hueyville
Member
Hope this is the correct forum for my question and apologies if not. I apologize for tbe long rambling post but two years of cabin fever leaves me with a lot to say and the wife has heard it all. I started home gunsmithing in the mid 1970's starting with simple projects and simple tools for myself and as time marched on my projects became more complex and tool collection slowly grew. Like most curious young men my interests constantly expanded. In 1983/1984 I was introduced to IPSC, PPC and bench rest shooting over a very short time span. I was working part time in a local gun shop evenings and weekends to help pay my tab that the owner kept in a separate ledger just for me as I could not buy everything I needed as fast as my finances allowed. One day a customer asked me about the Colt Gold Cup in my pancake rig asking if I shot IPSC and when I said no he invited me to a match the next weekend. I showed up with my Gold Cup and left with a trophy for 1st place "new shooter", 1st place "D class" shooter and 3rd place overall "limited class". I was hooked like a crack head and realized I needed an entire new arsonal of pistols.
After visiting the closest mastor pistolsmith and calling a few around the country I knew my only chance to play the game was to build my own. With the next match a month away I went into a frenzy to get my first race gun built. Suprisingly it shot well enough I went home with another trophy and upgraded to "C class". I had another month to continue upgrading my race gun which went well again along with the realization that I needed a purpose built limited pistol rather than continuing to abuse the Gold Cup. By end of my 1st season I saw the influx of 38 supers in the hands of the top shooters so I launched into my second race pistol.
Over the past 30+ years I have continued to upgrade and build my own guns in an effort to play all the games that interested me. During this time friends kept leaving guns with me to repair and upgrade also. During these years my wife has been good and allowed me to buy about any tool I want including a brand new American made 60" tool room lathe with DRO rather than some used unit with unknown history followed by a milling machine, Bridgeport surfacing machine, arbor presses and enough specialized tools to have bought two of every specialized gun I could ever need. As I learned the machining trade I discovered that I could merge my hobby with my business with the addition of my 1st CNC machine which was a 50" x axis by 100" y axis with 8" z axis CNC router. This lead to learning to program G-code and think in 3 and 4 axis ideas and becoming a friend of my local HAAS salesman. All through this gun smithing has remained a hobby and I discovered my knowledge of machining was really helpfull with keeping our antique Harley collection in top order.
I have been content in only smithing as a hobby untill a car accident three years ago which left me with a broken neck, broken T10 vertebrae in my thoracic spine and half a dozen or so herniated and displaced other disks. Since of two of my three businesses that have allowed a relative ability to enjoy life went south in 2008/2009 when the real estate market tanked we were lucky that I had began a communications startup a few years earlier based on installation, repair and maintenance of cellular and radio towers along with battery backup systems for the telecom industry. Problem is that due to federal licensing issues I have to personally oversee and do much of the technical installation of our products. I have tried hard to keep up but climbing towers and moving 100 pound plus batteries with a back broken in multiple places has proved too much for me. Add in the stupid hag that rear ended me because text messaging was more important than paying attention to driving only had the state minimum of 25k insurace coverage for any injuries she caused and the 1st day following the accident ran a 29k medical bill which only got more expensive and found my health insurance is not responsible for injuries incurred in car accidents for the 1st 90 days so while unable to work I stacked up 6 figures of medical bills to make payments on.
Add in my wife had an accident falling which put her in a wheelchair for the past 2.5 years we are quickly running through our savings keeping up our home expenses, health insurance and other bills. I will not be climbing towers again, she can't work at all and amazingly we have found that people with a life history of working hard are pretty much screwed when they apply for disability. I have seen a dozen back sugeons and ended up with the same guy Phil Mickleson and over 100 other high profile professional athletes use and he like most of the others has said to accept my situation as the only surgical option is a lumbar, thoracic and cervical spine fusions with an end result worse than no surgery. I have a written reccomentation to not lift anything more than ten pounds.
So as I have contemplated how to restructure my life I have occupied my time in my machine shop piddling with my guns. A few months ago a buddy asked if I would build him a rifle for 3-gun competiton. Being bored I did and soon others started asking. Now its not just friends but I have a list of over 20 men wanting rifles and race pistols. I figured God was intervening and opening a door for me. I applied for my 07 FFL license, formed an LLC and started shopping insurance. So I am sitting on go, ready to become a productive taxpaying citizen again and the insurance quotes started arriving.
