Trying to become a gunsmith

[rustycheetah]

Hey guys my name is travis and i live in San Antonio Texas i am wondering if anyone knows of any gunsmiths near me doing any kind of apprenticships that i can get into or any schools near me doing courses thank you

 

[steve-o-556]

If im not mistaken , there was a thread on here that said Penn Foster offered a online class for $800 or so.

 

[rustycheetah]

Thank you

 

[Mikewood]

American gunsmithing institute?

 

[RetArmySgt]

The Penn Foster program is good but you should have a little hands on first, you dont get any with that course. It does have a lot of information and they make it easy to follow.

 

[RetArmySgt]

American gunsmithing institute?

Their videos and books are good. But alot of people want to see a piece of paper hanging on your wall with a school name on it.

 

[shortround]

The Colorado School of Trades in Lakewood, CO (Denver area) has a decent reputation.

On-line schools always come with the danger of not being taken seriously:

How do you demonstrate your ability to operate a lathe or a mill, fit and bed a stock, mount & shim a scope, tune a trigger, straighten a barrel, and torque fasteners to the proper specifications on-line?

How do you learn hands-on from a master in a real shop on-line?

You can learn to be a lawyer or psychic on line, but physicians and gunsmiths have to learn by doing in the presence of experienced professionals.

Be well.

 

[rustycheetah]

The Colorado School of Trades in Lakewood, CO (Denver area) has a decent reputation.

On-line schools always come with the danger of not being taken seriously:

How do you demonstrate your ability to operate a lathe or a mill, fit and bed a stock, mount & shim a scope, tune a trigger, straighten a barrel, and torque fasteners to the proper specifications on-line?

How do you learn hands-on from a master in a real shop on-line?

You can learn to be a lawyer or psychic on line, but physicians and gunsmiths have to learn by doing in the presence of experienced professionals.

Be well.

I totally agree so i went out searching and i found a gun shop here in SA that will let me come in while in school and apprentice with their head gunsmith and he will show me hands on while i do the online course i think this will work out very well with the penn foster course what do you guys think

 

[Kj6kwc]

AGI has a few courses they offer, but with a heavy price I think for a DVD education the Masters course $10,000!
What do you guys think?

 

[wakal]

I think AGI is run by the same sort of guys that sell seats in "how to make millions in real estate" courses...

A

 

[TreyG-20]

I think you would be way better off learning from the gunshop and actually deaing and handling firearms in real life than anyting you would learn online or in a book. I tryed out an AGI DVD once and it was helpful at the time but i quickly learned it wasn't what i needed. You can find most information online for free and videos are all on youtube.

 

[Swede]

As stated, there is NO alternative to hand's on. Supervision is best, but simply by working with your own guns and equipment, putting together a few 1911's and working on AR's and the like, will go a long way towards training yourself.

A master gunsmith will be much more receptive to a guy who knows basic stuff, like lathe work, drilling and tapping, chambering, optics mounting, finishing, all the little skills. If you can show him a nice 80% AR or a 1911 that you heavily customized, including some machine work, I'm sure it'll help.

 

[Eli]

http://www.nragunsmithing.com/

Eli