High prices of gun parts

[KC Clem]

Interesting discussion. I've often wondered how inexpensively I could put together a flintlock rifle. On occasion, I've purchased good used locks for around $100 each. (I have two L&R Durs Eggs I got for that and two older large Silers I got for a little less). Once I found a couple of Colerain barrels for $130 each with breech plugs fitted, one a swamped 42" 36 cal. and the other an 42" oct/round 50 cal. smooth bore. I think those were from Stonewall Creek Outfitters when they were just getting rid of some stock. I've had good experience getting stock blanks from Virg Otto at Gunstocks Plus and he shows a plain maple fullstock blank on his web site for $79. I bought one of those once and it was a nice piece of wood. Another time, I bought a bag full of miscellaneous butt plates and trigger guards off the ALR "for sale" section and there were some nice ones in there, none were ever mounted so no holes. I think it ended up working out to about $5 apiece for around 6 butt plates and 6 trigger guards. Based on all this stuff I've collected and never used, it looks like I could have a good start (lock, stock, barrel, butt plate, and trigger guard) for about $319.00 and I'd have to make the ram rod pipes, side plate, lugs, simple trigger, sights, muzzle cap, and ram rod. I'd have to buy the lock bolts, screws, pin stock, and finishing materials. I figure I'd have $50 in the additional materials. That puts me at $369, best case. Not bad considering today's prices. I think it would be tough to do it any cheaper and considering the untold hours it would take me to do the build and end up with something of questionable build quality (I'm still new to this), one of Jim Kibler's kits looks like one of the best deals going right now. For a relatively minimal investment in time, you end up with a rifle with excellent architecture, spot-on fit and finish, and built with some of the highest quality components available. It's also pretty easy to complain about $200 locks, but considering the complexity of a lock and the quality of some of the locks available today, I sort of have trouble understanding how they can do it so cheap. Just my opinion.

I know one thing, I better not quit my day job yet because I'll never make money building rifles.

 

[Col. Batguano]

So if a guy had the set up to do it, how much would the steel cost to make their own barrel? The makers like Rice and Colerain are selling them in the mid $200's. I'm thinking maybe $20-$30 buying in bulk.

The big outfits like Pedersoli, Remington, Ruger etc. found it to their economic advantage to make all their own. But again, they are making thousands at a time. Smaller companies like Lyman found it advantageous to buy them. And the really small companies, like James D. Purdey make them themselves, but for other reasons than just cost management.

 

[tenngun]

I doubt there is $20 of steel in a barrel. Steel is about a buck or two per pound. The cost is the time and investment in machinery
I’ve never done any machining but I bet you can’t get less then a day invested barrel if you have a good shop.
It takes about a hundred in fifty hours to build a gun for me. About three or four months spare time for me. $6-700 parts and a hundred hours and what I got when I’m done pleases me, but ain’t no high dollar gun.

 

[rich pierce]

There’s a big difference between the cost of parts to build whatever one can cobble together and parts set and good wood for a specific build.

Places to save money:
I buy blanks or even planks. No precarves. Saving $50-250.

I inlet my barrels and drill the ramrod hole. Saving more, unless you had a precarve.

I make many parts. Thimbles, single triggers, trigger plate, sideplate, patchbox, toe plate, nosecap. Savings probably $50-$100 depending.

I buy stuff off folks who thought they were going to build something then changed their mind.

 

[springfield art]

I used to build at least a couple of guns a year
Was never a highly skilled builder but they always functioned and where pleasing to the eye
The high cost of parts has pretty much stopped me from building
When u can't buy parts for less the $600 or $ 700
Not counting the hours it takes to assemble one
Now have decided to go back to the preflint era
Can make my own lock and furniture out of bar stock steel
Only thing I need to buy is the barrel and a stock blank
If anything is going to ruin our great sport and traditions it's going to be the outragious prices for parts
Imho

The market is small, and most of the parts suppliers are "boutique" makers; this keeps the price a bit stiff.

 

[Zonie]

Out of curiosity, I pulled out my old 1994 GOLDEN AGE ARMS CO. catalog to see what they wanted then and what that amount would be today. Here's what I found with the part name followed with their price followed by the price today due to inflation.

