A friend of mine bought (used) one of those programmable 5-axis machining centers for about ten cents on the dollar, got it fixed up and programmed it to make an old time single shot rifle action design. This would never appeal to a mass market, as the extraction was typical of the vintage guns, not up to high intensity modern cartridges, and it would not handle rimless cartridges easily. There would thus be no economy via quantity production by appealing to the everyday gun buyer. He found he still had to outsource some EDM work as it would be too cumbersome to set his machine up for cutting the parts. He had the trigger guards cast, by an outside foundry, as it would, again, take too much programming work and tie up his machine pointlessly for something that could be made more economically by other methods. Last I saw, he had made maybe 7 or 8 completed actions, in the course of testing out small modifications towards the final design, from which he had made 3 rifles. He had sold (I think) one of the earliest versions of his design to an importunate correspondent. He had most of the parts in various unfinished states for maybe five more actions. He found it impossible to set a price on these actions, which were in the white, needing final polishing and bluing or casehardening. And, of course, being made into rifles. Adding up his costs for equipment amortization, fixtures and tooling, programming, designing, research, materials, supplies, subcontracting and "thinking time" was more work for him than actually producing the action, and, more to the point, no fun. I would say from my occasional visits to his shop that it would be uneconomical to price the actions alone at much under $3K a pop. I watched him try to make a part once. He bolted a piece of metal to the machine table, closed the doors and pushed a button. Liquid sprayed in the compartment, the table lurched back and forth, in and out, the tool head plucked tools off the lazy Susan tool holder and chips flew. And then it stopped. Some kind of "bug" in the programming and the part was half done. I left him in peace and quiet to sort it out. I don't know how much more "modern" such manufacturing could get, or how much lower the overhead. The guy is retired on a pension and doesn't need the money (or the hassle). Maybe when 3-D printers that use molten metal and wood get as cheap as personal computers, we can all make our own. Otherwise, I don't see it happening.
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