a wheelchair and savere pain now. But I used my machinist training and the gunsmithing to help me through life I made custom gun cleaning rods and did gunsmithing on lots of guns in the past now. I even opened up gun cleaning at trap shoots . $6.00 single barrel , $10 for doubles ,$15 for combos. I worked on guns that cost over forty thousand dollars and they were repeat customers at every shoot . It paid for extras that always come up. It wasn't much per hrs. Takes 15 minutes for a barrel , 10 mins the receiver, extra barrels 15. @ , but I did them from my scooter and was there from 6am to 8pm. . At the time it seemed like ALOT twenty bucks an hrs. For two days . I haven't done any since 2005 way things cost now I'd have to triple the old tip prices. Even found a guy in Pennsylvania who stole my design of the cleaning rods , down to the knurling and three under cuts on the handles while at there state shoot.
 
Interesting to see this....

They have a Covered Wagon outside the bay window to keep you from seeing the cars going by on Frances street. That's the front of the shop.

I've often wanted to go into the shop and talk to whomever is working and find out when they started working there.... and rib them about my losing out to them.

:)
 
I applied for a gunsmith apprenticeship at CW back around 1982 or so.

Had I gotten accepted my life would have been totally different.

They told me at that time that the wait list was up around five years plus.
You know what that's six years before I did , with the wait I needed to work and had two girls by 1977 YUPP no time then needed a house and money working seventy two hour weeks then too.
 
I graduated from Trinidad State College in 1971 and there was one of my fellow classmates went to work for Williamsberg Colonial Gunshop. He was a great craftsman at an early age. For all of you people who want to be a gunsmith, there really isn't any money in it, and with all the hassels with the Federal Government and gun manufactures about replacement parts, it's hard to make a dollar.
 
Excellent movie! I remember watching that exact movie 35-40 years ago. I don't remember the context of where I saw it, I am sure it was on a projector, but I do remember the rifling machine made out of wood and hammering the barrel out of flat stock. It was very cool seeing it again as I forgot so many of the details... like how they got a straight bore. I don't remember much about most movies that much... but that one made an impression me! Thanks for posting it!

It should be required middle/high school watching due to the way it sparks the mind thinking about how things are made.
 
Excellent movie! I remember watching that exact movie 35-40 years ago. I don't remember the context of where I saw it, I am sure it was on a projector, but I do remember the rifling machine made out of wood and hammering the barrel out of flat stock. It was very cool seeing it again as I forgot so many of the details... like how they got a straight bore. I don't remember much about most movies that much... but that one made an impression me! Thanks for posting it!

It should be required middle/high school watching due to the way it sparks the mind thinking about how things are made.
I went to SCC for submitting back in the early 80's for Gunsmithing and Gun Repair. I read about the movie in FoxFire 5 and the Instructor got the movie.

I purchased the Gunsmiths of Colonial Williamsburg on VHS tape when I took my family there in 2001.

Fast forward to 2006 and I started teaching General Machinist/ Tool & Die. The first day of classes every August, we watch the movie.



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