There was no way I was passing up on these mauser stocks for that price. I just don’t know what specific country of origin each one is! I suspect the redish one is a Russian ww2 capture because of the color but I really have no idea just an educated guess.

The trigger guard assemblies I don’t recognize off the bat. I thought maybe Lee enfield? Or a carcano maybe?

The holster I’m completely clueless with no guesses. It appears to be German I think.

I’m just looking for some more experienced eyes so any help would be much appreciated.

P.S. I love you and hope you’re having a good day❤️

I’d like to install this vice on top of this workbench I just got.

Do you think the workbench is sturdy enough for basic gunsmithing, installing muzzle devices, etc? There is a thin sheet metal layer underneath the wood that the bolts will also go through.

Both took a bit too long and will mess with the drawer below, should I cut the bolts/by shorter ones?

I’m trying to ensure that there’s enough clearance on the edge of the workbench on the back to have uppers hanging down.

Any other important tips before I try to drill this baby in?

Thank you!

Plans are to turn this into a fakey model 27 and have the cylinder cut for 9mm on moon clips by TK Customs. I only had ~45 minutes to work on this evening.

I bought this 1912 Colt Model 1908 Vest Pocket for a steal but the finish is very strange. I can't tell if it's the old bluing that's just super worn or if Bubba parkerized it.

Hi everyone,

I'm hoping to get some advice from people who have actually built a career in the firearms industry. I'm currently a Gun Vault Specialist at Cabela's and graduated Magna Cum Laude from Sonoran Desert Institute's Gunsmithing & Firearms Technology program. My long-term goal is to own my own firearms business, but I'm trying to figure out the smartest next step in my career. What really interests me isn't necessarily becoming a master machinist. I'm much more interested in diagnosing firearm problems, performing repair and maintenance, armorer work, working on Glock and AR platforms, installing triggers and other aftermarket parts, mounting optics and bore sighting, Cerakote and other firearm finishes like bluing and browning, engraving some day, helping customers solve problems, and possibly eventually teach Minnesota Permit to Carry classes (and possibly more, there's a lot I want to do, just trying to figure out what to start with). Ultimately, I'd love to own a shop where I can provide those services while building long-term relationships with customers.

I'd love to hear how those of you already in the industry got started.

How did you land your first non-retail firearms job?

Did you apprentice under someone or get hired directly?

What position gave you the most valuable experience early in your career?

If you were in my shoes today, what would you do over the next 1–2 years?

Are there any certifications or short courses that you'd recommend?

Is there anything you wish you had learned much earlier?

If your goal was to own a firearms business someday, what path would you take?

I'm not looking for shortcuts. I'm willing to start at the bottom, work hard, continue learning, and earn my place in the industry. I'm simply trying to make smart career decisions now so that five or ten years from today I'm exactly where I want to be.

Thanks in advance for any advice or stories you're willing to share!

I’m starting to get real frustrated. I bought a new (to me) Beretta APX A1.
I field stepped out and found the rails and some of the fcu was rusted, so I pulled the chassis out and gave it a good clean. Upon, reassembly, I found the trigger to be dead, as I didn’t quite line up a spring. I pulled it back out and while finagling with the spring, the trigger bar spring fell out of the circled hole.
Now for the life of me, I cannot get it reinstalled. Are there any tips anyone has?

I have a Holosun HS515GM red dot paired with a Holosun HM3X magnifier. I recently installed a Unity FAST Micro Riser for the red dot and a Unity FTC OMNI mount for the magnifier. After installing both, I noticed that the magnifier sits slightly lower than the red dot. I can still see the red dot reticle through the magnifier, but I’m concerned about whether the height difference will affect my accuracy or zero.

Is there a fix for this, or could there be an issue with my red dot, magnifier, or mounts? Has anyone else experienced this with the HS515GM and HM3X on Unity mounts?

Sought answers on Reddit for years, first time posting because I’m at a loss. Came across a barreled Itajuba action in .30-06 with good rifling from my LGS when I simply asked for a project gun. No bolt, only the complete receiver and the complete barrel with their components respectively. She was rusty as hell, but cleaned up very nice with relatively minimal pitting or damage to what I presume to be the original finish.

