I haven’t sat down to write this up yet because typing sucks, and I’ve been doing stuff. Now it is hot as balls, and I’m waiting for stuff to arrive for the new inside workbenches. The custom rifle business starts in the spare bedroom. It was to be the Wick Room in concept (picture Ian McShane’s vault at the Continental), but I’m married. It is now the Craft Room with Wick Wall.
And the current state of things…
The niche will be the reloading bench area. The table there now will go in the shop. The craft bench and drafting table are off limits for my use.
I cut the pieces for the reloading bench last night once it dropped to double-digit temps.
This all came about when our son suggested I build custom precision rifles for him and others like him. Hardware/software engineer, works stupid long hours, has great income, but no time to research or build it themselves. I can’t really do guitar building after the finger-and-thumb-eating table saw incident. I’ve been trying every hare-brained scheme that ran through my brain to do something useful that I both love and can build into a business.
I did a test run on the floor, using a Remington 700 AAC tactical chambered in .308 WIN, a Magpul Hunter stock, bottom “metal” that accepts AICS magazines, muzzle brake that mounts the can, and a cheap Vortex Venom 5-25×56 scope, Nightforce 20 MOA base, and Vortex Pro scope rings.
As an aside, 10-shot group at 100 yards was 0.9 inches, repeatable all day. This is before tweaking stuff, this barrel loves Sierra matchking 168 grain bullets. If anyone can find large rifle match primers, PM me through e-mail (SkyTrooper66 at protonmail dot com) and I will Venmo the cost plus hazmat.
So, what is next? Website, business (LLC and DBA), then Type 7 FFL with Class 3 SOT. No storefront (Etsy model), just commissioned builds, and once it gets going, make a few to sell on Gunbroker.
Eventual plan (phase 2) will be getting a lathe to blueprint actions, chamber reaming, barrel profiling/thread cutting. Son and I eventually want to get 150 to 200 acres, set up a clubhouse/pro shop, with a 1 mile range, several 1000 yards and shorter ranges. This part is way down the line.
Will be going to NRA gunsmithing courses as I can afford, as well as SDI 16 week certificate course, but those come out of pocket (my GI Bill expired in 2020 while we were caring for Dad in his final year).
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was originally attributed to Don Escaped Texas; as noted in the comments the actual author is Donny Three-Fingers. Glibs regrets the error and apologies to all involved. -T
edit fairy: other Don of some sort?
So this isn’t your article?
That would be creepy.
Yeah, thinking PBB aka Donny Three Finger
Yep
nice work!
they’ll fix the attribution soon, I’m sure
I am guilty of a lot of time with bolts and six-strings, so it could have been me
I even own that press!
the custom bench was probably required to fit in there; I’m more a buy and modify guy, so I’ve got a butcher block top on a full 4×6 surface, then added 30A outlets and a 20# vise
I need to address the power after I do shelves under both workbenches.
“I haven’t heard the name PBB since…oh before you were born.”
Based on reference to
and a comment he made on Swissy’s “Things to Come” post, I’m guessing Donny Three-Fingers.
Donny Escaped the ATF
*snort
Someone’s trying to frame you for making ghost guns.
Don’t put Stock in conspiracy theories.
/Fed
I had a barrel with the ghost frames, but the lock on the stock containment field generator failed.
Escaped the ATF
I wish I thought we could escape them, but I don’t, so I’m all out in the open. I don’t have protonmail, and I use credit cards all day, and anyone could figure out who I really am from just reading my comments (maybe I should have worked in some flares or other countermeasures over the years?). I think we’re done for, so I just focus on arguing the merits of first principles, absolutism, and rolling back to original intent. All of that is hopeless, but I think it is all hopeless, so all that is left is to stay intellectually honest and die with honor, at the hands of government or whomever gets to me before they do.
I agree. Everything above-board, I’m not messing with semi-auto except for personal AR platform stuff (LaRue can have all that fun). PRS, extreme long range, custom hunting guns, all bolt action. Once I get the SOT class 3, I’ll add in some suppressor fun. Until then, original intent FTW.
From the ded thred, re talento found dead in agent’s office. Pushed or jumped? Awful lot of convenient suicides.
Speaking of which. More depressing love song, Last Kiss or Yukkiko’s First Date?
Streetlight Manifesto A Better Place, A Better Time.
This is the most depressing song ever, and includes a young love element…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfEkDqP34xo
That a new old J Pop for me.
Down the rabbit hole!
Yeah, the 3-finger variety. Working on load development for the above rifle.
Sorry I’m late, dealing with some estate stuff from Dad and my stepmother.
