Beware of the $2-an-Hour Job

Gunsmiths actually work for $2 an hour? Sure, happens all the time. Sometimes it is because of inexperience; he doesn’t understand the workings of a particular gun. Perhaps, in his eagerness to succeed, he undertook to repair a gun, only to find out later that there is no schematic and precious little information available. Or it could be something as simple as a frozen screw or a broken tap that turns what should be a simple half-hour job into an all-day nightmare.

Some of these problems can’t avoided, but they can be minimized. The first instance cited above can be corrected easily. If you don’t know anything about the gun, tell your customer so and approach it from that standpoint. No one can be expected to know everything about every gun. Tell him you need to take a few minutes to search your library for information before you can accept the job. I’ve often said that every gun manufacturer or importer should be required to provide technical bulletins for gunsmiths.

In the real world, however, this is never going to happen, so you have to do what you can to protect yourself. You can easily spend an hour or more before you even begin to realize what a particular job entails. And if a gun is delivered to you in a plastic bag, it could take hours just to determine what, if any, parts are missing. Moreover, once you get that piece I of iron apart, you still don’t know what kind of trouble you’ll run into getting it to function as it should.

This, of course, brings me back to my words of caution in previous articles about giving estimates. You can’t estimate what a job will cost until after you know what it will involve. Let’s assume you took the job, you got the gun apart, and you have the three hands you’ll need to put it back together. If you told the customer you thought it would be a $30 job, you’re stuck with it because you started it, even if it takes you five or 10 hours to complete.

You owe it to yourself to tell the customer what it will cost to take the gun apart and diagnose the problem. Then stop at that point while it is still profitable. Call the customer then and tell him outright whether or not you think you can fix it. If you can (and be honest with yourself), you can give him an estimate at that point of the cost of parts and labor. Basically, you’re feeling the customer out to find out how far he’s willing to go to put the gun back in service.

While we’re on this subject, don’t ever be afraid to admit you can’t do a particular job. Hell, I can’t do brain surgery, and I’m not afraid to say so. You’re always going to stay on the good side of your customers if you keep telling the truth. So watch yourself, be sure of yourself, know your limitations, and be very cautious when venturing beyond your past experience.

Even being cautious, you’re going to have plenty of jobs that run over the time limit, leaving you in a position where you can’t really charge for the extra time. But don’t go looking for this kind of trouble. Sometimes you can (and should) chalk this extra time up to "education." I mean, how does a gunsmith gain experience and knowledge if he doesn’t occasionally try something he’s never done before? But before you take a job for the value of the experience, look carefully at the gun.

Is it a model that you’re likely to be dealing with frequently, or is it an isolated case? If it is the later, you might not want to fool with it’especially if you’re busy with guns you know about. If you’re determined to learn something new, then go back to the shop at night and start in on it. Don’t expect to make money on the job; instead consider the time spent as additional education and satisfy yourself. The best gunsmiths I know are self-taught.

They tread where others fear to tread, but they do so with reservation and caution. They have enough mechanical ability and know-how to take on a troublesome job, but quite often they learn that these jobs are not worth their time. So there’s always something else to learn, but eventually you need to learn "to just say no." Gunsmiths can be divided into two types: The first is like the old "country doctor" who treats all illnesses and usually does a pretty good job.

Then there’s the specialist, be it in custom rifles, gunstocks, pistolsmithing, or whatever. He’s the man the country doctor will send you to if the job is out of the range of the "general practitioner." You can decide to be either of these, but you will obviously walk before you run. You’ll probably have more competition as a specialist than as a G. P. If you don’t mind that, go ahead and specialize. I prefer being a G. P. I like the variety. But I use the services of specialists all the time.

This approach keeps more customers happy. Even if I don’t do the specialized jobs myself, I provide a service to my customers by getting the job done. Because I’m a gunsmith myself, I can talk to the specialist in his own language and ensure that the job will be done in a manner that will satisfy my customer. Think about it.