Gunsmith

Gunsmith - a person who repairs and modifies firearms to blueprint and customer specifications, using handtools and machines, such as grinders, planers, and millers.

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Fits action and barrel into stock and aligns parts. Installs parts, such as metallic or optical sights, pistol grips, recoil pads, and decorative pieces of firearms, using screws and handtools. Rebores barrels on boring machine to enlarge caliber of bore. Operates broaching machine to cut rifling in barrel of small arms. Installs choke device on shotguns to control shot pattern. Operates machine to grind and polish metal parts. Immerses metal parts in bluing salt bath to impart rust resistant surface and blue color to metal. Fires firearms with proof loads to determine strength characteristics, correct alignment, and assembly of piece. Fabricates wooden stock for guns according to customer specifications. Refinishes wooden stocks for rifles and shotguns by hand sanding and rubbing with special finishing oil and quick-drying lacquer. May lay out plans on paper and calculate bullet-flight arcs, sight positions, and other details to design new guns.

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While some gunsmiths are general practitioners in this trade, the more important specializations are:

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• Custom Builder/Designer - Builds guns to customer's specification, from raw materials and shelf parts. Called upon by professional target-shooters to create highly accurate custom rifles.
• Finisher - Applies various chemical and heat-treatment processes to the metal parts of guns to develop corrosion-resistance surfaces: browning, blueing, Parkerization, among others.
• Stocker - Carves gun stocks from wood. Fits stocks to the metal parts of the gun (receiver and barrel), as well as to customer's body. Sanding, staining, oiling, and lacquering may be used to finish the wood surface.
• Checkerer - Uses checkering tools to create an ornate pattern of small raised diamonds in the wood surfaces which are to be gripped. This specialization is frequently combined with that of the Stocker.
• Gun Engraver - Uses hand-gravers or die-sinker's chisels to cut designs or pictures into the metal surfaces of the gun, usually limited to the receiver. Other metals (especially gold and silver) may be inlaid and engraved to further the design. Designs usually consist of elaborate scroll-work based upon Acanthus leaves or vines, or may be of purely abstract spirals. The pictures are usually of game animals or birds, and hunting dogs.
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Rifling: Rifling refers to spiral grooves that have been formed into the barrel of a firearm. It is the means by which a firearm imparts a spin to a prjectile to gyroscopically stabilize it to improve accuracy. Most rifling is created by either cutting with a machine tool, pressed by a tool called a "butt...

Choke: The word Choke can refer to various things:...

Rifle: A rifle is a firearm that uses a spiral groove cut into the barrel to spin a projectile (usually a bullet), thus improving accuracy and range of the projectile. It is the same principle that causes an American football to be more accuate when thrown correctly. Examples of non-rifled firearms are sho...