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Originally posted by 92fstech:

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Originally posted by rmfnla:
Great post!

It’s this kind of thing that got me into gunsmithing in the first place.

However, it was the desire to make a more substantial living that relegated it to a hobby rather than a profession.

Sounds to me like you are just skipping my first step…

That's cool...I'd definitely be interested to hear your story behind that if you'd care to share. I have a newfound lifelong need for health insurance, so self-employment isn't in the cards...nor do I have the skills to be successful at this point, but I enjoy the learning process, and I could see doing it as a hobby or maybe even a side gig someday if I ever get good enough at it.

Like you, I'm a tinkerer. Cars, boats, home improvement and yes, guns; gotta know how they work and love to fix or improve.

Nobody in my family is into guns; not anti, just not into them, so when the bug bit me at about age 13 I was on my own. That was 1967.

I read everything I could find and at age 15 was lucky enough to land an apprenticeship under an ex-Griffin & Howe gunsmith who had a small shop in Miami. Unfortunately, he was a bit of a nutcase, and I spent most of my time scraping some weird goo off the fuselage of a hurricane-damaged Cessna he had the the back room of the shop.
Most of my real experience came from working on my own guns, and that included antiques as well as modern (for that time). I have had a bit of formal training, mostly when I had the opportunity to pick the brains of people smarter and/or more experienced than I, and I do have formal machine shop training.

I worked my way through school as a welder until I got my ME from U of F (go Gators!) in 1976. I worked for Bechtel for a bit until I saw an ad for gunsmith at Tamiami Guns, Miami's largest LGS at the time. Turned out their existing 'smith was a HS acquaintance who I didn't even know was into guns, and who was moving out west. I landed the job and spent perhaps the happiest three years of my life as "the guy in the back." I was pretty good at what I did, but more importantly I was good at customer service, so I developed a bit of a following and life was good. Fast forward a few years and the owner's son wanted to get into the business and started nosing into everything. I think he was an accountant or something because he came back into my area and started telling me how he wanted to "implement systems". I replied that my system was the gun came in, I fixed it, it went back out again and we got paid. Needless to say, we did not hit it off.

As the years passed that tech degree and customer service got me into tech sales. I continued to work on guns but never joined another shop. Instead, I would offer my services to places like pawn shops and antique stores that sold a lot of guns but had no way to do repairs. This kept me busy at my own pace and allowed me to work on an amazing variety of guns while still earning a realistic living. I still do this.

The problem with any trade like gunsmithing is there are only a certain amount of hours in the day and that limits how much work you can turn out, which limits your income. As you mentioned, things like health insurance are a hard reality, especially if you have or want a family. I know my wife was happier when I literally tripled my income once I went white collar, and you know what they say about a happy wife.

I guess the upshot is there are other ways to scratch that tinkering itch. The good news about guns, unlike say cars, is they are small and relatively inexpensive, so even if you are working only on your own they are easy to afford and don't take up much space.

Cheers!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: rmfnla,

Thanks for sharing your story. It sounds like an interesting journey, and appears that you took advantage of good opportunities when they were available. I'd love to get some machining experience. I had an opportunity to take a job a number of years back working in a manufacturing shop as kind of a troubleshooter/apprentice type thing, but the pay wouldn't have paid our bills, and I was working on getting into the cop thing at the time, so I ended up turning it down. I don't regret taking the path that I did, but I did miss out on an opportunity to gain some solid machining experience.

As to the 1911 from my original post, I took it out today and shot it with both firing pin stops. Unburned powder was about the same with both, but the one with the cut radius actually felt like it recoiled smoother. I filed a radius into the EGW part tonight, polished it, and re-installed. Back to the range tomorrow to see how it works.

As regards the firing pin stop, the matter came up on the M1911 forum probably10-15 years ago. One very knowledgeable old timer master smith nicknamed "1911 Tuner" brought the issue to a semi-final rest with several dozen pages and hundreds of posts. Finally the entire discussion was mothballed, but the interest has never truly stopped. Circa 2017-2018 further discussion arose anew regarding finessing the FPS on the Colt Delta Elite 10mm and helped with some additional insights, drawings and a photo or two.

Here is the link
https://forum.m1911.org/showth...7f6fc68803f3b07a4553

Thanks for that! It a good read, and answered some questions about testing lower barrel lug fit to the slide stop pin that I'd been puzzling over. I just finished listening to an older Primary and Secondary podcast where Joe Chambers was talking about this, but never described how to check for it.

Digging in with a little more effort I located an earlier stickied post at M1911.org regarding the effects of the FPS radiusing effects and sure enough they appear from 2010, 11 years ago, about the time that I became very interested in the topic! Here is the link in which 1911Tuner stepped up to the plate...

https://forum.m1911.org/showth...97c30ebce7cae82374fe

Another good read. Thanks again!

I believe this link was the first or original surfacing of the FPS issue on M1911.org I must apologize for finding and posting the three articles in time inverted order.

https://forum.m1911.org/showth...c189910b79af6987e404

I have a 45 that all my others get judged by, so I bought all new innards and worked them to match.

Except for my GI, I keep it just the way it was issued.

I bought the stones and jigs many years ago to work the sear and disconnect. Polishing the spring fingers and safety make a huge difference all on its own.

Some folks don't like the series 80, but when polished up right, they shoot every bit as good as a 70 series. In fact, my favorite 1911 is a series 80.

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Some folks don't like the series 80, but when polished up right, they shoot every bit as good as a 70 series. In fact, my favorite 1911 is a series 80.

I love the 1911, but I don't carry one since it doesn't match the manual of arms of my duty gun due to the manual safety. When I bought the Loaded, I knew it was going to be a range gun, so I went with a series 70 just for the simplicity.

Some day, if I ever retire or change jobs, I may well start carrying one, but if I do it'll probably be a Series 80. I like the idea of another built in safety device to prevent a discharge in the event of a mechanical failure or a drop...especially on a single-action gun that's carried cocked and locked.