Politics

[CJW]

I've personally visited Griffin & Howe here in NJ. They gave me a tour of their gunsmith facility. The oddest place for an establishment of that caliber...NJ. They are probably one of the few in the world that still fit that description.

I personally held a repaired $75,000 OU shotgun. Cracked the stock right at the grip. I couldn't even tell it was repaired.

Unbelievably down to earth folks too. Especially for residing on a hunting club that costs $50,000 a year membership with a first year $75,000 registration fee.

It's odd when you hear of any gun manufacturers or the like being associated with NJ these days. In fact I recently learned that Henry is moving all of their business out of NJ right here to WI. Strange that it took them this long.

 

[HookMeUpII]

It's odd when you hear of any gun manufacturers or the like being associated with NJ these days. In fact I recently learned that Henry is moving all of their business out of NJ right here to WI. Strange that it took them this long.

With regards to Griffin & Howe, it's the amount of money-influence in them and Hudson Guild. There are a lot of heavy hitters that frequent those grounds. They have a heli-pad and pretty exclusive facilities, for frame of reference. State knows to play nice with the folks who butter their bread, if you know what I mean.

Couple years ago they wanted to shutdown gunning on the Shrewsbury and Navesink Rivers here. Despite the fact, it was completely within the law. Well, there's a rather exclusive trap and skeet range that's there and would have gotten wrapped up in the ban. Those folks paying untold membership costs got involved and that whole proposal was scrapped.

I'm all for it when it supports outdoor, hunting, and shooting interests.

 

[BJH65]

Gunsmithing pays absolute crap and to be truly competent requires 35 years of experience. Allow me to explain: Five years on the job and you've mastered your craft. Lets say you hop in a time machine and visit 1930 London and walk into Purdey. You'll see a master stocker, master checkerer, master engraver, master barrel mechanic, master lock maker, master action filer, master ejector builder, master blacker/browner/bluer.

To be able to competently restore a best gun today you need 8x the mastery of the original maker. You're expected to be able to do master level craftsmanship across 8-10 disciplines whereas the original maker had no such equivelant expectation.

If you can achieve that level of skill and you have a million dollars of tools, equipment, and workshop, you can charge $150 per hour for your work.

Or you can graduate high school and take a paid apprenticeship at 18 years old and by 21-24 years old you're making $150 an hour.

Becoming a professional gunsmith is a financially ruinous decision.

Perhaps sooner than later AI and robotics will replace the fine gunsmiths and gunmakers that are retiring and/or have gone on to the Happy Hunting ground. Perhaps a Royal Double Rifle from Holland & Holland or the finest Hartmann & Weiss bolt action made by these methods at significantly less cost?

 

[BJH65]

YouTube is an amazing resource. The problem with the younger generation is they don't even want to go to step 1, which is consult YouTube to see if there is a video on what they need to do.

I remember the old days before YouTube or at least before the level of content was what it is today. We would use Clymer shop manuals, original print manuals, and just generally accepted knowledge.

It’s been extremely helpful to me. When living in rural or remote places, if something breaks, you often have to fix it yourself.

 

[CJW]

With regards to Griffin & Howe, it's the amount of money-influence in them and Hudson Guild. There are a lot of heavy hitters that frequent those grounds. They have a heli-pad and pretty exclusive facilities, for frame of reference. State knows to play nice with the folks who butter their bread, if you know what I mean.

Couple years ago they wanted to shutdown gunning on the Shrewsbury and Navesink Rivers here. Despite the fact, it was completely within the law. Well, there's a rather exclusive trap and skeet range that's there and would have gotten wrapped up in the ban. Those folks paying untold membership costs got involved and that whole proposal was scrapped.

I'm all for it when it supports outdoor, hunting, and shooting interests.

Makes perfect sense.

 

[Wishfulthinker580]

Didn't really hear a "takedown" there. Clickbaity title by Sky News. My interest is piqued though. Maybe I'll try to listen to the entire episode.

I concur. I haven’t listened to it yet. The comments didn’t sound as if it was perceived as having went well for Murray but I tend to think he doesn’t have any patience for nonsense these days. Plus your average YouTube commenter isn’t an intellectual giant themselves… Murray is definitely intellectually superior to Rogan and from what I gleaned he’s superior to the guest as well who I’m not familiar with.

For the record I’m not a Rogan fan and don’t listen to him a whole lot. I do listen some as there are interesting conversations at times and tidbits of truth and information at times and perhaps a nugget of wisdom shared at times. That said I don’t find Rogan to be that insightful or wise. His main appeal IMO is that he’s kind of an average Joe, genuine and just lets people talk. It is an interesting show for the most part but I think his listeners would do far better to listen to an audiobook or an interview or lecture of some sort. From people actually worth listening to..