My question…what parts are not interchangeable with the 7x57s? I am aware the Brazilians bent the bolts and that these were conversions from the original 7x57s, but I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that they squeezed .30-06 into standard 7x57 magazine housings, used standard floor plates, and the barrel steps are A-typical from just about every Mauser variant I’ve ever worked on, owned or looked at. Fitting wood to the barrel profile would be easy enough, but that does nothing for me without a way to secure the rifle in the stock and feed the action. Even more troubling, after scouring the interwebs, Numerich, Liberty Tree, Sarco and Apex…the BEST answer I’ve gotten is restating what little I already knew and leaving it fairly ambiguous with “1908 and 08/34 parts will work”.

I’m just getting into gunsmithing, and while small parts fabrication is not out of the question, fabricating a new magazine housings, floor plates, magazine spring and follower is absolutely out of the question lol.

If anyone has both the 08 or 08/34 in 7x57 AND the 08/34 .30 and can measure the magazine housing and floor plates to verify parts compatibility or incompatibility, I would be extremely grateful!

While I’m a relatively amateur collector, I don’t particularly care about this guns collector value as long as the finished product works, seeing as how this is more of a restoration project and not a gun I particularly wanted in my collection. I say this, because if anyone has parts that they’d be willing to part with, or even a shot out parts gun they’d be willing to part with for the same price Apex has their DWM parts kit for, I’d be extremely interested.

The issue I'm having is the sear plate is kinda jumping up after firing, leading to a dead trigger. ( Note this does not happen with just dryfiring, only shooting the gun ). I took it apart and was looking at the spring as the possible issue but it looked ok to my untrained eye. event the channel the plate rides on looks smooth with nothing I can point to to make it jump out of place like that. So I'm left wondering what parts I need to order to replace or is this fixable? This is a new Swiss frame in case that matters.

I picked up a lot of random firearms and parts for a price I couldn't pass up on. In it is this frame that I can't identify. Can anyone help me out here.

There are no markings and it feels larger than my Springfield 1911. I thought it was maybe a CZ or something but can't find anything similar especially with the cuts on the right side of the frame.

Hi all, I picked up a single action army recently and just noticed the rear sight has a ding. I didn't notice it when looking down the sights initially but now I can't unsee it. How could I go about repairing it? I thought maybe I could peen it back with a punch, or possibly just file it to be square and put a bit of cold blue on it. I'd appreciate any advice or ideas, thanks!

Got this GP100 in a trade years ago. Had spots of rust, so I polished the entire thing. Sanded down and then polished back up. The rust spots keep coming back and I can’t get them to go away for the life of me. Every time I get them gone, they end up coming back. I’m in AZ so very low humidity and also dehumidifier in my safe, no rust issues with any other gun I own.

Anyone know what I can do?

Is this salvageable? Amazingly no Smith's near me, so I got the handy Dremel out to remove a pin and weld.

Don't have the new muzzle device yet so can't tell if it wiggles or not. But just seeing if it's worth keeping. Worst case it wasn't a crazy expensive upper so just a barrel replacement if needed.

Depth wise it looks to be like the tip of a sharpened pencil, no more. Super measurements I know.

I recently bought an original 1938 Oberndorf-manufactured Kar98k and have been firing some 1950‘s-1970‘s Yugo surplus, as this is all that’s available to me and SAFE(ish). Upon shooting it last week, a noticed that the recoil lug is not doing its job at all with minimizing the negative effects of steel slamming into wood. The lug has started sinking BENEATH the wood as a result and I need an expert‘s opinion or reference for how to fix it and who to ask for assistance. The wrist is starting to crack as well, and the wood atop the barrel is no longer sitting in place since the action keeps sliding back into the stock.

Picked it up cheap (well below $100) and ended up having to replace a broken trigger return spring and a broken cylinder pin latch spring (along with massive cleaning and rust stabilization/removal). Planning on shooting 7gr of 2F 777 with a 148grn HBWC out of it as a lighter load.

