Question for gunsmith

mario3327

How long, typically, should it take to do a trigger job on a double action pistol by an experienced local gunsmith? I am talking from the day the gun has been dropped off for service to the day trigger job is complete. I know different guns will vary. I am just wanting a general idea. shortest amount of time to longest.

jbw1776

quote:Originally posted by mario3327
How long, typically, should it take to do a trigger job on a double action pistol by an experienced local gunsmith? I am talking from the day the gun has been dropped off for service to the day trigger job is complete. I know different guns will vary. I am just wanting a general idea. shortest amount of time to longest.


One day or 6 months. Just depends on how much work is ahead of yours, how much time he devotes to yours, if there are any parts/supplies he needs to order to do the job, his experience level doing that particular job. Really no way to put an exact length of time on the job, like saying, it should only take 6hrs. to complete the trigger job. Usually the more experienced (read good) the gunsmith is, the busier the person is. Friend of mine took a gun to a local smith around here a few years ago to have it reblued. 8 months later and still no gun. I mailed a rifle 4 states away to have it reblued way back when, it returned on my door step in about a month. Just depends on the smith.

Ben

Dak To 68

I learned from experience not to put a 'smith on a schedule, when I drop something off I tell him, "call me when it's ready".

ern98

The smith that did the trigger and porting job on my M29 S&W 44mag took less then a month. I had asked his estimate when I droped it off and he had guessed a couple of weeks. It turned out great. If a smith gets really out of line timewise you can always just go get it and say never mind. Still if he is anyone you respect and will want to have do other work in the future I'd start with finding out just what has been taking so long. Another of our local smiths had been having health problems, recently cured, and had been having some projects back up most of a year. Now he's cranking them out and making up for lost time.

Madman

Can't put a time limit on a good smith. Just like any machinist ...you want it fast ?...or do you want it right? Accuracy takes time.

Paul
Mountain Magic Gunsmithing

JK

Everyone has a comfort level that he must stay within whether he be a gunsmith or modelmaker. Some jobs do take longer prevailing on the degree of knowledge and competence. The time involved is turn around time. The gunsmith may not pick up the piece to be worked on for weeks, due to his workload. If he does not at least look at your piece for months before the actual work, he's probably having all troubles with the jobs that he has taken in in front of yours. There is no reason for this. Being in the business for over 30 years the actual working time an any piece for any trigger job should be NO less than 4 hours. If he takes longer than this he either had a knowledge problem or has to farm some of his work out. There are instances when this rule can be broken because no two pieces are really alike. There is no reason at all why it has to be held up for months. You can readily see that he must allot a certain amount of time and no more on a job, otherwise he won't be in busuness long. You cannot afford to work on a item for an indefinite period of time. Monetarily, it just doesn't add up. I further believe that anu piece that is in a gunsmith's shop for more than 30 days, should be pulled back and you should look for someone else. The old standby sayoing that if you want a good job you have to be willing to wait. That's a bunch of baloney. The arms companies take such a long time to cut through their all thie red tape..

nononsense

mario3327,

The actual real time should be approximately 2-6 hours depending on how many and the length of interruptions that the 'smith has to pay attention to while working on your pistol. Far too many shooters don't take this into consideration. Most gunsmiths are individual business owners with no employees, no one to answer the phones, no one to do the paperwork, no one to meet and greet the customers if he has a store front for walk ins. The gunsmith can exercise control over these things by having phone hours and walk in hours but at some point they have to invest some time to take care of those factors. These are customers with what could be the next job.

The sticking point as always is the notariety of the gunsmith you want to use and the backlog of work that he has ahead of your project. The consideration is to decide whether you want a general pistol repair gunsmith or one of the famous pistol builders to handle your tuneup. The well known gunsmiths have a sizeable backlog no matter what some folks want to believe. But it isn't necessarily true that you need one of them to do your tuneup.

The general repair pistolsmith should have a better ability to turn projects around in a reasonable period of time since he or she isn't involved in the more time consuming process of actually making a complete custom pistol. The jobs they take on are more 'bitesize' if you'll allow that analogy therefore the turn around time should be better managed.

Don't forget that a good general repair pistolsmith is only as far away as the USPS, Fed-X or UPS front desk. If you don't have an FFL, the Post Office is out although you could use an FFL for shipping if you really insisted on using the P.O.

Good Luck!