Want to be a gunsmith?

I actually read the whole thing. Wow. A lot of info. I am turning 40 next year and was working with computers all my life. In between I started online stores, marketing gigs and more. Now my computer skills get outdated and I have no interest to compete with brilliant young minds in this field. Time for a new skill set. Combining new and old. I have been working with my hands all my life (jewelry making, finishes, woodworking etc). When I got my first Tokarev, that was the time I decided to be a gunsmith. I loved the result of having a metal brick turn into an JMB's wet dream.
But after reading all of the forums and visiting local smiths, I changed my mind. I don't want to be just a gunsmith. I want to learn everything about machining, designing, prototyping and gun manufacturing and engraving of firearms. I am very fortunate. I am a minimal wage part time worker in a machine shop. The guys there are amazing and explain and tach me a lot. In my spare time I learn CNC programming, design and work on my guns (tunung, upgrade and finishing). So in the end I would like to make custom parts and concentrate on artistic aspect of pistols and tune up.
I would love to meet with anyone interested in gunsmithing in Ottawa. Maybe we could do something as a collective.

For all the people that lack marketing or online presence, I could offer my help. For free. Or I should say reciprocal knowledge exchange. Send me a PM.

Thank you all for such a great thread.
 
hey gunner, I would like to get into gunsmithing once i get a house (before end of year) and am wondering if you could help guide me. I plan on taking various gunsmiting courses and becoming armourer certified by multiple companies and was hoping you would be able to guide me on this. I already have the email address secured. I do plan on specializing in Beretta products and M1A/M14s. I am 21 and looking for a mentor in the barrie area.
 
fingers284 said:
Just a local business license is required...No special Fed. Govt. license or approval needed unless you want to manufacture guns or ammo for resale...hang your shingle and get-at-er' .

Corrected to add "unless you want to handle restricted then the CFO wants you to be insured & have a security system before they will accredit you as restricted destination.
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You might want to check on that. A Firearms Business Licence, endorsed for gunsmithing, is necessary if someone is going to charge folks for performing work for them. There are a variety of requirements to obtain a Firearms Business Licence.
 
I know this is an old thread but this post seems appropriate for this thread. As much as I am very new to guns, I like working on stuff. I have a bit of a small home machine shop set up so, naturally, working on guns would be a nice fit. Hard to learn the basics of gun smithing from a book.

The biggest deterrent I see is getting old guns to work on. Obviously, being at the very bottom of the learning curve, I am not about to work on or even offer to work on someone else's for fear of screwing it up. I would rather buy it from them, then, if I am successful, sell it back. I have no intention of becoming a collector. But I really like working on stuff. My careers and hobbies have been based on it. But since Kijiji does not allow gun related postings (they even pulled a request for reloading equipment ad I had up for about 6 hours) how does one find repairable guns in Canada? I was able to run an ad in a small, local paper that comes out once a week..starts tomorrow. The person I spoke to said they do not allow gun ads but since I was wanting them to work on, she figured it could go. I pointed out the sport of biathlon to her. She had no problem with ads but was just reciting company policy. We will see if the ad runs the second week. I find the gun community tends to hold on to repairable ones or just repair themselves. But when you walk into one of the local smiths, guns are stacked up, wait times are huge, etc. He has a very good local reputation, but is months backlogged. And has been around forever so, sadly, someday will need to retire one day.

I am trying word of mouth and working my network. I will be joining one of the local clubs in a couple of weeks so that might open up some learning opportunities but I doubt it will lead to hardware to work on.

Any other avenues to explore in Canada? I was reading through some of the parts exchange. Wow, there are a lot of different makes I have not even heard of so a huge, fascinating field to explore. Wish I had the guns from my childhood. They would have been great contenders to practice on. Such is life.

Shawn
 
I took the Penn Foster/ICS Fire arms repair course. Allot of the information in there seemed to be more American than Canadian when it came to magazine capacities, barrel length/overall length. There is very little choice in Canada for courses. There was exactly ZERO practical exercises, how does that train a gunsmith? Luckily I have a varied collection of firearms and in my time I learned to fix my own issues as the "gunsmith" in my location was a real hack.
The last nail in my coffin was work on a .44 calibre Winchester lever action. It took forever and ultimately I couldn't get the parts into Canada (feed gate and springs). I lost a very disappointed customer in the end, this wasn't the only parts pitfall. Brownells, Numrich and various other places including Mossberg all quote ITAR and other obstacles. Canadian places are no better for supply, try getting a Mossberg 590 metal trigger housing, Recently Mossberg sent me to an authorized place in Canada, they told me they couldn't sell me the part. Any associated work with that part has to be carried out by an authorized Mossberg shop.
It seems in canada to be a gunsmith you have to realize that somewhere around 5-10% is gun smithing, the remainder of the time you are having to lock horns with; Canadian government, American government, customers, suppliers, Border bozos (I mean customs).
 
I checked it out. Insurance to work on rifles and shotguns was reasonable. Insurance to work on Handguns was mind blowing. Prohibs was not far from the sun.
Much like a store selling handguns.
I just restore 1 rifle at a time.
 


There was another yt chan set up by this great bearded guy in the USA who pulled no punches about what the comparatively good USA business outlook was like. Not sure if he is still active on yt with all the bullcrap recently. Mr.Novak is the real deal.

Here is the bearded chap, lol he is awesome.


Note how terse and straight he speaks, carries himself, and dresses. This is an important part of the gunsmith storefront mystique, like it or not. Almost every long serving small gun shop or small gunsmith shop I ever patronized or visited in Canada incorporated this storefront mystique. It is no coincidence imo.
 
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fat tony said:


There was another yt chan set up by this great bearded guy in the USA who pulled no punches about what the comparatively good USA business outlook was like. Not sure if he is still active on yt with all the bullcrap recently. Mr.Novak is the real deal.

Here is the bearded chap, lol he is awesome.


Note how terse and straight he speaks, carries himself, and dresses. This is an important part of the gunsmith storefront mystique, like it or not. Almost every long serving small gun shop or small gunsmith shop I ever patronized or visited in Canada incorporated this storefront mystique. It is no coincidence imo.
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I enjoy watching both channels. Plenty of useful information.
Love the old camera the bearded fellows wife uses - gives the channel a nostalgic feel.
 
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