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AGI
Just Tim
Member Posts: 462 ✭✭✭
Has anyone used their dvd before? Would you recommend? Tim
Comments
They do seem a little skittish regarding anything that could cause them future liability problems such as adjusting trigger pulls, swapping firing pin(s)/springs etc.
With all the blood sucking liability lawyers slithering around, it's to be expected, I guess. Most of this type of information is available on the net, if you do enough digging anyway.
Most of the courses are billed as "armorer's courses" and if you look at them THAT way, they're fine.
They teach you a teensy bit about history of the gun, the basic weapon function, how to detail strip and clean them, and a few COMMON/EASY modifications. Maybe a few "tricks of the trade" depending on the video in question.
Its basically what a common user/maintainer of the gun would need to know and not a lot more. For that purpose, I think they are fine. Most end-users really don't need that much more than that.
You're obviously not going to learn all there is to know about gunsmithing ANYTHING in a 60 minute video! I mean you could make a 60 minute video on just tuning a 1911 trigger, for example.
Also, there are more specific courses on a small number of popular jobs. For example there are specific ones on doing trigger jobs on SKS rifles and Smith revolvers (that I haven't watched and can't comment on). So its not like they don't cover these things. . .just that these are complicated and beyond the scope of a basic video.
On the 10/22 rifle video, I've seen this. One other tip I picked up from it is how many twists to put in the factory magazine spring to get it to work reliably (IIRC, its 6, though I'd have to go look it up again). Its a pretty helpful tip, if you take one apart.
I have to disagree with He Dog a bit on this. Although he or I can probably strip and reassemble a 10/22 blindfolded, not everyone can do that. Lots of people get 10/22s as their first (or only) gun, and have ZERO experience taking apart guns (or anything else). Taking apart a *GUN* in particular can be very intimidating for someone not mechanically inclined, and its not like most people can take a course on it at their local community college! For someone like that, a video like this can be very helpful, and it beats paying a gunsmith $25 to clean your gun for you.
Also, yes, while the video really didn't contain a lot of information (for the experienced) other than how to detail strip the trigger mechanism, I have to say I found that bit particularly helpful when I rebuilt the trigger with a parts kit. . .far better than the instructions that came with the kit!
Thanks for the review . I was looking for detailed info, not just common disassembly. Tim
Well, what do you mean by "detailed info"? What exactly are you trying to do? And which gun(s) are you interested in?
The videos I've seen (which include 10-22, AR-15, Mossberg 500, SIG) go over detail-stripping, which is disassembling the gun down to every single part (or at least every reasonably disassemblable part) then putting it back together. That's a lot more involved than "common disassembly" (eg "field stripping").
And of course the big trick generally isn't disassembly. . .its RE-assembly! Its one thing to see it in the manual, its quite another to see a person actually do it, while at the same time explaining little bits that aren't necessarily obvious that can entirely screw things up (eg "make sure THIS part of the spring is UP or the safety won't function", etc).
They also go over function (eg how the gun works and what the parts do) with some of the videos even illustrating the action of various parts with special modified cutaway "teaching" guns. That really helps understand exactly how the parts interact with one another, and how they work, and its pretty hard to visualize these things otherwise.
Common problems with remedies are also discussed.
Again, the ordinary videos are described as "armorer" courses, and that's exactly what they are. They contain enough information to understand the gun's function, maintain the gun, swap out parts, and fix common functional problems, exactly as an armorer might.
They're not going to get into things like trigger jobs, accuracy tuning, or extensive modification in the "armorer" courses. That's not what armorers generally do. If that's what you are interested in, there are specialized videos covering some of this stuff, as well as books available.
For example, there is a specific video on doing AR-15 trigger jobs. There is another one called "making Glocks Rock" that is two videos, totalling nearly 4 hours, covering all sorts of modifications to Glock pistols. There is another bundle 3 hours long on 1911s specifically on modifying 1911s and building custom guns.
If you want to know EXACTLY whats in any of these particular courses, you can read the outlines on the AGI website here. The various outlines also contain a little video excerpt that you can look at to get a sample of what the video is like:
http://www.americangunsmith.com/index.php?id=9