BARREL:
7/8 X 42" straight, Green Mountain = $82.50 = $146
Colerain C weight, swamped = $165 = $291

BREECH PLUG
5/8-18 straight tang = $9.50 = $17

LOCK
Siler Percussion = $55 = $97
Siler Flint = $80 = $141

TRIGGER
Double set = $31.50 = $ 55.60

Trigger guard brass = $6.50 = $11.50
Butt plate, brass, wide = $6.50 = $11.50

Full Stock pre-carved fullstock, curly maple (lowest grade) = $175 = $309

I didn't include the side plate, thimbles and sights and other small pieces.

Yes, GOLDEN AGE ARMS CO. was fairly high priced in its day and that's why I never bought anything from them but I think these major parts I listed are typical of what someone wanting to build a long rifle back in 1994 would have paid and todays price tells the story.

Inflation is the main culprit to blame for the "high prices" we see today.

 

[Stony Broke]

I can understand the higher prices of new gun parts as the economy has changed over the years, and it just costs more to produce the parts. What is tough for me is looking at the prices of used parts...such as on Ebay. When you have guys asking 18.00 for a screw and a few bucks to ship it to you...plus tax...now that is just insane. TC, CVA, etc. parts are totally out of all reason. I've watched guys put something like two wood screws to attach a butt plate on a CVA for 12.00..plus 3.00 shipping !!

 

[Commodore Swab]

And to think so many of the renactors down here get guns from loyalist in canada. Of course those are india imports.

 

[tenngun]

And to think so many of the renactors down here get guns from loyalist in canada. Of course those are india imports.

And you can get one about the same price as the parts to build from Track or pecotonic. Rifle shop I’d the only place I know of that provides much in the way of musket partss

 

[1861colt]

Back in dinosaur days while I was in college in 1972 I think I bought my 1861s for below $90, (I'm a little fuzzy on that one after all it was college). In 1974, a basic "Type A" John Bivens rifle with a top Paris barrel was $775. In 1976 when I worked for Green River Forge, I made a living wage and then, the Astorian rifle with top quality parts of a Sharon barrel and Doc Haddaway lock was kit price of $185 and complete gun 350. In 1980 an L&R lock cost me $45
and a Green Mountain Barrel 1"×42" $55. So, yes parts used to be not much, but they were still a lot comparatively to the cost of living then.

 

[Vaino]

I don't complain about the price of components seeing everything else we buy has higher prices....so why should gun components be an exception?
I've always made Pboxes, sideplates, decorative inlays, triggers and trigger plates, Mcaps, RR pipes, bbl lugs and sometimes sights.....making all these parts lowers the price of the total parts sets. Also....I don't use higher priced wood which alone can really inflate the total price. My last 3 LRs were built from 3 blanks that cost $290 after the discount and one was a grade # 7 that the customer requested and the other2 were a #4 and a #5.

I use Rice bbls, Chambers flintlocks, sand cast Bplates and TGs and just won't skimp on cheaper bbls and flintlocks and the sand castings work out fine. So the total price for a "parts set" w/me making the parts listed and using a $75 blank is $650....very reasonable....Fred

 

[Eric Krewson]

I use the online inflation calculator a good bit as an eye opener. I made $300 a month ($3600 a year) as an E-5 with a wife and kid when I was in the army in 69. Today that sounds like a bare bones existence but the inflation calculator says the same pay rate would be $26,759 a year now, still not big money but not that bad for a couple just starting out.

If you run the inflation numbers on parts 20 years ago until today it doesn't look like we are getting robbed.

 

[1861colt]

Something my wife made up that seems so apropos that is like the Itsy Bitsy Spider: The itsy bitsy paychech came into the bank account. Down came the bills and wiped the paycheck out.

 

[Bighorserider]

My first non-kit build was a Lancaster style rifle with Siler lock and GM barrel. I got everything from Log Cabin including precarved stock for a little over $300 in 1980. That was a lot of money for me back then.

 

[M. De Land]

Wait until you have to make a specific machine screw from scratch, I'm quite certain the 18 dollars will not seem like very much to you! If I have to make and rust blue a specific screw I charge a minimum of 25 dollars and feel that is a real bargain to the customer. It will take me something like 2 hours from start to finish if all goes well, plus the cost of the stress proof steel I prefer for screw making.
Spring making is every bit as time consuming and technical starting with flat spring stock.
That So. Mtn. rifle I finished from TOTW a month back cost nearly 1000.00 in parts after going with the upgraded curly maple and deluxe Chambers/Siler lock. That made me swallow hard but it sure came out nice in the end and is just what I wanted which makes it worth the tariff in my view.