::zooms in on photo, detects telltale gift wrap and… an unfastened (flattened) critter Cone of Shame??::
Yep. The cone was from Gene when he was a kittah. Now he’s an 18lbs guard cat (thug)
Recognized it from recent experience with a little Houdini Kitteh who could remove it at will. 🙄😸
The cats, out by the time we get home. The dogs, by nightfall.
Sorry, Don (whoever you are):
Case closed
The USSS have not been answering to press inquiries about the discovery, however, telling news outlets that they cannot comment on ongoing investigations. The Secret Service will be briefing Congress on Thursday, after House Oversight Chairman James Comer Comer fired off a letter to USSS Director Kimberly Cheatle demanding to be briefed on the White House security failures that led to the “unacceptable and shameful” discovery of cocaine in the West Wing.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) also called for a briefing in a letter on July 5.
The Secret Service should start replying to everything with poop emojis.
The investigation is no longer ongoing, which means they can provide all the details, right? Why are you laughing?
They could have just said it was Hunter’s… nothing would have happened anyway.
I bought a Tikka t3x for our son. 6.5 Creedmoor, his dream rifle. When I finish with it, he can have it lol. Trying to find a good medium Palma contour barrel for it, and which MacMillan stock he wants.
Third project until all of the business/ATF stuff is done is another Remington 700 we have (MIL had an iron sighted 5.56), so a new bolt and an M24 profile barrel in 6.5 Creedmoor.
back in the day I loved the Winchester 70
ten years ago I was dating LawyerOne and she wanted me to bust some pigs on her east TX place, so I go down to the store
and recognize nothing; the world had long, long passed me by, and I couldn’t find a simple blued rifle, walnut stock, iron sites at any price (low end Dallas retail). She put my ass in the road before I ever found the right answer at a more upscale store (today I’d probably just go get an AR for ranch work), so I’ve never ventured into the synthetic stock with telescopic sights world yet.
I gave him a Winchester Model 70 in 30-06 about 8 years ago. Same thing, can’t find much in a traditional rifle these days.
all the more reason for me to get off my dead ass and build one
I bought my son an A-bolt
maybe I should whittle out a beautiful AR, sort of an AK/SKS/StG-looking thing, but prettier like a Browning
Yes!
And now I want to find a curly maple stock blank and start carving.
most of my clients these days are lumbermen: driving around the South, I see huge slabs of pecan and cherry and walnut all the time; plenty of nice sticks of hickory and ash
most of my business is conducted while the smell of freshly-hewn lumber soaks into my clothes; my cuffs usually have sawdust in them at the end of the day; bad news: I couldn’t find a truck with a light/natural interior this time
https://www.curlymaple.com/
FYI
I still have a space in the gun safe reserved for a really nice pre-64 Model 70. Just haven’t found the right combination of gun for sale and available cash yet.
My grandfather had one from I want to say 1959 or 1960, 30-06. When tools and art meet and have a good-looking machine baby.
My son just bought that Tikka. He loves it. He put a Viper PST Gen II on it and the thing is amazing.
Thanks for sharing your business and future plans! It will be fun to tag along.
I put the Venom on his Tikka, I got the Viper PST Gen 2 5-25×50 for mine. Just waiting on him to shoot it so I can get to work on it.
https://www.sgammo.com/product/223-556mm-ammo/1000-round-case-556mm-62-grain-fmj-steel-core-ss109-brass-case-prvi-partizan-
$.39/rd !
On topic too.
That Dillon xl-750 is set up for 5.56, 69 grn SMK. I have a few cases of the green tips…16″ and 20″ (hers is the musket, er, A2-length)
Yes – right now is the time to stock up.
$.60 a round for ammo I’ve shot sub-inch groups at 100 yards.
https://palmettostatearmory.com/aac-5-56-nato-75-grain-bthp-match-w-cannelure-20rd-box.html
Yeah, had to go doubled 1/2″ ply to get quality wood here. I try to recycle from other projects, but not this. I’ve got to finish 2 guitar setups for a friend, then I can organize a bit.
That was supposed to be a reply to Don
I’m impressed by Bob’s guitar work, but I never do anything other than tune action a bit: the odd nut dressing or bridge lowering or maybe maybe truss rod tweaking. I’m never gonna touch any of the wood or anything I can’t undo on a real guitar.
I wish I could keep my workbench that nicely organized.
The building bench looks like a guitar and a rifle had a transporter accident like in Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Barclay was right about those damn things!! 😳
Go ahead, disintegrate yourself and hope your clone gets the job done.
I can’t find the inside-out emoji
🕴🌪💢
Dammit, the previews look different from what shows up in the comment box.
That’s still hilarious.
I think you mean Bones.
Nobody should willingly step on that platform of death.
