Question regarding certain careers and the term "Gunsmith"

I apologize if my question is not about working on a gun, but only about the definition of "Gunsmith". I'm only asking here because this is the only part of the website that for sure has gunsmiths around.

My question is in regards to the Machine Operators of Gun Factories...and workmen? Rifle Factory Ishapore used the term workmen. Are workmen and Machine Operator the same thing? Hmm...


Anyways, my question is in regards to those. Do they automatically fall under the definition of the word "Gunsmith"? They are the ones who create the guns in the factories, right?

Are they even considered gunsmiths by those who are officially gunsmiths?

The term gunsmith nowadays means more the ones that repair and service firearms, but it changes from country to country. Back in the day a gunsmith would have been someone that probably invented and created firearms. In todays world the people that make firearms in factories are what we call in Australia fitters and turners (Most gunsmiths are this as well).

So yeah its a bit of a grey and funny coloured area at least from my perspective.

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Originally Posted by nijalninja

The term gunsmith nowadays means more the ones that repair and service firearms, but it changes from country to country. Back in the day a gunsmith would have been someone that probably invented and created firearms. In todays world the people that make firearms in factories are what we call in Australia fitters and turners (Most gunsmiths are this as well).

So yeah its a bit of a grey and funny coloured area at least from my perspective.

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So if a gun factory machine operator/fitter and turner says they are a gunsmith, even though they don't have a certification of graduation from some gunsmithing course, it is valid enough that those who graduated from said kinds of courses or apprenticed to a gunsmith can't dispute the claim by the machine operator/fitter and turner?

Smith is the original word for working with metal, making all things metal from tools, to blades for kitchen and war, to horseshoes, etc. And repairing them. Nowadays a blacksmith. As a blacksmith couldn't do everything equally well and focused on larger stuff not as finely finished, others specialised from there.

A gun smith is thus a person who makes guns and repairs them, thus a gunsmith. Lock, stock, barrel were the components and mainly still are. If you look at the lock on an early muzzle loader and compare it to a craftsman's lock you will see the specialisation that took place.

Anyone not qualified or able to build a gun from the bare essentials is actually not a gunsmith. Let's exclude making the barrel and receiver from this although they should be able to do this. A machine operator/fitter and turner may become a gunsmith either by experience or further training, or possibly from self learning.

With this in mind, I would broadly describe a machine operator someone who turns out a large number of identical items, a workman similar or combining items into a finished product. Example, the machine operator/workman in a car manufacturing plant isn't a mechanic except if qualified separately.

Here in Canada Gunsmithing is a unlicenced trade. Literally anyone can call themselves a gunsmith. Personally I have done some small level gunsmithing type tasks though various repairs and builds. That being said very few if any actually build a firearm from scratch anymore. Even people like the Weapons Technicians in the Canadian military are just basically parts changers (the AR-15 I built recently I did more on the build than our military trains our military gunsmiths to do).

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Originally Posted by kilopi505

So if a gun factory machine operator/fitter and turner says they are a gunsmith, even though they don't have a certification of graduation from some gunsmithing course, it is valid enough that those who graduated from said kinds of courses or apprenticed to a gunsmith can't dispute the claim by the machine operator/fitter and turner?

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Thats a tough one. Typically in a legal sense the one with the qualifications is the one with the most authority regardless of their actual capabilities. That is in my country however. You can't tell anyone about anything without having some kind of permit/licence/or certificate. However, if the dispute was about mass manufacturing in a way that the fitter was well versed in and had years experience over the gunsmith then things may change, but if it were a dispute of old parts, old guns, and generally forgotten skills and tools the gunsmith SHOULD have the more authority.

I see.

Thank you everyone for your answers! :)

This greatly helped me!

In Australia we used to call our national service cooks - who all wanted to be called 'chefs' - fitters and turners because they used to fit the food into pots and turn it into 5hit.

As Dean points out in post #4, Smith relates back to the blacksmith , Gunsmith etc. A time when damascus barrels were the norm........... A Machine operator is just that, he or she operates that machine to produce a component or a certain machiing of that component, workman can relate to anything on the shop floor but would probably be a labourer.

I served an Apprenticeship as a Fitter & Turner not the Chef type as Peter points out, although nothing new on that front in any new modern day Chef, in my current work place the Chefs would be lost without a deep fat fryer, a pair of scissors and a steam oven.......... most things are boiled in the bag or fried, the scissors are just handy for opening the packets.

Anyway back to the Fitter & Turner in me, my trade at the time was you could be given a drawing and told go and make it, as simple as that, a lot different to a operator or Workman.