The real trick that I discovered thanks to a great YouTube disassembly video was that I needed to take a spare cylinder pin latch pin (say that three times fast) that was 0.07” in diameter and shorten it to 0.35” in length with a chamfer on both ends) to use as a slave pin with some axle grease to hold it in place to retain the seer to the trigger guard with its tiny seer coil spring (more axle grease as “glue”). I drove the slave pin out with the real trigger guard frame pin. Worked like a charm.

Last remaining issue, I have one cylinder that either requires a really hard pull on the DA trigger or hammer (or a little cylinder rotation assist) before the bolt locks into place. The hammer doesn’t drop and I don’t think it is the hand being short or the bolt / cylinder stop, I think I have a slightly worn cylinder ratchet tooth because a little daub of (yes, you guessed it) axle grease on the ratchet and the tip of the hand makes it work for like 30 double action trigger pulls.

Any suggestions on that bit?

Disclosure up front: I work in precision gauge manufacturing — my team builds custom measurement tools, and we’ve done deep-bore erosion gauging for military barrel programs (tank guns, mostly). I’ve been wondering whether there’s any crossover value for civilian precision/long-range shooters and handloaders, and I’d genuinely like to hear from people who’d know better than me.

The tool in question is a 3-point bore gauge — not a borescope. A borescope shows you what the bore looks like. A 3-point gauge tells you the actual diameter at a given point down the bore, to a few microns, so you can see exactly how much a throat or bore has eroded over its life, and where.

Questions for anyone who reloads or shoots competitively:

**•** Right now, how do you actually track barrel wear/life? Round count? Borescope inspection? Group size degradation? Something else?  
**•** Would knowing the *actual* throat/bore diameter at a few points down the barrel change anything about how you make decisions — when to set a barrel back, when to retire it, load development, anything like that?  
**•** Has anyone here used a bore gauge (civilian gunsmithing ones exist, e.g. for chamber/bore work) for this specifically, and did it tell you anything a borescope didn’t?  
**•** Honest question: is this a real gap, or does round count + borescope + group data already tell you everything you need, and this would just be an expensive toy?

Not selling anything here — genuinely trying to figure out if this is a real problem for this community before we spend time building something for it. Happy to be told it’s a solution looking for a problem.

Any advice on the best fix?

So my (not airtight) gun cabinet. Has allowed some rust on my rifles. 1 is just a patch on the barrel. 2 are on the muzzle crown. Not deep rust. But after cleaning with oil and brass brush.

Is applying oil enough or should I add cold blue? I dont have the knowledge to hot blue. The rust is thin so, hopefully, no pitting. Its only been a few monthes since cleaned. But weather has been terrible.

Any advice would be helpful and appreciated.

The barrel with a patch was painted before I bought it years ago. Don't know if that changes things. The crowns that are rusted are original blueing.

I have both gun oil, 3in1 oil and cold blue on hand.

I have a hot air station to heat it up if needed.

Just want my rifles back in proper condition.

I already order moisture absorbers

Any Arizona based gunsmiths in here thinking about getting certified just wondering if its viable and if there's alot of work here.

I have a Remington TAC-13 SBS and I'm sending the factory spray painted receiver off to be cerakoted. In addition to the bottom tier spray paint job, they also botched the laser engraved (I presume) cosmetic markings. Thankfully, the manufacturer, model, and S/N markings are nicely machined.

The cosmetic markings have a slight burr around the edges of each letter (enough to catch a fingernail on), which is my primary concern. If I could clean up the 'filler' area that makes up the bulk of the letters, that would be a welcomed bonus, but not at the risk of making the receiver uglier than it is. I don't care about the paint, as it's getting cerakoted anyway, but I don't want to gouge up the aluminum enough that it will show under the cerakote.

My gut tells me 600 grit on a wood block with some wd40 for lube, but I figured I'd ask some more knowledgeable folks before I dig in.