But then how would you get transporter clones?
I’m sure you could set up a scanner that doesn’t need to disassemble the original.
Nope – Barclay, occasionally recurring character on TNG.
I know of Broccoli, but Bones was the one who was the one who was most vociferous about hating being taken apart into pieces and put back together.
Bones was the most vociferous about everything. 🙄
I remember the first lab in Transport 101 at Starfleet Academy. I gotta tell you, I will never look at a guinea pig the same way again.
I wish I could keep my workbench that nicely organized.
I have to stop chasing my tail and get my shop sufficiently “organized” that I can actually get some work done. Right now, it’s a depressing mess.
My struggle as well. Too much stuff, needs more purging.
I have found that getting rid of most of that pesky metric crap, and just keeping the SAE and Whitworth has worked wonders for me.
Here is my bench after restoring a lamp for the wife: https://ibb.co/5LvN3Zw
Lately, it has been covered in lathe parts.
It’s my climate-controlled area that needs the purge. The big shop out back just needs a junk-from-her-parents purge (they moved into an assisted living place).
I am in Oregon, that is my basement. I have an out building out back, the original garage, but as the house was built in 1913, it is sized for a Model T, and is just as windy.
I’ve almost got the big shop reconfigured to accept the gunsmithing lathe I want. Lumber prices are slowing down the workbench and interior walls out there. Big insulated steel building, woodshop on the other half. Needs a/c. Satan is stopping by for pointers on upgrades to Hell.
Just heard my mother’s best friend passed away yesterday. Sudden heart attack and immediate death. So no lingering health issues lead to this that I am aware of.
She was just at our July 4th celebration. So it is very weird to hear about this. And unsettling.
This will hit my mother hard.
Hope your Mom can get through it.
That’s the way I want to go – just turn me off when this world is done with me.
my parents have outlasted everyone, and I’m very worried they’ll outlive my sister
they’re philosophical about it and each have one younger sibling left
I’ll outlive my best friend: we’ve known each other 39 years next month
That sucks. My buddy was killed in an accident two years ago yesterday. We’d known each other since first grade. It’s hard when they start dropping.
Convinced my older brothers we should all get together this year before the 3 of us meet and only 2 of us are talking.
Yeah, I seem to be going to more funerals than weddings, lately.
Ugh. Hope your mom gets all the support she needs, it is tough on those left.
Sorry kinnath.
Sorry, man. All my best to you and Mom.
Sorry to hear that kinnath, all the best to her family and friends.
Thanks for the comments.
It just left me a be unsettled and I needed to get it out.
Nice stuff, Don.
Not shown: the crapload of miscellaneous parts, tools, boxes, manuals that pile up over time. Bags of brass in various stages of cleaning, etc.
That’s called creative framing.
Also, just found a box of 500 Lake City cleaned primed brass (looks to be military) for the .308. Time to size, trim, and chamfer.
“What the hell is in this box… oh, right!”
It’s like Christmas!
Ooh, 1000 lake city 5.56, cleaned and deprimed! Goes well with the 1000 cci #41 small rifle military primers.
Got a ton of new .45 ACP brass too (the other toolhead for the Dillon)
Okay, author attribution fixed. My bad.
I don’t have an easy way to look up your Glibs handle from your email address.
we knew it’d work out !
The only thing left equipment-wise for the bench is a barrel vise and an action wrench. Finish reamers for chambers as needed, as well as go/nogo gauges. Still need a ballistic chronograph for load development.
Shoe-string startup overview, working on another update, with more in-depth content to come when I can find a bolt for the next Remington.
…after the finger-and-thumb-eating table saw incident.
Yikes! Did it get them both?
I sold my table saw when I moved. If I ever get another, it will absolutely be a SawStop.
Works great on hotdogs!
Yes. Had a migraine spike drop me at the wrong time, thumb and index finger on my (very dominant) left hand.
I’m terrified of table saws. In fact, all power saws unnerve me to some extent.
Drills, mills, belt grinders, no problem. Saws, on the other hand…
Power tools of any type need attention and respect. I had a miter saw guard explode on me because the dumb fuck who changed the blade didn’t install it correctly. I’ve had plenty of close calls with table saws and even my router.
It’s still fun to make shit, though.
There’s a difference between respect and fear. I’m not reckless with my power tools.
Got a dewalt 20vmax saw not long ago. Have to mod the safety so I can engage with the thumb-nub.
Gilbert are good people. I think the planer in question can run 2×4 at over 2,000FPM.
notice they pronounce their name au American when not chatting up other Quebecois
Also, I love your Heeler.
She is a hoot. 9 months old now, 53 lbs.
That seems big for a heeler.
Pretty muscular pups.
