SDL Custom Firearm Emporium: What am I getting myself into???

April 7th,

Well, my wife Sandy began a blog about her bread baking endeavors and suggested that I do the same. It makes sense,...recording what I've done in my fledgling gun shop might come in handy later on when I'm trying to figure out how I got to a certain place, and where to go from there.

A little background: For those of you that are parents and are decidedly "anti-gun" or at the very least prevent your children from touching, looking, or firing a gun....thank you. In a few years I can almost guarantee that they will be taking a firearms class, buying a gun, and signing up for membership in the NRA. That was my starting off point. My parents (both upstanding Jewish members of southern california suburbia) were and are decidedly urban. The thought of guns in our house was an anathema to them. This presented a problem to me since I wanted to learn to shoot,...not for the thrill of shooting in and of itself, but as a a means to an end....I wanted to learn to hunt!

This also presented a problem for me. My parents idea of the "outdoors" meant spending the day walking around an outdoor mall. I knew that the only way I was going to get any outdoor skills were through the boy scouts, so I had them enroll me in the program. Unfortunately, Boy Scouts are to a large extent a product of their local environment. We camped in our little local parks and every so often at summer camp I would have the opportunity to shoot .22's at a make shift range. Real hunting and shooting training would elude me until I was in my early 30's

When I was Thirty Two my wife "allowed" me to pursue my desire to learn to hunt and shoot. What started with one .270 Remington 710 and a guided wild boar hunt at Tejon Ranch, quickly grew into a house full of taxidermy and a safe full of firearms.

Now, aside from being an executive in the plastics industry, and a lawyer I never really considered myself "handy" or a "tinkerer"...certainly not an "artisan". Once again my wife felt differently. She encouraged me to take a metal working class and being somewhat of a didactic I learned everything I could digest on metal theory, and wood craft. Our garage has been my workshop for many years, and neighbors constantly come by when I'm blacksmithing on my anvil to see the "show".

Now I've decided to work on making a custom rifle....hence this blog. Not just any custom rifle, but a super accurate finely tuned artistic shooting platform designed for the hunter that wants a high quality firearm without having to pay seven or eight thousand dollars for one.

For those of you who may not be shooters...(well...not shooters yet...give me time, I'll make you a rifleman, (or riflewoman))...accuracy is the Holy Grail of shooting. Contrary to what you see in movies two bullets fired consecutively from a rifle will not go through the same hole in the target. There are literally thousands of variables that effect the travel of each bullet through the firearm. Our job as a shooter is to eliminate as many "human" variables as possible, and the only way to do that is through practice, and proper firearm maintenance. We have a certain level of expectation when it comes to our shooting platform too. An expensive firearm better have pretty consistent shooting accuracy.

In my next blog I will begin to show you the progress of my first custom firearm...a Remington 700 ADL bolt action chambered in 30.06. for now, here are a couple of pictures of my shop, and some of my animals so you can get an idea of what my wife has to go through!

The gunsmith bench....where the highest quality firearms are made, modified and cleaned!