planning for new company to make rifles or rifle parts

[Devasheeshgarbyal]

Hello fellow members
This post is in regard to get information of how to setup a new firearm manufacturing company
i have seen in recent times there are many new Indian manufacturers bringing small firearms and 12 gauge shotguns to the market though my concern is the price they are asking for it all above 2 lakhs .on continuation my other concern was they are only doing these 2 categories and leaving rifles alone
I being a enthusiasts was planning to setup an manufacturing setup for custom made rifles and parts for iof rifles too with better finish and cheaper price .
To all the senior members my only request is to ask you to guide me in this journey .

[timmy]

You will need a number of things to start a new firearms manufacturing company if you want to offer better guns at cheaper prices and still make enough to stay in business:

1. You will need to be a businessman. You will need to buy or rent a building at a reasonable rate and furnish it with machine tools, such as old ones like drill presses, grinders, lathes, and mills, as well as new ones like CNC machines. You will need to pay enough to get good machines, but not too much, because the more you pay, the more you must make to stay in business. You will also need to buy hand tools and precision measuring tools, as well, at a reasonable price that will get good ones, but not so much that you can't make money.

You will also need to hire people. This will be tricky, because you need to know whether these people actually know something and whether they are good workers. It will help to pay them good wages, but you cannot pay them so much that you can't make a profit.

You will also need to identify who will sell the guns that you make. You will have to educate gun dealers and help them to understand why they should sell your guns. Again, the more profit you allow them to make and the more attractive your products are, the more they will be interested in selling them. They aren't running charities, so they need to make some money too, and they want a product that they know will sell and not sit in their counters unsold. So your price to them must be attractive, but yet allow you to make some money too.

Then, you need to know the laws and get all of the permits you need to manufacture firearms. You will need to get approvals from politicians, so you will have to know how that is done. I won't say anymore about this, but as you might imagine, it is tricky. Then, you will have to make arrangements to have each and every firearm proof tested to ensure that it is safe, or else but the equiipment yourself and get yourself licensed as an approved proof tester.

You can see that being a businessman is not as eas as you might think.

2. Then, you have to be a good machinist and know how to operate all of the equipment that you have bought. You could pay an employee to do this, but if you don't know how to do it yourself, how can you know who to hire and judge whether they are doing their jobs correctly? You can either trust someone or you can know how to do it yourself. After investing all of this time and effort, I would be reluctant to trust all of that money and time that I've spent to a trust in someone who I don't know whether they can make these decisions. Certainly, you will be able to find people who can talk a good speech and spend your money with no problem, but I would feel much better if I knew the jobs of the people working for me -- it would be much cheaper. If the person you are hiring could do all of these things, why wouldn't that person start their own company, rather than working for you? So, you have to be a good machinist.

3. Then, you have to be knowledgeable enough about firearms to develop new ways of making guns that is cheaper, faster, and with better quality than existing guns. If not, you at least have to be able to understand how to copy another gun. It's not enough to know how the gun you are copying works -- you have to know how to design the jigs and tools that are used to make them. If you are even more gifted than that, you can design newer guns and figure out how they are made.

Have you ever been to a gun factory, or do you have related manufacturing experience? There are two ways to get the knowledge you need: education and working experience. Do you have one or the other, preferably both? There are already smart people who are making new guns in India, and you will need to be as smart or smarter then they are if you are going to make a better product and remain in business. We can tell you some things here on IFG, but you are going to need to be a lot smarter than that to make a manufacturing company work.

4. One more thing -- you will need lots of money.

Best of luck. Let us know how things turn out for you.

[Devasheeshgarbyal]

You will need a number of things to start a new firearms manufacturing company if you want to offer better guns at cheaper prices and still make enough to stay in business:

1. You will need to be a businessman. You will need to buy or rent a building at a reasonable rate and furnish it with machine tools, such as old ones like drill presses, grinders, lathes, and mills, as well as new ones like CNC machines. You will need to pay enough to get good machines, but not too much, because the more you pay, the more you must make to stay in business. You will also need to buy hand tools and precision measuring tools, as well, at a reasonable price that will get good ones, but not so much that you can't make money.

You will also need to hire people. This will be tricky, because you need to know whether these people actually know something and whether they are good workers. It will help to pay them good wages, but you cannot pay them so much that you can't make a profit.

You will also need to identify who will sell the guns that you make. You will have to educate gun dealers and help them to understand why they should sell your guns. Again, the more profit you allow them to make and the more attractive your products are, the more they will be interested in selling them. They aren't running charities, so they need to make some money too, and they want a product that they know will sell and not sit in their counters unsold. So your price to them must be attractive, but yet allow you to make some money too.

Then, you need to know the laws and get all of the permits you need to manufacture firearms. You will need to get approvals from politicians, so you will have to know how that is done. I won't say anymore about this, but as you might imagine, it is tricky. Then, you will have to make arrangements to have each and every firearm proof tested to ensure that it is safe, or else but the equiipment yourself and get yourself licensed as an approved proof tester.

You can see that being a businessman is not as eas as you might think.

