Program Schedule

The Master Gunsmithing Program® begins with the basics and ends with a solid foundation for a successful career in Gunsmithing. There are 2496 clock hours (a clock hour is 60 minutes) in the program. Following the foundation, the program continues to build skills in a planned and organized manner that successful Gunsmiths practice in the field. There are no courses or assignments that do not directly relate to the career. Most of our course hours are spent on the bench learning Gunsmithing tasks with lectures supporting those tasks.

Semester by Semester Descriptions

Semester 1 — Introduction to Gunsmithing

This semester builds skill sets in the following areas:

1. Spatial perception, hand to eye coordination, layout, gauging and use of hand-tooling and intricate filing techniques.
2. Basic Gunsmithing heat treatment as utilized in tooling, springs and fixtures.
3. Firearm Function and design, cycle of operation, firearm polishing from basic to advanced, various bluing processes and alternate finishes (coatings and spray-on finishes).

Semester 2 — Intermediate Gunsmithing I

This semester builds skill sets in the following areas:

1. Basic and advanced wood checkering and re-checkering. Introduction to metal engraving techniques for straight lines, curves, scrolls and lettering.
2. Introductory custom stock making in both 1-piece and 2-piece stocks
3. Stock finishing and refinishing, recoil pad installation, adjustable butt plate and comb installation, stock repairs, accurizing, pillar bedding, etc.

Semester 3 — Intermediate Gunsmithing II

This semester builds skill sets in the following areas:

1. Welding in TIG and Oxyacetylene soft and silver soldering.
2. Lathe work on belt and geared head machines turning, knurling, threading, boring and tapering. Vertical knee milling machines work and grinding.
3. Custom barrel fitting utilizing various techniques and precision reaming.
4. Sight installation including dovetail and drilling and tapping.
5. Simple ballistics and handloading overview.

Semester 4 — Advanced Gunsmithing

This semester takes the first 3-semester skill sets and wraps them all together and allows the student to begin to “think like a Gunsmith” utilizing all of the previous Traditional – Modern – Innovative™ Gunsmithing techniques. In addition, the student will also build future employment by completing the following courses:

1. Business Practice – Employability, creating a visual portfolio and professional resume, basics of working in a gunshop; Profitability, basics of gunshop ownership including business ethics, retailing, reading profit and loss statements; Accountability, a review of Federal Firearms Laws and Regulations.
2. Aesthetically creating custom rifle builds from design to inception to finished product
3. Aesthetically creating rifle, shotgun or handgun custom firearm builds from design inception to finished product.
4. Specialized custom alterations and repair using all previously learned skill sets.