RE: gunsmithing
I can not tell anything about the Colorado School of Trades. I went to Montgomery Tech Community College' s gunsmith course when I was stationed at Ft. Bragg, NC. If I am not mistaken, CST is one of the better ones, from what I heard, along with Montgomery Tech and one other up in PA somewhere. The market from what I hear his in need of good competent gunsmiths, especially here in NC. I have guys that drive for 2 or more hours to get here, because there aren' t any in their part of the state.
I would say that location is the key. A gunsmith in Washington DC, NY city, Chicago, and such places, aren' t going to have much of a cliential, because firearms are banned there for the most part. A gunsmith shop can be set up with about $10K worth of equipment and tools. At the shcool you will learn what tools and equipment you will need and what is nice to have. If the CST offers an advaned machinist course, you may want to see about getting into that as well. The more knowledge you have and skill you have with lathes, milling machines, surface grinders, drill presses, and the most important thing, " setup" , the better gunsmith you will be.
If you have then opportunity to go to work for a smith that is already established and has a loyal clientail, the will be a plus. If may be a little difficult to open your own shop right out of CST and build your own cliential. There are emplyment opportunities out there, especially for graduates of a well known school. You can look in the shotgun news and the gun list and see adds for smiths every week. You could go to work for an established smith, a custom or semi-custom firearm manufacture, a barrel maker, etc., or you could start own shop.
Like I said location is the key. You do not need 2 smiths in a small town of 2,000, you don' t won' t to open a shop were firearms are practically banned, and you don' t want to open it in the middle of nowhere. You will have to find a location that will either support 2 or more smith shops or that doesn' t have a smith in the vicitnity, and has a large enough population that possesses firearms so you can develope a loyal cliential.
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