by GCA Member Korey Ferguson

As I lay here in bed, thinking about this past year, I am both grateful and relieved. I am grateful that I have had the opportunity to chase a dream I have had for so long! I am relieved that none of the many mistakes I made have sunk me yet. I always wanted to move my hobby of working on firearms into the realm of a business. I started out by offering cleaning services to friends and family. They trusted me with their firearms and I made sure I never let them down. Then one day, after I was finally able to buy a house for my family, I went all in! I purchased a big air compressor, blast cabinet, huge oven, soak tank, a bunch of tools, cerakote, and paid my deposit to become a certified applicator. (The wait for certification has been over a year and I finally get to go in December.) I had the opportunity to complete a lot of projects for customers over the past year. I have disassembled and reassembled over 60 firearms. I have also done 22 glock trigger jobs, a few trigger jobs on AK’s, and installed new sights on various handguns. This was all before signing up for the AGI Master Gunsmithing Course last month. I can honestly say that I wish I would have signed up a year ago when I started looking into AGI. I have learned more in this last month watching DVD’s than I did in this last year. Of course the Disassembly and Assembly of various firearms have been beneficial but now I actually know the function of each individual part. In the past I only watched YouTube videos and completed the puzzle. Now I can inspect the parts and understand what they are. I look forward to the many hours of learning and becoming an all around gunsmith. I have been lucky to meet a good business partner who wanted to open up a retail shop and allow me to open up a gunsmithing and cerakote shop in the same location. I continue to grow and although there have been ups and downs, I know that continuous hard work will pay off. I have ruined parts, broken a stock, melted a channel liner, been ripped off for $3100, and ran off a customer with mistakes. But determination to succeed, hard work, and always standing by my work; which includes making it right when there is a mistake, will hopefully allow me to build a loyal customer base.