Both parents are big. The mom is a red, the dad is blue. She was the largest of the 4 pups, and the only one with just black and white fur, no browns or reds. Don’t know how accurate the DNA tests are, but result was 98% cattle dog, with one mix at the dad’s side 4 generations back.
Did I miss a link somewhere?
My daughter has a blue heeler. Wonderful dog. Needs lots and lots of exercise.
Between us, the cats, the other 2 dogs, and her giant herding ball… checks out,
My daughter runs with and bikes with her Heeler.
I bought my daughter a bike tow leash so the dog can’t pull her over when riding. She says it works great.
We have shelties. The 70 ft by 70 ft enclosed yard is big enough for the to wear themselves out.
Our fenced part of the yard is about 1/2 acre. She has a kiddie pool for the heat. Found out last week of June that she loooves the beach!
I take mu Schnauzer/Jack Russel* mix to the park everyday. Been a life saver for her.
*Yes, lets cross two of the most hyperactive terriers. No wonder she needed rescuing.
Nope. His avatar
taking NewWife to Dwight Yoakam / Mavericks bill tonight in BNA
for my money, this is the real shit: Flaco is God!
Before clicking, I thought you were going to see the “Rock Me Amadeus” guy.
I’ll never steer you wrong on roots music: I don’t mess around with the only inheritance I have
I thought he meant to say that Joe Flacco is God, even though that makes as little sense as what he really wrote.
Had a migraine spike drop me at the wrong time, thumb and index finger on my (very dominant) left hand.
EEEEWW. I never heard that part of the story.
I’m going to drive off into canyon or tree some day in the middle of a pollen attack
I told myself when I bought this mess I wasn’t going to put anything in the eyesore nightmare chicken house because I was going to knock it down (I have been in there staring at it fifty times and I’m still not sure what holds it up) and replace it with a proper shop building. I finally said fuck it that’s not happening any time soon, and started moving stuff over there yesterday to get it out from underfoot. More today. After I do something about the parasitic ivy climbing up one of my trees.
Tomorrow: Brooks wakes up to find the nightmare chicken house had been held up by the nothing and collapsed when stuff was added.
The pedos are going to be on these things like… well… like pedos on pre-teens.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/summer-camps-children-identifying-transgender-open-across-us
::narrows gaze:: 🤨 That’s too close for comfort. And of course they don’t reveal their location. I’d be curious to know who bankrolled/bankrolls this.
If you want real fun, try looking it up on Google Maps. Then read the reviews (while paying attention to when they were put in).
Hmmm. Can’t seem to get directions. And the map pins it in western SD.
They’re going to find out the hard way why the sexes were separated in the first place. Eventually, because I’m sure any problems will be covered up as we’ve already seen. But let’s remember, any thought or tradition over 10 years old is outdated and white supremacist, and only today’s views and thoughts are valid.
Tomorrow: Brooks wakes up to find the nightmare chicken house had been held up by the nothing and collapsed when stuff was added.
Far from improbable.
Idaho Chicken Shack Massacre.
PSA to military/veterans:
Eurooptic.com has a deal with Vortex Optics for members (free). 40% off through their site on scopes, binoculars, and rangefinders. Verify through IDme. Got the Viper PST Gen II for $850 (msrp $1399). Red delivery (1-2 day shipping/ delivery on most).
Three Year Letterman is a treasure
Who is this guy?
What was the topic that drew this comment?
Off hand, I think this guy needs to get run over by a dump truck.
Scroll up a couple clicks
I click on the link, I see a single post and nothing else.
Did you try yo scroll up after the page loads?
He’s replying to this:
I’ve recommended this book many times, but it’s a screaming deal on Amazon right now.
Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food
Probably the best and most accessible book on nutrition I’ve ever read.
How traditional? 200 years? 2000? The colombian exchange upended a crapload of traditional cuisines to some extent.
It’s not specific cuisines, but pillars of nutrition. How they get addressed isn’t as relevant.
I know how to eat real food.
Good for you. Most don’t.
Regardless, if you have an interest in food’s effects on epigenetics it is a fun read.
Like people that see the Japanese and they themselves are typically from a heritage of land animal eating and wonder why just eating fish and rice doesn’t make them skinnier?
With a gun by your plate?
*looks around for steak thieves*
I look forward to growing some of my own food. Had a rotortiller delivered yesterday (which they annoyingly left in a crate at the top of the driveway instead of the bottom).
Have some hard red dirt to break up. Once we’re moved, I may get some winter root vegetables planted before fall.
IT WAS A GOOD FIRST
I’ve been working on the plumbing in my house, replacing the old sewer lines. You’ve come to mind a number of times. 💩