The Changing World Of Gunsmithing

The heyday of gunsmithing was probably from the end of World War II to the beginning of the Vietnam era. During this period there were thousands upon thousands of Mauser, Enfield, and Arisaka rifles that were remodeled into sporters. The order of the day called for restocking and rebarreling, along with new sights, bolt alterations, and reshaping of trigger guards. As a result, thousands of gunsmiths (?) sprang up to do these jobs.

You could get a Bishop or Herter stock and others I can’t remember for a few dollars, and thus was started an industry of small-time gunsmiths who remodeled these rifles. Of course, for every good job of restocking and sporterizing there were hundred of awful jobs, but no one seemed to care. The guns were cheap or even free if they’d been brought back as war trophies. Probably more deer were killed with these "custom rifles" than with the old Winchester 94, if such a thing is possible.

I made a bunch of them and I’ve often wondered what happened to them, for you rarely see any of these old rifles anymore. The boltaction was king back then’as it still is today for hunting rifles. I began my career as a gunsmith in 1946 rebuilding these rifles. I teamed up with a friend of mine who was very skilled at finishing semi-inletted stocks and checkering. We turned out some respectable Mausers and we rechambered hundreds of 7.7 Japs for the .30-06.

Why anyone would want a Jap, I never could figure out, but many were used in their original caliber. In those days, we could make a profit by building and selling a "custom" rifle with micrometer rears and ramp fronts for $135. Although most of these guns have disappeared, there are still a few amateurs turning surplus British SMLEs or Pattern 14 or 95 and 98 Mausers into inexpensive hunting rifles. This business has all but disappeared from the gunsmith shop.

Oh, we still get a few Springfields and the occasional Enfield, but not many. One of the reasons for the decline in this kind of business is that fewer people want custom rifles these days and the average guy doesn’t want or need to spend the money that a custom job costs.

Today, the gun makers are doing a better job of listening to the shooting and hunting customer, and he can usually find a quality rifle of the design he wants made by somebody’and at a figure substantially The easy availability and low prices of surplus World War II-era rifles helped to launch the custom-rifle craze as well as the careers of many of America’s gunsmiths. less than a custom rifle.

Nowadays the barreled actions by Ruger, Remington, Saco, or Mark Xis what the custom buyer is looking for’and rightly so, because all of these actions and barrels are better than any run-of-the-mill military rifle from generations past. (Back in 1946,

we didn’t know much about epoxy bedding and epoxies weren’t widely available. Thank goodness that’s not the case today.) I’m rather amused when I look at books such as the NRA Gunsmithing Guide and when I read articles on rebuilding bolt-action "custom" rifles when there just isn’t that kind of business anymore. The death of the reworked military job began with the introduction of the semiand fullauto military rifle.

The gun makers brought out M1-carbine lookalikes and have improved their semi-auto rifles and shotguns, too. This introduction of new and better guns has appealed to our customers. The appeal of the semi-autos was due at least in part to the fact that Americans are in love with machinery. If you’ve been around long enough to witness the present trend away from the revolver and toward the semi-automatic pistol, you can’t help but agree.

Along with this change in guns, the gunsmith has had to change, too; he couldn’t afford not to. He’s had to learn new mechanisms and how to treat their ills. If he didn’t, he’s had to go back to the factory or farm and try to get his old job back. War, of course, is a great creator of new and different types of weapons. Look back to the Revolutionary War. Then it was flintlocks; then percussion; then the trapdoor Springfield, the Krag, the ’03 Springfield, the Garand, etc. etc.

I’ll bet every one of these has been cut down and modified for hunting in some form or another. It’s different today. The modern military rifles don’t lend themselves to looking like a Griffen & Howe Sporter, and as I mentioned, customers for custom rifles want modern actions and super-accurate barrels. A deer hunter today wants his 7mm Magnum to shoot 3/4-inch groups from the bench’even if he can’t hit an elephant in the ass at 50 yards offhand. There haven’t been many surplus U.

S. rifles lately anyway, and the good old days of the DCM are apparently over. And while the romance of the fine custom rifle will always be with I us, the military-surplus actions are fewer and farther apart. So many of the gunsmiths of the post-World War II and Korea era have come and gone. What we have left are those gunsmiths who have stayed abreast of the changing world. We have to be able to service the various new guns that come on the market as well as those that have been on the market for years.

Thankfully, with millions of guns in this country, there will always be plenty of work for those who continue to learn and hone their skills’for anything and everything mechanical breaks sooner or later. Speaking of changes in the industry, right now there seems to be a veritable flood of aftermarket components for almost every semi-automatic pistol known to man. (Does anyone know where I can get an add-on compensator for an Excam? Just fooling.) The market for smoothing up these pistols is huge.

The factories will never turn out a gun that can’t be improved on by a competent gunsmith, but we have to stay alert to the changes and continue to learn what to do (and what not to do). Too bad there aren’t more local seminars on these things. You realize, I’m sure, that one day the 1911s will dry up just as the old military rifles have, and we’ll have to turn our talents to the newer actions that are being sold and used. The shotgun market will probably stay pretty much the same as long as they make shotguns.

We’ll always be putting in chokes, replacing recoil pads, rebluing, and making stock modifications. But make no mistake about it, we’ll still have to learn the new models as long as there are new models coming out. All in all, I see no black clouds on the gunsmith’s horizon’except more foolish gun laws.

If you keep improving your skills and increasing your knowledge about the new guns, you’ll always have someone coming into your shop with a worried look on his face and imploringly asking: "Can you fix this?" And your answer will always be: "You bet I can."