 

[rookhawk]

I concur. I haven’t listened to it yet. The comments didn’t sound as if it was perceived as having went well for Murray but I tend to think he doesn’t have any patience for nonsense these days. Plus your average YouTube commenter isn’t and intellectual giant themselves… Murray is definitely intellectually superior to Rogan and from what I gleaned the guest who I’m not familiar with.

For the record I’m not a Rogan fan and don’t listen to him a whole lot. I do listen some as there are interesting conversations at times and tidbits of truth and information at times and perhaps a nugget of wisdom shared at times. That said I don’t find Rogan to be that insightful or wise. His main appeal IMO is that he’s kind of an average Joe, genuine and just lets people talk.

Rogan is an amazing interviewer and he is unthreatened by alternative viewpoints. As such, he has kooks and geniuses on his show in equal measure.

The only thing I really can’t stand is his naivety of business/economics/markets. He always says stupid things in those areas unaware of what would happen. (E.g. universal income, give everyone a million dollars, incentivize risky behavior, etc)

 

[Wishfulthinker580]

Rogan is an amazing interviewer and he is unthreatened by alternative viewpoints. As such, he has kooks and geniuses on his show in equal measure.

The only thing I really can’t stand is his naivety of business/economics/markets. He always says stupid things in those areas unaware of what would happen. (E.g. universal income, give everyone a million dollars, incentivize risky behavior, etc)

I don’t disagree. I have a certain level of respect for him. I just disagree with him on a lot of issues.

 

[CJW]

Rogan is an amazing interviewer and he is unthreatened by alternative viewpoints. As such, he has kooks and geniuses on his show in equal measure.

The only thing I really can’t stand is his naivety of business/economics/markets. He always says stupid things in those areas unaware of what would happen. (E.g. universal income, give everyone a million dollars, incentivize risky behavior, etc)

Yup. His show can be interesting at times but he is, until maybe very recently to a degree, a typical rose colored glasses progressive democrat. One of the most interesting things about him is when his eyes are opened on a subject. Kind of strange and fascinating that we as a people find that so interesting or that he can become so rich being so stupid.

He draws in leftists, maybe not so much lately. He draws in fence riding democrats, conspiracy theorists, conservatives, etc.

Frankly I still mostly view him as a muscle bound knob and can take or leave him.

He's no comedian either.

 

[mdwest]

Gunsmithing pays absolute crap and to be truly competent requires 35 years of experience. Allow me to explain: Five years on the job and you've mastered your craft. Lets say you hop in a time machine and visit 1930 London and walk into Purdey. You'll see a master stocker, master checkerer, master engraver, master barrel mechanic, master lock maker, master action filer, master ejector builder, master blacker/browner/bluer.

To be able to competently restore a best gun today you need 8x the mastery of the original maker. You're expected to be able to do master level craftsmanship across 8-10 disciplines whereas the original maker had no such equivelant expectation.

If you can achieve that level of skill and you have a million dollars of tools, equipment, and workshop, you can charge $150 per hour for your work.

Or you can graduate high school and take a paid apprenticeship at 18 years old and by 21-24 years old you're making $150 an hour.

Becoming a professional gunsmith is a financially ruinous decision.

If you exclude gunsmiths that have the ability to work on fine firearms and can demand reasonable wages, it gets even worse..

in residence gunsmithing schools of any measure of quality are about $40K... you can do cheapie online classes for as little as a couple of grand and get a certificate.. but no one is actually overseeing your work, helping you to evaluate the best technique for you to accomplish a task, etc.. gunsmithing is a trade craft.. and really needs to be taught "in person" with a lot of hands on work as opposed to looking at pictures and understanding theory.. so the in residence options are really the only good path for someone wanting to enter the trade..

the problem is.. median wages for a qualified gunsmith is about $55K a year in the US.. in texas (lower cost of living than much of the rest of the country) median is about $47.5K.. so maybe $22.50 an hour..

front desk clerks at hotels in the DFW area make about $18 an hour.. and dont have to do anything other than graduate high school.. the average wage for fast food workers in Dallas is currently $19.30 an hour..

theres not a lot of incentive to pick up that extra $3 an hour to be a gunsmith when you have to incur $40K in costs and spend 16 months (2690 clock hours) at the Pennsylvania Gunsmith School to do it... and then barely make enough of a living to afford a few very inexpensive guns for yourself..

 

[Wishfulthinker580]

Yup. His show can be interesting at times but he is, until maybe very recently to a degree, a typical rose colored glasses progressive democrat. One of the most interesting things about him is when his eyes are opened on a subject. Kind of strange and fascinating that we as a people find that so interesting or that he can become so rich being so stupid.

He draws in leftists, maybe not so much lately. He draws in fence riding democrats, conspiracy theorists, conservatives, etc.

Frankly I still mostly view him as a muscle bound knob and can take or leave him.

