Harbor Freight Gunsmith Tools | A Budget-Friendly Kit for Weekend Gunsmiths

Harbor Freight Gunsmith Tools | A Budget-Friendly Kit for Weekend Gunsmiths

If you’re the kind of person who loves wrenching on your own gear, Harbor Freight is probably already your happy place. It’s a treasure trove for DIY homeowners, mechanics, and yes—even us part-time gunsmiths who like to tinker on the weekends. Let’s be honest: gunsmithing tools can get stupid expensive real quick. If you’ve ever … Read more

Limited Space and Home Gunsmithing

Limited Space and Home Gunsmithing

Many of us work with a limited amount of space for home gunsmithing. The kitchen table gunsmith isn’t a myth, and some are very good at what they do. Even professional gunsmiths often work in a gun shop’s back room. When considering the tools needed and the compartmentalization of tools, parts, and devices, attention to … Read more

Upgrading the Ruger 10/22 Rifle

Upgrading the Ruger 10/22 Rifle

The Ruger 10/22 .22 caliber self-loading rifle is a firearm everyone should own, use, and enjoy. The 10/22 is perhaps the best combination of reliability and economy in a rimfire rifle. While Ruger offers a good-quality takedown rifle and highly developed target versions of the 10/22, the price leader, with a plastic stock and without … Read more

Sci-Fi and Space Gat 2: The AR-15-Based XCOM X-9

As I wrote in Sci-Fi and Space Gat 1, I feel like most folks are going to recognize Han Solo’s blaster, even if they don’t know it’s called a DL-44. I’ll admit, my next build goes further off in the weeds of nerdity. Cloning video game guns isn’t new, and there are innumerable versions of … Read more

Things That Don’t Suck: Otis Pro+ AR-15 Lock Block Upper Receiver Vise Block

I’ve done a fair bit of AR builds and mods over the years culminating with a flurry of them this summer. I’ve used an old plastic clam shell upper receiver block, and for the most part it’s been fine. I’ve occasionally run into an upper profile that doesn’t fit the block though, and more recently … Read more

How I spent my Summer Vacation: The Season of the AR Builds, Part III

[ED: This is the last in a three-part series. Read the first article HERE.] Although most of my summer was spent doing retro or retro-inspired AR builds, I had enough time for a few more modern builds as well. Something New My first build started a little before the summer actually, and was the result … Read more

Cooking ‘Colt Gunbo’ or How to Clean Up a Rusty 1950s Vintage Revolver

By Peter C. Schechter Mmmm, mmmm good! Have you ever had a hankering for some old fashioned 1950s-vintage Colt gunbo for dinner? Me neither, to be honest. When my buddy came to me and asked if there was any way to clean up an old rusty revolver given to him by one of his kids, … Read more

Accuracy Testing Your Rifle — Excerpt from ‘Gunsmithing: Rifles, 9th Edition’

Gunsmithing: Rifles, 9th Edition is the latest edition of Patrick Sweeney’s long-running gunsmithing book series. Do you have a rifle that just won’t group, no matter what you try? From hunting rifles to tactical and benchrest precision, even today’s modular AR-15 and AR-10, author Sweeney covers them all and shows you how to gunsmith your … Read more

When a Good Gun Goes Bad – Excerpt from ‘Gunsmithing Modern Firearms’

Gunsmithing Modern Firearms, A Gun Guy’s Guide To Making Good Guns Even Better, is Bryce Towlsey’s newest gunsmithing book. Towsley is a firearms expert who has spent his 38-year career writing for many of the top firearms publications. He knows guns and ballistics and how they relate to the real world. Towsley has written extensively … Read more