Rock Hill / Charlotte area gunsmith

Pogue

Pogue

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AR work.

Need a barrel dimpled for gas block and the block drilled/pinned to barrel & headspace checked.

Dont want to do the big lgs thing so Nichols, Sportsman and Hyatt’s are out. (Not trying to wait 6 months to have it done )

Any obscure but awesome smiths in the area?
 
Pointed me to Catawba Valley Armory although I’ve yet to get ahold of them.

Discouraging to see how sparse the trade is in the area.
 
Pogue said:
Pointed me to Catawba Valley Armory although I’ve yet to get ahold of them.

Discouraging to see how sparse the trade is in the area.
Click to expand...
Sportsman in Rock Hill hasn't had a gunsmith capability in several years.
Nichols & Hyatts don't even have a Bridgeport Mill in their respective facilities.



Question for ya

What would you price this job at if you were doing the job? What do you think is a fair price?
 
Hashknife said:
Sportsman in Rock Hill hasn't had a gunsmith capability in several years.
Nichols & Hyatts don't even have a Bridgeport Mill in their respective facilities.



Question for ya

What would you price this job at if you were doing the job? What do you think is a fair price?
Click to expand...

I did end up calling sportsman. $120 and 12 weeks for a 15 minute job. (Yeah I know. It’s not just the time you’re paying for )

I’m one more unanswered call away from ordering the jigs at twice that price and doing it myself. It’s not rocket science.
 
Last edited:
Pogue said:
I did end up calling sportsman. $120 and 12 weeks for a 15 minute job. (Yeah I know. It’s not just the time your paying for )

I’m one more unanswered call away from ordering the jigs at twice that price and doing it myself. It’s not rocket science.
Click to expand...
They are going to send it off. They ain't gonna do it in house. They have zero capability.

Its not rocket science, but it is time and liability. In these times, that is not worth what the general public is willing to pay.

Its really more than a 15 minute job. Proper set up on a mill takes time. ( Depends on what setup is on the machine at the moment. )
The jigs will get you close, but they are an aproximation. A machine shop/smith is not going to use jigs.

Doing it your self puts the liability on you. If you screw up, its on you. Nobody is going to take that liability on for little to nothing.
 
At a cheap $60/hr for manual shop rate,
a "15 min job" equals a whopping $15 for the job. That does not even cover overhead, labor, or liability.

This is the reason most places don't do it anymore.
 
Not really concerned with the $$ amount. This is already a $3k build at this point. The lack of local smiths is just a curveball I wasn’t expecting. If I ever decide to piece together an upper again I’ll buy a barrel with the gas black preinstalled (unless I buy the jigs from https://brdengineering.com/)
 
For thread closure….I did order the BRD engineering dimple jig. Fit great and allowed my novice self to make some perfect dimples. I did decide against buying the pinning drill jig, mainly because the didn’t have one for my specific gas block, and I didn’t want to fiddle with their universal jig.

After dimpling I torqued the set screws (with rocksett) and then made some more calls.

Found RB Rifleworks in the Concord area and he took care of the pinning very reasonably.

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With that out of the way, my first 18” build is together!

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