He's no comedian either.

Perfect fit for Austin..

 

[Wishfulthinker580]

Perfect fit for Austin..

The fact that as a “adult” Rogan at the bare minimum spoke favorably of Bernie Sanders (FIVE/SIX YEARS AGO) disqualifies him from being considered as a serious person/commentator.. He’s certainly not a moral exemplar or positive role model when you look at the whole picture objectively.

 

[Brent in Az]

Colonel of Greenlands space force base stripped of command, after sending out a mass email after JD Vances visit.

Space Force Col. Susannah Meyers fired after astonishing mass email about JD Vance’s Greenland visit surfaces

The Space Force announced late Thursday that it removed Col. Susannah Meyers as commander of Pituffik Space Base “for loss of confidence in her ability to lead.”

nypost.com

 

[Vintageguy]

Gunsmithing pays absolute crap and to be truly competent requires 35 years of experience. Allow me to explain: Five years on the job and you've mastered your craft. Lets say you hop in a time machine and visit 1930 London and walk into Purdey. You'll see a master stocker, master checkerer, master engraver, master barrel mechanic, master lock maker, master action filer, master ejector builder, master blacker/browner/bluer.

To be able to competently restore a best gun today you need 8x the mastery of the original maker. You're expected to be able to do master level craftsmanship across 8-10 disciplines whereas the original maker had no such equivelant expectation.

If you can achieve that level of skill and you have a million dollars of tools, equipment, and workshop, you can charge $150 per hour for your work.

Or you can graduate high school and take a paid apprenticeship at 18 years old and by 21-24 years old you're making $150 an hour.

Becoming a professional gunsmith is a financially ruinous decision.

Absolutely true. I attempted to make a go as a gunsmith back in the 90’s when double guns were experiencing a new swell of popularity. I specialized in action/ejector repairs, wood repair, stocking, and rust blue. What I found was there was plenty of work but few who wanted to pay fairly for that work. Take for example rejoining barrels. At that time, I would remove the ribs, clean the rust, polish the barrels, re- lay the ribs, and reblue the barrels, ensure no point of impact change, and if I asked more than $500 I wouldn’t get the work. The picture is a full days work of handmade main springs for sidelock shotguns. Each one fashioned from a plane stick of carbon steel by files and sand paper. Then hardened, which I had done by a heat treat specialist who had a minimum charge for oven time. Yes, I can harden one myself but after you spend two hours shaping a spring the last thing you want is to find out it isn’t a spring. I had people about stroke when I asked $100 to make and fit a new spring in their $10000 shotgun.
I did have several reliable customers but they were mostly older gentleman who collected and shot those guns, but no where near enough of them to provide enough work for a living. After I gave it up I still took on their projects as personal favors but all of them have gone on to their reward. Now I don’t see anything close to enough demand for a talented young person starting out, not in fine guns, and there’s a big difference between building AR’s and custom work on classic doubles.

 

[Brent in Az]

Those shops closed when the men that taught them retired and there were no qualified replacements; I graduated in 2002 and the high school machine shop closed in 2005.

My HS friends that took those courses started with learning welding, cutting torch, lathe and mill. By the time we were Jr.'s they knew CAD, CNC CAD programing and were actually building things usually for their race/muscle cars.... How many 17-18yo do you know today that could bend pipe and weld good enough to custom fabricate a roll cage inside a Z28 Camaro?

I also remember the shit storm that ensued when our principle Mr. O'neal walked into that shop and caught my buddy Steve installing the mount for Nitrous Oxide bottles in the trunk of that Z28; he would have been expelled if not for our school resource officer pointing out that there is nothing illegal about an 18yo possessing an EMPTY nitrous oxide bottle. This is the same police officer that turned a blind eye to us showing up late on the opening day of dove season still clad in camo.

When I went to college, they went to Wyo tech and by the time we were 25 yo Steve and the others owned their own businesses and houses while I was just graduating and paying on student loan balances more then their houses and with higher interest rates.

Now try asking college freshman if they can explain what Square, Plumb & Level means......

It's not the kids that are failing to learn, its the education system that is failing the kids.

When I was a junior in high school i brought my Yamaha YZ 125 to welding class to fix a broken frame. The Welding shop teacher helped me fix
Probably a no-no in the the eyes of the school principal, but the shop teacher didn't care.

 

[LivingTheDream]

I've personally visited Griffin & Howe here in NJ. They gave me a tour of their gunsmith facility. The oddest place for an establishment of that caliber...NJ. They are probably one of the few in the world that still fit that description.

I personally held a repaired $75,000 OU shotgun. Cracked the stock right at the grip. I couldn't even tell it was repaired.

Unbelievably down to earth folks too. Especially for residing on a hunting club that costs $50,000 a year membership with a first year $75,000 registration fee.