2. Then, you have to be a good machinist and know how to operate all of the equipment that you have bought. You could pay an employee to do this, but if you don't know how to do it yourself, how can you know who to hire and judge whether they are doing their jobs correctly? You can either trust someone or you can know how to do it yourself. After investing all of this time and effort, I would be reluctant to trust all of that money and time that I've spent to a trust in someone who I don't know whether they can make these decisions. Certainly, you will be able to find people who can talk a good speech and spend your money with no problem, but I would feel much better if I knew the jobs of the people working for me -- it would be much cheaper. If the person you are hiring could do all of these things, why wouldn't that person start their own company, rather than working for you? So, you have to be a good machinist.

3. Then, you have to be knowledgeable enough about firearms to develop new ways of making guns that is cheaper, faster, and with better quality than existing guns. If not, you at least have to be able to understand how to copy another gun. It's not enough to know how the gun you are copying works -- you have to know how to design the jigs and tools that are used to make them. If you are even more gifted than that, you can design newer guns and figure out how they are made.

Have you ever been to a gun factory, or do you have related manufacturing experience? There are two ways to get the knowledge you need: education and working experience. Do you have one or the other, preferably both? There are already smart people who are making new guns in India, and you will need to be as smart or smarter then they are if you are going to make a better product and remain in business. We can tell you some things here on IFG, but you are going to need to be a lot smarter than that to make a manufacturing company work.

4. One more thing -- you will need lots of money.

Best of luck. Let us know how things turn out for you.

thanks for the reply and your indepth experience . my other question is is there any restriction in manufacturing rifles ?because i only see handguns and shotguns provided by the manufacturers

[timmy]

thanks for the reply and your indepth experience . my other question is is there any restriction in manufacturing rifles ?because i only see handguns and shotguns provided by the manufacturers

I'm sorry, but I still did not directly address your question. I'm assuming here that you are referring to centerfire rifles, and not rimfires (like 22 long rifle). If this is incorrect, please align my wheels again.

One issue you will have regarding rifle manufacture is, who are you going to sell rifles to?

There is no hunting in India for the general public, and IOF makes a Blaser knockoff in 30-06 and an SMLE knockoff in 315. So, there are already two rifles currently manufactured on the market and available for anyone with a license. But, what can be done with these rifles? Hunting with them would mean that one would need to take them out of the country to hunt in Africa or North America or some such place. This sort of hunting is not cheap at all, and while some might take one of the IOF rifles on such an expensive trip, many would wish for a different rifle for such an experience, or they already have a suitable rifle by some other means and have no need to buy one.

Certainly, 30-06 is capable for many game species in the world, and 315 might well do, also. The issue here is ammunition, and capable 30-06 hunting ammuntion has a big advantage here in being available in much of the world, even in out of the way places.

Any other kind of rifle in any caliber is only going to be useful for shooting at the range. What else would one do with this kind of rifle? I will grant you that there are people, like me, who like to own rifles just because they like them. For me, it's perfectly acceptable to have a rifle that heads out to the range and is otherwise gotten out to wipe down and enjoy. But there aren't many like me, either.

So you have a situation where very very few people are going to buy your product. If you are going for the low end of the market, then you must compete with the IOF rifles. If you go for the high end, you enter the market of people with plenty of money and every reason to be very choosy about what they buy. They will be quite demanding about finish, accuracy, workmanship, and appearance.There are a host of very nice semi-custom and custom rifles sold in the USA alone, and then even more in Europe. Japan makes some very fine products for export, and these are sold under other names like Weatherby, for instance. How one might get such a rifle in India when one is very very wealthy is not a question I care to address here.

So, if you step into this sort of rifle production, you can buy lots of parts to assemble them yourself, like barrels, actions, and stocks. Plenty of other people do the same thing. Besides this, the question remains about importing these things. There are lots of barrel makers, makers of custom triggers, stocks in wood, composite, and other materials, and there are even actions available. A wealthy person might just buy an expensive rifle for the barreled action or just the action alone and have a custom rifle built on that.

If you go the route of building these parts yourself, good luck! Barrel making requires very expensive machine tools. Making an action is even more difficult. Triggers are no simple thing to make, especially in an expensive rifle. There's no part of the rifle that engenders more finicky and even goofy opinions than triggers. Finally, there is the stock. Even wood is going to be tricky, because one would either go with laminate for accuracy or a fine grade of walnut for appearance. Composites would take expensive machinery.

Ask yourself: Is there a reason why there are now new pistol, revolver, and shotgun manufacturers, but few rifle makers?

i think that the answer is yes, especially if you haven't come to grips with the issues I've raised here.

I'm not telling you not to dream or plan or wish -- have at it. All I'm doing is listing issues that you will have to face if you want to make a successful run at a rifle manufacturing business, and meet the goals you laid out in your first post.

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Lots of good points in the reply above. The biggest factor that stops anyone from getting into small arms manufacturing in India is the market. The only sizeable market is if you are producing for the Army/ ParaMilitary forces. And of course, in that arena, you have to be a big player with deep pockets like these guys, https://www.adanidefence.com/en/small-arms. But even they lost out on some big orders from the Indian Army