Rifle builder

Perazzi

Looking for some advice of who to talk to about getting a custom rifle build in.223 left handed any help would be great at the moment I shoot a .243 and a.220 swift.

hawlk

Midland Precision Guns ,Athlone . 086 2564738 .Guns built by them are proven in competition in Ireland and the UK.

European F-Class Championships Bisley .Guns built by Midland Precision Guns .
2013 - F-Open 1st and 2nd places
2014 - F-open 2nd and 5th places
I think this speaks for its self

Perazzi

hawlk wrote: »

Midland Precision Guns ,Athlone . 086 2564738 .Guns built by them are proven in competition in Ireland and the UK.

Thanks a mill will give them a ring

Cass

Enda Walsh or Dominic Bryne would be the two best and most proven choices.

Enda Walsh

Dominic Byrne

Perazzi

Thanks a mill Cass

Big Bangstick

I need to have a barrel threaded & recrowned. How much would this cost & how long would it take to have done?

Cass

Big Bangstick wrote: »

I need to have a barrel threaded & recrowned.

Cheapest i've heard it bein done is €50. The average price is €90, but can go as high as €120. That is for a threading of the muzzle for a suppressor. For fitting a barrel it can cost as much as €350.

How much would this cost & how long would it take to have done?

Depends on how busy the smith is. I've heard lads waiting for 3 months but a mate recently got it done and it took 4 days from the day the rifle was shipped down to the smith to the evening he got it back.

Best thing to do is ring around, ask for price and time frame. Then go with whichever suits.

Big Bangstick

Thanks Cass. This is totally new ground for me. Never even knew this kind of work could be done here until I came across this site while searching the net for stuff.

Cass

Custom work has grown in the last 10 years with lads having a better understanding of firearms and what they want from a gun.


Downside is prices have gone up too which i'm not a big supporter/fan off. I understand people have overheads, but in the last 5 years the price of buying and getting a new barrel fitted has gone from a low of €650 or average of €850 to some looking over €1250 for the same service. That includes the same brand of barrel and after checking the price has either gone up a tiny bit or not at all.

Ideally i'd like to see a couple more gunsmiths here. Doing full custom work, and with a much larger selection of barrels, stocks, actions, etc, etc. I've had a couple of guns built over the years and found that i can get stuff quicker and cheaper by ordering it myself than waiting for the smith to do it himself. If ever an RFD opens here that will supply barrel blanks and other such custom items then it might drop the increasing price of custom work, but until that happens it's go with what is there.

Big Bangstick

The Irish attitude to business ............................. fleece 'em they might not come back !

Rather than ............. do a good job at a reasonable price & they WILL come back.

IRLConor

Cass wrote: »

That includes the same brand of barrel and after checking the price has either gone up a tiny bit or not at all.

Are those barrels sold from the USA or UK? Because the exchange rate to the Euro could account for some of the price differences here.

I'm not saying that it would account for all of it but over the last 2 years the price of something originally sold in GBP would have gone up by ~16% and something sold in USD would have gone up by ~17%. That's a fair chunk of additional cost to cover even if the source prices don't change.

Cass

IRLConor wrote: »

Are those barrels sold from the USA or UK? Because the exchange rate to the Euro could account for some of the price differences here.

The UK, and the reason i mention it is because the exchange rate does not explain it.

I'll break it down as best i can. The average price for a barrel a few years ago was £350. Back a few years ago that was €435. Today it's €480. Serious difference in exchange rate. The cost a few years ago for fitting a barrel was €250, and now it's €350. No reason or exchange rate to explain it, just a slow rise in the cost of having it done.

So the highest it should cost is €830, which is the average i paid for my first few barrels.

I once bought a Bartlein. It was a match select barrel, and had custom fluting done. The cost, including the crap exchange rate not so long ago, was €700 (£510). The normal cost for a "standard" Bartlein was £425 (€525 at the time, and €580 now). I was charged €250 for fitting bringing the total cost to €950. Even if it were today's price it would be €700 + €350 bringing the total to €1,050.

I rang around and confirmed that the smith was getting the same barrel and was being charged the same price for the barrel. One was even getting it from the same source as i was. The prices i was quoted were €1,250 & €1,400. That is a minimum of €200 to maximum of €450 price difference. Where does that come from?

One told me it included the price of the reamer. I asked if i got to keep the reamer after (you know, seeing as how i'm paying for it) and was told no. The price of the reamer was €230 so would account for one price difference, but for the other still left a €220 "void". IOW money that could not be accounted for in services. Plus i'm not paying for anything that i'm not getting to keep. Seeing as how the reamer can do more barrels after would they be charged for the cost of it each time?

I don't mean to turn the thread into a moan or bashing session. It's not directed at any one person. Just i've been watching all things custom lately and only as recently as one month ago i seen a major hike in the price of a certain item. No reason for it, and the hike was 127% of the original price. That is some jump.

The prices being asked for today would have been high back in the boom times. Today it's just outrageous. I don't mind paying for quality, but i was getting quality before. So what has changed in the last few months to year that has suddenly made this quality" 40%+ more expensive?

IRLConor

Interesting to see the breakdown, thanks for doing that.

Unfortunately, at the end of the day a vendor will charge what his/her market will bear. I can only assume that if the costs haven't changed much then the prices have gone up because other people are happy to pay them!

Perazzi

Thanks Cass might meet up in the Midlands rifle range if you up there some time

Cass

I'm there most weekends so just come up and say hi.