When I put on the applications my intenteded business was building, repairing and selling custom guns the majority of insurance companies turned me down. The few that have provided quotes are in the 800 to 2,000 dollar a month range. How do small and startup gun smiths pay this? Am I missing something or are the small guys running without insurance or what? I really wont survive sitting at home waiting for my disability check but no way am I going to build and sell guns to strangers without insurance. Gunsmithing liability insurance cost per month what I pay to install cell phone towers. This can't be right so what am I missing guys?
After visiting the closest mastor pistolsmith and calling a few around the country I knew my only chance to play the game was to build my own. With the next match a month away I went into a frenzy to get my first race gun built. Suprisingly it shot well enough I went home with another trophy and upgraded to "C class". I had another month to continue upgrading my race gun which went well again along with the realization that I needed a purpose built limited pistol rather than continuing to abuse the Gold Cup. By end of my 1st season I saw the influx of 38 supers in the hands of the top shooters so I launched into my second race pistol.
Over the past 30+ years I have continued to upgrade and build my own guns in an effort to play all the games that interested me. During this time friends kept leaving guns with me to repair and upgrade also. During these years my wife has been good and allowed me to buy about any tool I want including a brand new American made 60" tool room lathe with DRO rather than some used unit with unknown history followed by a milling machine, Bridgeport surfacing machine, arbor presses and enough specialized tools to have bought two of every specialized gun I could ever need. As I learned the machining trade I discovered that I could merge my hobby with my business with the addition of my 1st CNC machine which was a 50" x axis by 100" y axis with 8" z axis CNC router. This lead to learning to program G-code and think in 3 and 4 axis ideas and becoming a friend of my local HAAS salesman. All through this gun smithing has remained a hobby and I discovered my knowledge of machining was really helpfull with keeping our antique Harley collection in top order.
I have been content in only smithing as a hobby untill a car accident three years ago which left me with a broken neck, broken T10 vertebrae in my thoracic spine and half a dozen or so herniated and displaced other disks. Since of two of my three businesses that have allowed a relative ability to enjoy life went south in 2008/2009 when the real estate market tanked we were lucky that I had began a communications startup a few years earlier based on installation, repair and maintenance of cellular and radio towers along with battery backup systems for the telecom industry. Problem is that due to federal licensing issues I have to personally oversee and do much of the technical installation of our products. I have tried hard to keep up but climbing towers and moving 100 pound plus batteries with a back broken in multiple places has proved too much for me. Add in the stupid hag that rear ended me because text messaging was more important than paying attention to driving only had the state minimum of 25k insurace coverage for any injuries she caused and the 1st day following the accident ran a 29k medical bill which only got more expensive and found my health insurance is not responsible for injuries incurred in car accidents for the 1st 90 days so while unable to work I stacked up 6 figures of medical bills to make payments on.
Add in my wife had an accident falling which put her in a wheelchair for the past 2.5 years we are quickly running through our savings keeping up our home expenses, health insurance and other bills. I will not be climbing towers again, she can't work at all and amazingly we have found that people with a life history of working hard are pretty much screwed when they apply for disability. I have seen a dozen back sugeons and ended up with the same guy Phil Mickleson and over 100 other high profile professional athletes use and he like most of the others has said to accept my situation as the only surgical option is a lumbar, thoracic and cervical spine fusions with an end result worse than no surgery. I have a written reccomentation to not lift anything more than ten pounds.
So as I have contemplated how to restructure my life I have occupied my time in my machine shop piddling with my guns. A few months ago a buddy asked if I would build him a rifle for 3-gun competiton. Being bored I did and soon others started asking. Now its not just friends but I have a list of over 20 men wanting rifles and race pistols. I figured God was intervening and opening a door for me. I applied for my 07 FFL license, formed an LLC and started shopping insurance. So I am sitting on go, ready to become a productive taxpaying citizen again and the insurance quotes started arriving.
When I put on the applications my intenteded business was building, repairing and selling custom guns the majority of insurance companies turned me down. The few that have provided quotes are in the 800 to 2,000 dollar a month range. How do small and startup gun smiths pay this? Am I missing something or are the small guys running without insurance or what? I really wont survive sitting at home waiting for my disability check but no way am I going to build and sell guns to strangers without insurance. Gunsmithing liability insurance cost per month what I pay to install cell phone towers. This can't be right so what am I missing guys?