Unbelievable place, I have been fortunate to have been invited there 3 times. Took their long range shooting school. I believe you have to be invited or have a member vouch for you to get in as a member. Not sure if that has change or not.

The service you get there is 2nd to none.

 

[mdwest]

Absolutely true. I attempted to make a go as a gunsmith back in the 90’s when double guns were experiencing a new swell of popularity. I specialized in action/ejector repairs, wood repair, stocking, and rust blue. What I found was there was plenty of work but few who wanted to pay fairly for that work. Take for example rejoining barrels. At that time, I would remove the ribs, clean the rust, polish the barrels, re- lay the ribs, and reblue the barrels, ensure no point of impact change, and if I asked more than $500 I wouldn’t get the work. The picture is a full days work of handmade main springs for sidelock shotguns. Each one fashioned from a plane stick of carbon steel by files and sand paper. Then hardened, which I had done by a heat treat specialist who had a minimum charge for oven time. Yes, I can harden one myself but after you spend two hours shaping a spring the last thing you want is to find out it isn’t a spring. I had people about stroke when I asked $100 to make and fit a new spring in their $10000 shotgun.
I did have several reliable customers but they were mostly older gentleman who collected and shot those guns, but no where near enough of them to provide enough work for a living. After I gave it up I still took on their projects as personal favors but all of them have gone on to their reward. Now I don’t see anything close to enough demand for a talented young person starting out, not in fine guns, and there’s a big difference between building AR’s and custom work on classic doubles.

Similar situation in the protective services world..

I ran a company in the late 90's and early 2000's that did short term protective services work.. anything from doing PVSA (personal vulnerability security assessments) for high net worth families to running CARVER-SHOCK on critical infrastructure for "Fortune" sized businesses.. doing personal protective work for celebrities', top tier sports figures, and senior executives at those "Fortune" businesses.. so not your typical polyester suit wearing security guard work.. It was very specialized, and the vast majority of the people we employed were former military special operations types, law enforcement special operations types, or law enforcement investigators from major metropolitan areas..

Our billable rate back then was about $60 an hour for domestic work, and typically $800 per day for work overseas.. (would obviously be a whole lot higher now)..

People would get sticker shock at least 20-30% of the time when we would present quotes for work that was requested..

At the time a good plumber or electrician in the same market area was about $50 an hour..

So my response was typically something along the lines of "you believe your personal welfare (or multi-million dollar facility, etc..etc..) is at risk and you are asking professionals to help you solve your problem... you'll pay a plumber $50 an hour to unclog p-trap full of hair and not complain about the cost.. but you'd prefer I find a $18 an hour guy with an armed guards license to secure your physical well being (or familys well being, multimillion dollar business well being, etc)?"..

Theyd usually sign pretty quickly after that..

 

[deewayne2003]

Gunsmithing pays absolute crap and to be truly competent requires 35 years of experience. Allow me to explain: Five years on the job and you've mastered your craft. Lets say you hop in a time machine and visit 1930 London and walk into Purdey. You'll see a master stocker, master checkerer, master engraver, master barrel mechanic, master lock maker, master action filer, master ejector builder, master blacker/browner/bluer.

To be able to competently restore a best gun today you need 8x the mastery of the original maker. You're expected to be able to do master level craftsmanship across 8-10 disciplines whereas the original maker had no such equivelant expectation.

If you can achieve that level of skill and you have a million dollars of tools, equipment, and workshop, you can charge $150 per hour for your work.

Or you can graduate high school and take a paid apprenticeship at 18 years old and by 21-24 years old you're making $150 an hour.

Becoming a professional gunsmith is a financially ruinous decision.

Tell that to J.J. Perodeaux, I saw an interview where he was talking about his son wants to attend gunsmithing school in Belgium.

Now take double guns out of the equation the number of good magnum bolt gunsmiths is fewer by the day.

I will say the gun makers guild booth with apprentices at DSC always made me happy to see those young faces.

 

[John Wasmuth]

Colonel of Greenlands space force base stripped of command, after sending out a mass email after JD Vances visit.

Space Force Col. Susannah Meyers fired after astonishing mass email about JD Vance’s Greenland visit surfaces

The Space Force announced late Thursday that it removed Col. Susannah Meyers as commander of Pituffik Space Base “for loss of confidence in her ability to lead.”

nypost.com

More than likely well deserved…….. bad form to speak ill of your commander in chief……

 

[CJW]

The fact that as a “adult” Rogan at the bare minimum spoke favorably of Bernie Sanders (FIVE/SIX YEARS AGO) disqualifies him from being considered as a serious person/commentator.. He’s certainly not a moral exemplar or positive role model when you look at the whole picture objectively.

I guess that's part of what puts me off with people like him. Holding such naive views so far into adulthood is off putting.