 

[Rudyard]

Since I used to buy in qty and mostly at Friendship I got many good deals on parts . Most of my mounts where sand cast in yellow brass from my patterns . Though they where often well priced at F ship shoots again trade qty breaks .. Then you make the guns anything of any complexity will take about three weeks plus minus, Your lucky to make 12 a year I never did. I nor do I suspect most gun makers make any better annual incomes than a county road worker . But unlike the road man. We can go to events & gun shows as & when we want we don't do it for money rather for the life style & satisfaction .If you want to make money Don't make anything !.Not by hand at least .You needed other irons in the fire like selling books & Re enactment type goodies and in my case I travelled widely by hitching & goods trains though I doubt this was the usual case .The gun making is more art & fancy than any attempt to make serious money .' Pour L gloire' viz' For the glory' in a way.
I've only made 187 very diverse guns discounting in the whites & re stocks .A long way from Henry Ford but I got about a lot.I ' Lived in a world ' got to see a lot of it and did umpteen Re vous & events globally so never regretted any of it .( Bar the odd fevers, burst appendix & other less fun bits ). If the Corona gets me I,ve still lived three or more lives by normal standards . I met the leading lights of the Contempory gun makers non seemed to be remotely' flashy out to make a fortune sorts' just down home real people like Jim Hash, Lynton Mc Kenzie , Hershall & Frank House and many others. Inspired artists first , fortune makers if they ever did quite a secondry consideration. As for inflation I started off with a wage under 3 pounds a week . Last I worked as a carpenter I was getting 14 Pounds an hour . Anyway that's my take on prices .Rudyard

 

[dave_person]

Hi Maurice,
I like hearing about your adventures and experiences. I've had a full life as well and reinvented myself several times. I was a competitive archer, archery instructor, rock climber, ice climber, alpinist, mountain rescue climber, bicycle racer, biathlete, applied mathematician, graduate student, wildlife research scientist, wolf and deer researcher, and predator-prey ecologist. But I always returned to building muzzleloading guns and when I quit all those other things and retired, my desire was to build muzzleloaders and explore their technical and decorative history. I am not worried about prices of parts because they likely will follow basic market rules given the small market demand. If higher than the market will bear, prices will come down and if that means fewer suppliers, it is an indication that the market is dying or unhealthy. So be it. I don't expect anyone to work for poverty wages.

dave

 

[tenngun]

I just got a worm, ball screw, and bag pliers fro Callahan bag molds. Came to about$75. The worm and screw are very good copies of originals. I don’t know enough about plies to offer an opinion but all Callaghan’s stuff is very well made.
Was it worth the money? I can’t make it. I’ve never been drawn to black smithing.
Can I get it any where else cheaper? Maybe, but not much.
How big is Larry Callahans market? He can’t ‘make it up in volume’
Was it worth it? Every penny... and I will do business with him again.
I can’t make a lock, I can’t buy one at Lowe’s. I can’t cast my own brass, wal -mart doesn’t carry it. There is just a small handful relatively buying this stuff.

 

[smo]

Supply & Demand.. If you’re gonna’ play , you gotta’ pay.

 

[squirehawk1774]

Jason at Rice barrel turns out ten barrels a day I've heard. It could be fewer you know how the grape vine is. He uses cnc machines to make them. Check and see what it cost to buy a quality cnc machine. Add on top of that all the other things it cost to run a business these days. Insurance, unemployment, workers comp, electric, price or rent of a building, maintenance of building and machines paying a tax consultant and more. So while $2600.00 dollars a day may sound like big bucks, once you deduct everything you have to pay out it becomes a much smaller number and quick. As far as AR 15s for $400.00 go that's true but it's a very basic and cheap AR. Build one with high quality lower and upper along with the best chrome lined barrel and see how fast the price jumps to more than a muzzleloader. I would pay $350.00 for a flintlock that I didn't have to work on before it left my shop. I've have had very few locks that didn't need work done on them and time is money for me. That is another thing most people don't understand about a business is time is money and labor is a big cost in a business. I wish things cost less and I made more money but that only works in lala land.

 

[M. De Land]

True words, for me working on guns of all types is interesting and what I love to do but I'm so slow and picky about how things are done I could never make even a poor mans living at it. So I keep it as a hobby and give away a good portion of the actual time it takes and do my glass work to feed my family.

 

[jerrywh]

If you think $200 or $300 is a lot for a good flintlock you should try making one yourself. I have made at least a dozen flint locks and I wouldn't make one for anybody for less than $2000.00 Than cast your own parts.
I don't care what it cost to make a good gun. Just sell them for more money. That will solve the problem.