New gunsmith want to now prices to charge for volume business?

[reed mosser]

I just getting a gunsmithing business started. I have all the necessay equipment and am adding to the inventory daily. I have been truing remington and savage actions installing barrels and muzzle breaks. I want to have a volume business and am willing to charge less for labor for a constistant rate of work. I don't want to over price myself and be sitting idle. These are the prices I have in mind. Harell's break installed $90. Chamber rifle with barrel nut remington or savage, yes I do have remington barrel nuts $100. And true up remington or savage action recut threads face action and can rebore for savage or remington to accept PTG bolts $100 not including PTG bolt. I built quite a few rifles and am confident in my work. I dont have years of experience or a huge repution to ride on so I want my prices and work to stand out. I now the local smiths are charging from $175 to 275 for breaks installed, $250 for chambering , and you can wait up to a year for a rifle built. I also want to keep a inventory of Benchmak barrels on stock for remington or savages with barrel nuts so I have a barrel chambered and out to the customer with little waiting. I will chamber for conventionl sholders to the price is going to be more for the additional labor. These are just my brainstoming ideas and now that your reputation and quality of work are what matters. Just wanted to see if Im on the right track. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif

 

[longtooth]

Don't take this as a smart *** answer but take some business classes before you decide on cutting prices.
In your posting you say the other smiths are behind on building rifles by as much as a year and that they charge twice or more as much as you want to charge. If you live in an area where an established smith makes that much and is busy why not charge the same or a little less? If you do good work the business will come to you because of the turn around time.
Here is some advise I got from a old smith that has served me well.
Don't do work you aren't capable of, a bad job will ruin your reputation.
Don't give delivery dates you can't meet.
Don't talk bad about another smith unless you know his work to be unsafe.
Charge what your work is worth if you feel it isn't worth much your customers will feel the same, people will pay more if they think the work is worth it, and they get it on time.
The customer is not always right when it comes to safety no money is worth doing a job you feel is unsafe.
Good enough is not a good job.
If you can see the scratch so can the customer.
Always clean a gun before you work on it, that is so often the problem and if not it helps to see some problems.
Handel the customers gun like its worth a million bucks to some its worth more to them then money.
He had many more and he was right on all of them.
Good luck

 

[James Jones]

General prices I've seen are as follows

Blue print a reminton action , including indicating off the bolt race way , facing the reciever , lockinglugs recutting the barrel threads so they are true to the centerline and then trueing the bolt the same way these cost run from $150-$175 and considering the amount of work involved thats one hell of a deal.

chambering and fitting a barrel to the action cost about the same $150-$200 and may cost more if you have to buy a new reamer. Since cutting a barrel to be fitted like a Savage takes less work than setting it up like a Remington the cost could be less.

Like it was mentioned before one guy thats not happy with his work can ruin your buisness because nobody wants to take a chance with hundreds of dollars.