Changes Are A Comin’ (They Are Here!)

Listen up Mr. Newcomer and take heed! Young bucks sitting around the council fire take note of what the old chief has to say. Remember, he has seen a lot of sunsets, watched the tribe (market) dwindle simply because they failed to adapt. His coup stick is full. Things are constantly changing in the gunsmith world. To give you a couple of examples, look at the factory drilled and tapped holes for scope mounts. The trend now is toward factory bedded stocks.

These two items alone have already cost you two jobs and it will continue to get worse. Everything dries up. The tremendous demand for receiver sights went the way of the buffalo as scope makers improved their products and better and better mounts appeared. Military conversions have slowed down. Outside of an American Gunsmith feature, how many articles have you read about them in the consumer hunting and shooting magazines lately? They will continue to become less.

Right now the heavy demand is for installation of after market accessories for semi auto pistols. What next, for this market will all of a sudden level off. It has to. Look at the hula hoop! American gun owners want something new and the combined manufacturer’s hype helps fuel this fi re. Things change, the old die and in their place comes someone or something new. Remember the Cutts Compensator, Poly-Choke and now the ubiquitous screw-in choke.

Vent ribs were hot until the manufacturers got their act together and priced vent barrels at attractive levels. The overall important thing is not to poo poo the past but to be prepared to stop and think. Ask yourself, where do Ifi tin? Look at these new markets and the death of old. Who is going to take up the slack of the demise of Charter, Kimber, Colt and others? I maintain that the repair market will continue to grow but there will be some necessary adjustments.

The factory can drill and tap all it wants but the service you offer to mount and adjust (bore sight) scopes is still very important. There will be a great number of unbedded rifles to bed but it will get less. Refinishing, both wood and metal will become ever more important. Repair will get heavier simply because the cost of anew gun will continue to rise (for awhile) and then stabilize. Recession is a great leveler of markets.

If you don’t think so, look at your local real estate market Gunsmithing, insofar as ups and downs in pricing, remains quite stable. Don’t be in a hurry to cut your prices simply because work has slowed down. It will pick up, but once you start cutting prices all you are going to do is tell customers that you have been overpricing all along or, and this may really hurt you, that you are hungry and not doing much.

No matter how fast you can get a job done so that you can get your money out of it, don’t turn it loose under a week. Hold your customer’s respect and don’t let him know you are slow. You, hopefully, will be in business long after any recession has come and gone. Presidents may come and go but you will still be there. Watch for changes! The includes changes in the market and the political arena. Be prepared to know what these changes are and what you can do to live with them.

Above all, just because you like guns, don’t be a romanticist about this business. Be smart and, above all, be practical. There is one more change that has been slower to take effect but it has been growing stronger the past few years. Factory authorized repair stations are becoming more and more prevalent. If you read the new catalogs carefully you will note a list of such repair stations. Obviously, these are for new warranty or recall work. Factories do not like the expense of maintaining repair departments.

Some, like Colt, Smith and Wesson, and Remington, to name a few, have custom shops but these are different from repair departments. Even though a factory will service and repair their current models they have a cut off time for every model. In an ideal situation no gun would ever return to the factory for repair and there would never be a recall. I truly believe these factory repair shops operate at a loss but then I do not have access to the records so I can’t really say much with authority.

The Factory Repair Station or service Center means that the "gunsmith" doing the repair has been trained at the factory and has been

given detailed information as to the malfunctions and how to correct them by instructors at the factory. Most of these stations have been induced or required to carry a large stock of the particular maker’s parts which could tie up a lot of capital. Thus, with a pre-set price for repairing a gun these stations become parts changers. They approach every job as per factory instruction and swap the necessary parts. They spend a minimum of time on the job and don’t always correct any lingering trouble.

Well, you are not a parts changer even if you need new parts. Your minimum charge is usually higher than the station gets from the factory so you have the edge there. The other thing is that many people will not box up a gun, write a letter or payout for UPS. Instead, they will go looking for a good gunsmith. That’s you! It is, or should be, easier—and we are all looking for that road – to just bring that work in to you.

Your personal service is more important to them because they are one on one with you, an actual knowledgeable person. It makes them happier to talk to warm flesh and blood than to write an email or talk on the phone (likely with sales rep) and they can keep in touch with you. You might even have to send the occasional gun back to the factory but your customer is letting you do the best for him. He will be back another day.

Add in the fact that factories are rejecting work on older guns and their part swap stations become even less competition for you. Forget or don’t lose any sleep over the warranty station, they just are not prepared to do your job. While it is not exactly a change in markets, have you noticed the amount of recalls that have occurred during the last 10 years as compared to 20 and 30 years ago? What does this tell you?

If the engineering was better, the research and testing programs better, would we have these recalls? If guns were being designed by gun designers instead of bean counters and computers, perhaps there would be fewer recalls but that is not our problem. Ours is to fix and charge, not to reason why. Being a factory authorized shop may be good advertising and satisfy your ego but it is not always what it is cracked up to be.

Other than the parts inventory you will have to carry and the fixed price for warranty work, you have to take into consideration the unpacking, repair and repacking for shipment. Say you had 500 warranty jobs come in. Who is going to keep the records and do all of the above? Not you if you have other gunsmith work to do. What do you do? You think this kind of business is great and it will never end so you hire someone. He is going to handle all the warranty work. Wonderful!

Right off the muzzle he has to have a table to receive and ship, record keeping and a place to store the boxes. You have just bought yourself a workmen’s compensation policy because of the new help and immediately cost yourself a bundle. Cuts the profit down quick, doesn’t it? Larger space is needed, a bench for the new man and what are you going to do with him when the 500 guns are done? You hope you get more and so do I if this is what you want to do.

Let’s say you still think this is great and your man is making you a tidy sum above all the expenses, so you look for another factory to become authorized by. Just because you are authorized by "Glitch & Co." does not necessarily qualify you for immediate acceptance by some other manufacturer. No, you have to attend another factory school and get another authorization. Remember, as long as recalls exist you could be busy but if you are only doing what I like to call "normal warranty work" the numbers will be less.

Keep in mind you are not the only authorized repair station that the factory has. All of these things have to be taken into consideration. No person that you hire can take the work completely off your shoulders. You have to lead him into each batch of recalls. He will be talking to you about something each day or several times a day so that each day you give part of your time to the project. Then, people being people, your man will not show up one day. His wife is ill and he has to keep the kids and house going.

He had a bad night and is "sick." He went hunting or fishing or opened his own shop. Any number of reasons including hemorrhoids is sufficient reason for him not to be there. Now your production is down because warranty work is production. This is one reason to consider and it should be considered for it will happen as sure as black powder makes smoke. Once you become an employer you start a whole new set of problems that American Industry has been faced with as long as they have existed.

You had better be prepared to be employer, priest, psychologist, marriage counselor, doctor and whatever else when you hire your first man. Don’t hire gun enthusiast friends as that rarely works. If you hire anyone let it be a stranger as it makes it easier to fi re him. I want to take just a minute or two to talk about hiring someone wants to learn the business. Assuming you have enough business to need another man, hire him but have him sign a non-competition agreement for 5 years or 20 miles.

If he objects, he is telling you he is there to learn your trade and business with intentions of opening his own shop. I am all for competition and the right to the American Dream, but I never got anything that I did not pay for in blood, sweat, or money so why should we foster a no cost gunsmith school? You make up your own mind. I merely am telling you what can happen and it will.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention raises, paid vacations, hunting seasons, your new man working on his own guns, buying guns for himself and then selling them. Yeah, the list goes on. Don’t ask how I know. AG