I live on a mountain overlooking the third largest city in California.  During the pandemic, I looked at having custom rods and precision old school wood/blued steel rifles built since I was saving a bunch via the work from home environment.  I only found one local custom rod builder and one local custom rifle builder.  When I was a teenager, custom rod and gun shops were common.  What happened to them?!

There’s no market. Mass produced foreign made products took over the market with low prices and “almost as good” quality. Most people don’t want to pay more for American Made, let alone custom made. (And now with inflation most people couldn’t afford either if they wanted to) It’s the same as all the local fishing shops (and really most small businesses,) they couldn’t compete with the online stores in terms of price and most people would rather save a few bucks than support a local business. 

 

7 minutes ago, zpelletier said:

There’s no market. Mass produced foreign made products took over the market with low prices and “almost as good” quality. Most people don’t want to pay more for American Made, let alone custom made. (And now with inflation most people couldn’t afford either if they wanted to) It’s the same as all the local fishing shops (and really most small businesses,) they couldn’t compete with the online stores in terms of price and most people would rather save a few bucks than support a local business. 

 

Sad but true.

 

Sad indeed, but I'm going to support my remaining local builders in the hope that the custom options don't go to zero.

We have several custom rifle and shotgun Gun Smithing shops where live. Griswold in Ventura is well known and ships.

Rods, again several locals and the site sponsor DVT and ALX both build custom rods and ship.

Tom

True gunsmithing businesses are still prevalent in some states (mostly southern) but pressure from many different directions has closed a lot of shops.  We had a man in our city who had an FFL and did some basic custom work for a couple decades.  Then, unfortunately, he legally sold one single pistol magazine via the internet to a twisted individual who later committed a mass shooting spree at Northern Illinois University.  That closed his business permanently.  

 

I am in charge of an LE only shooting facility and we train more than 500 police officers a year.  I previously had an FFL and sold only to people I knew, but the mounting scrutiny and cost eventually overshadowed any pleasure I was getting from it and I gave it up.  An FFL is required if you are going to be a gunsmith, even if you aren't selling guns.  That may disuade some who have the natural talent to learn gunsmithing.