Todays Gunsmiths are few and far between, the only ones really who can call themselves Gunsmiths in the UK are the Gumakers we still have who employ Gunsmiths or have had Apprentices through who have served there apprenticeship, even then there will be two sides to the Gunsmith trade as in metal work or wood work........

"...Here in Canada Gunsmithing is a unlicenced trade..." Not exactly but there is no specific training level required to call yourself a gunsmith. A smithy is required to have a Firearms Business licence according to the Firearms Act. Mind you, so is any business doing anything involving firearms. Makes running a firearm related business a bigger pain in the posterior.
"...workmen and Machine Operator the same thing..." Only if the workman actually runs a machine. Neither of 'em are gunsmiths though.
"...Smith relates back to the blacksmith..." The term has nothing to do with Blacksmith's specifically. Paul Revere was a silversmith. There were goldsmiths, sword smiths, arrow smiths, etc., etc.

As a gunsmith with 50+ years experience this is a subject dear to my heart. To my thinking a gunsmith is one who has the knowledge and ability to make a complete firearm, and also have ability to repair any firearm that comes to his door. Sadly, that is not the case these days. The trade is becoming specialized these days and here in New Zealand there are people calling themselves 'gunsmiths' who only do work in a specific area (barrel fitting, suppressor manufacture and fitting, fitting after market parts to pistols and AR15's, stockmaking, etc.) and cannot make springs, reblue, case-harden, file parts from stock, or many of the myriad tasks that a real gunsmith needs to perform. Even the British term 'gunmaker' is overused by some practitioners in the trade who work for the old firms like Purdey, H&H, etc. These are excellent tradesmen but are specialists in a single field (actioner, stocker, etc.) and it is really only the 'finishers' who are the best qualified to use the term 'gunmaker'. The old military trade of 'Armourer' included training in the basics of metal working, stock repairs, etc. as well as the specialist training for the service weapons of the time. Their work involved the precise fitting and adjustment of parts in some instances. Nowadays, it is all replacement of parts with little or no fitting required. I guess it is indicative of the way the World is changing and tradesmen are no exception. Carpenters used to build a complete house from the concrete foundations to the roof covering, but in the last 25 years this has changed to assembling a pre-cut frame, hanging doors, and some finishing work. The sub-contractors used to be the drainlayer, plumber, glazier, bricklayer and electrician, but now that list has more than doubled (concreters, roofers, insulators, window installers, wallboard fitters, stoppers, painters, etc.). There used to be 5 year apprenticeships in the trades where youngsters were taught by older experienced tradesmen, followed by another 5 years or more working to gain more experience before they could consider themselves 'proper' tradesmen. Now it is all about instant results and people are only taught enough to quickly provide the employer with an income.

As Woodsy points out the decline of trades into shortened timelines to fill gaps, whilst my chosen early career is not recognized as a trade but more of an art that of an open crane operator where one has to have the 'nouse to operate as written on my original ticket "Operate any crane other than driven by steam" there are still cranes driven by steam in Africa on the rail lines.
What we have seen here is RTO's (Registered Training organisations) get persons "their High Risk License" in a matter of days to operate a crane where I had to do 200 hours dual instruction from a licensed operator no less that 12 hours/week and no more than 40 hours/week then tested by an inspector both practically inclusive of whistle signals and the verbally going through a myriad of load charts for different cranes plus slinging of loads and working weights out that alone was a 3 hour verbal examination no notes allowed.
We're called "Operators" by our peers, we call ourselves "Lever Attendants" others are called "Drivers" whom have all the skill level of a one legged man in an egg & spoon race I have been present and watched cranes go over on construction sites due to "Driver" error its not pretty and fraught with extreme danger for people not even remotely near the machine check this pic of a Lampson Transi-lift crane and understand the ramifications if it went south during that lift.
For fineness of touch as we call it imagine being asked by your rigger when your in a tight space with (In my case 96 Meters of boom + Fly combo) to move a load 6 inches and what that equates to at your end so they get the amount at their end.......

But I guess that is the way things are now-days, an old Aussie WWII veteran who was a POW of the Germans said to me one day in the late '70's to emphasize the fact of change in society ~ "In days of old we had men of steel and buildings of wood. Today we have men of wood and buildings of steel."

You guys have a look, you see he's from the Philippines and he's asking some odd questions... He hasn't been back since his other thread was closed after that was pointed out...

https://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=65114

From that thread ~ "But I also read that for a rifle with light ammo, a heavier rifle is what is desired." I gather by this statement from him one shooting say a .577 NE would require 6.5 pound rifle.
Interesting article thanks Jim what a strange bird he is......soon to be was if he builds and fires that thing.

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Originally Posted by CINDERS

soon to be was if he builds and fires that thing.

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They have many jungle gun shops over there and I wonder if that was what was happening...looking for alternatives...