[w_houle]

Is there anyone who does "One off" piece work for gun parts that I have, but am afraid to put to use due to them being made of unobtainium, (Impending joke, but not quite) or if I wanted someone to make me a special order part; such as a stainless steel slide for a Hi- Point :-p (or other mfg).

[w_houle]

Seriously though, the only reason I said Hi- point was becaus it had to be the quintessential antithesis of the 1911; I mean seriously, you can build a 1911 out of nothing but after market parts. Only Hi- Point builds their parts. Still wondering if anyone will build, or build off of existing parts.
I have a machine shop that refuses to build anything they even think will go on to a gun; it doesn't matter what part because they think it's illegal.

[Jim K]

There are plenty of machine shops that could make almost any part, even a slide or frame (legal issues aside) if they had a sample or good drawings. The big IF is IF you have enough money.

Most top machine shops won't turn on the lights for less than $300-400, and custom work costs like the devil, $150-200 an hour, plus tooling cost and setup.

If you want to order, say, 100,000 units, then the big production shops would be interested and economy of scale would take over and bring the unit price to something reasonable, but a one-off just isn't worth it unless you DIY.

Jim

[innerpiece]

alot goes into machining, more than most people could concieve without at least touring a machine shop, seeing how precise things need to be when it comes to fittin metal to metal..
I only know because I work on CNC's 50 hrs a week.. from programing, to measures and manual milling.

Jim kinda Sum'd it up.
youll be hard pressed to find a professional place that can produce quality work to make you custom parts, that wont break yer pocket..

to cut order, cut, shape, then program a machine to correctly mill, turn, broach, key, etc a piece of metal to exacting standards...

it would cost you more than a few high end pistols that you prolly have on yer wish list...


ip.

[Deus Machina]

Possible, not cost-effective.

And assuming you don't have the manufacturer's drawings on hand, you'd need to leave an original there or the piece it's fitted to, which under the case a shop likely won't want to be liable for.

I do a little metalwork now and then, and lemme tell ya, someone telling you a part would be fine at +/- .005, machining it to +/- .002, then finding out they needed it to .0015 is aggravating.

For one or two parts, most places are going to give the the 'bugroff' price. You're paying more for the skill and time than the material, and just setting the initial piece up takes a couple hours for a good machinist.

[innerpiece]

agreed DM.
I work mostly on a Nakamura WT150.. its taught me alot of humility lol.

[w_houle]

I have absolutely zero machine shop experience, so I have no idea as to what it takes to turn a piece of metal into a part. I had no idea it was that difficult.

[Jim Watson]

You might get more help if you were less secretive.

There is a company out there that does that sort of work. It won't be cheap but it won't be horrific, assuming you get some real gain out of using custom parts instead of stock. Now where did I put that link...

See post below, that is the outfit I was thinking of.

[Deus Machina]

Well, if it's a simple piece and you can work some drafting software, there's eMachineShop.com. Not sure of their prices, but I've heard they're cheaper than a good machinist.