Forums.NitroExpress.com

As I lay in bed last night watching the Mariners lose, I was thinking about how I might go about such an enterprise as that being proposed. First of all, am I an entrepenuer(sp?)? - No. On the other hand, I spent the past 25+ years doing various jobs on one of DOE's nuclear reservations that were in the category of "can't be done" or had been screwed up by various "chosen" managers. I had annual budgets in exceess of ~$200 Million, and up to 470 employees reporting to me. What I had to do was not totally unlike what Sinner, et al are thinking of doing.

My thoughts were as follows:

First - You have to WANT to make the Project succeed, no matter what it takes. You simply can't let others participate who think "it can't be done" as they will quickly poison the waters so to speak. Being tenacious is an attribute for these kinds of problems.

Second, you have to decide what you will build in house vs. outsource. This is not as easy as it would seem on the surface. What outsourced items can be used without compromising the build quality you are targeting? What should they cost and who can produce the items? For example, an easy decision (again IMO) are barrels. There are at least 1/2 dozen suppliers that can produce barrels that are straight and +/- .0001" dimensionally. Why not simply buy the barrels and let those expeerts do their thing? You are not going to get a better barrel no matter how hard you try. But what about forgings? Do these in house or out source? I am assuming you will contract a CNC expert to program your machine(s) to produce the action you will design. There is no reason to keep such an individual in your employ. Not enough work for him/her and once programmed, changes are not too likely going to be needed often. Simply contract it and get on with it. And so on...

Third, assuming it will take some 2 years or more to arrange for supppliers, contracts, etc as well as producing a finished rifle, sufficient financing to keep the whole enterprise afloat will not be an easy thing to do unless you have very deep pockets for "discretionary" spending.

Finally, the easiest (IMO) problem to solve is the craftsmanship issue. There are thousands, maybe more, of North Americans that have the requisite skills and patience to do the level of work you are planning. What they don't have is direct knowledge of "how" to do it, or what is "done" when finished. It takes skill to "run a file" but we have quite a few on this board that are doing it themselves right now building their own DR's on shotgun actions. There are a lot more metal working types out there that could do just a well with a bit of instruction. It seems to me that finding a good stockmaker, and a good actioner would be key as those two must have the ability to teach others by transferring their knowledge to the skilled men/women you've hired. People who can both do and teach are rather rare.

Those english craftsmen you are putting on a pedestal have learned by doing via apprenticeship programs. They filed away making one piece of a rifle , and then graduating to another piece and so on for many years. How many actions/rifles have they individually actually built? Not too many I would guesstimate.

If your pockets are deep enough Sinner, go for it! God bless you for wanting to and the willingness to try. FWIW...Pilgrim