Years ago a fellow I know VERY well was building fine muzzle loading rifles as a business. Before taking on a project, he asked for and received 1/2 the final agreed to and quoted price as a down payment. The customer's name went to the bottom of the list and that money was used to order the parts (roughly $1,000.00 to $1,200.00 worth) and the remainder was kept as a down payment. Of course, once the parts were ordered and received, cancellation of the order would cause forfeiture of that down payment.

When that customer's name came up, he was adivsed to start saving money and the fellow built the rifle or smoothbore and when the customer would be notified to bring $$ to pay the remainder upon delivery.

The "down payments" usually amounted to $2,000.00 to $4,000.00 depending on what was ordered.