D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
April
2008
Right on Target
Curt Hardcastle restores classic firearms and gives target-shooters a better shot at hitting the mark. Plus new Marketplace owners, businesses on the move, Dromos done for, and more.
Curt Hardcastle, a gunsmith who opened Hardcastle Custom Machining in Silver City one year ago, pulls a rifle from the gun safe in his workshop. He runs a hand along the long, sleek barrel, fingers the hammer and trigger, and points out the distinctive mottling of colors in the steel trigger-housing mechanism.
 |
Curt Hardcastle |
He describes the mechanical, technical process of how he restored the old firearm to shooting functionality. Then the tall, silver-haired gentleman gets a wistful look and his voice takes on a different tone.
"You know, it just suddenly hit me one day," he says. "Here I was, restoring this gun, and I thought to myself, 125, maybe 140 years ago, there was a guy just like me doing exactly what I was doing with this exact same weapon — and he had no idea that some 125, 140 years down the road, I would be holding it in my hands, working on it, maintaining it as a working firearm, just like he was doing." Hardcastle shakes his head. "In his wildest dreams, he could not have imagined me holding his gun, valuing his gun. It was quite a realization."
A restorer of antique firearms for more than 20 years, Hardcastle specializes in single-shot antique rifles from the Civil War era to the 1890s, returning both the guns' luster and their full shooting capability.
"When I'm done with it, it's as good as or better than when it was new," he says.
The gun he holds in his hands is, in a word, beautiful — perhaps not a word some would use to describe a weapon. Hardcastle explains that beauty, in fact, is a prime focus in his work, an aspect of firearm restoration that he finds especially rewarding.
"A lot of folks can do the machining. Let's face it, there are a lot of gunsmiths around," he says. "But the cosmetics are particularly important to me." With a laugh, he adds, "My wife says, 'Life's too short to shoot with an ugly rifle.' I spend a lot of time on the details, making a rifle as beautiful as I can. It's about the pride of ownership. When I give that gun back to the customer, it's something they will use and handle and display with pride."
Hardcastle's passion for guns began some 30 years ago when he got into competitive shooting as a hobby. He wanted a specialized gun and sought out a gunsmith who made weapons "match-ready."
"But he was really backed up with work orders," Hardcastle says. "I mean, he was three years behind schedule!" So Hardcastle, with a machining background from years of professional mold making, explored doing his own gun work and "things just sort of snowballed from there," he says with a laugh. Before opening his Silver City business, he worked in firearms restoration for nearly a dozen years in the Midwest, and with his wife owned a handgun sales business through which he sold and customized 300 to 350 guns per year.
Asked why a new gun needs alterations to make it "match-ready," Hardcastle explains that competitors often shoot up to 80 rounds per day over the course of two days. Repeated recoil of the rifle into the shoulder muscle can cause the shooter to "flinch," impairing his or her accuracy. Rifles must meet certain size and weight standards. Increasing barrel size — making it the longest and heaviest it can be and still come within those standards — lessens recoil and increases steadiness. Trigger pull — the pounds of pressure required to fire the gun — also comes into play. Having to pull with something like 12 pounds of pressure, over and over, can fatigue the shooter. Hardcastle reworks the geometry of the trigger mechanism, he explains, making the gun less tiring for the competitor to fire and improving his or her control.
In addition to making firearms ready for competition, Hardcastle says his work encompasses everything from replacing a single part, like a broken hammer, to completely rebuilding and upgrading what he calls "rusty relics."
"I do as much or as little work as the customer wants," he says, pointing out a gun on his workshop table to illustrate his point. "I'm just replacing the barrel on this one, for example, and the owner is going to do all the polishing himself." He points out another job that is "just a caliber change," he says, demonstrating the parts that will transform the firearm from a .40-.65 Winchester to a .45-.90.
And there are jobs that take plenty more effort. He relates his "most unusual restoration" story of a gun that came to him following a house fire. The rifle — or what was left of it — had been rusting away in the wet ash of the house's ruins for several months. The stock was completely burned away, the barrel was rusted, and all metal mechanisms seemed welded into immobility, beyond any hope of ever being functional again — at least to the gun's then-owner.
Hardcastle did a complete rebuild of the firearm, then brought the restored and functioning rifle to a shooting match.
"Everybody who shot it wanted to own one," he says with a smile, adding that he has since made many more just like it for customers. In fact, that most unusual restoration job has become his most popular customized product.
Some of his work comes from business referrals, such as from Treebone Carving, a custom gunstock company in Cimarron, NM, from which Hardcastle buys gunstocks. Some of Hardcastle's work is shown on Treebone's Web site, www.treebonecarving.com California gun parts vendor Kenn Womack, from whom Hardcastle buys specialty replacement parts for antique guns, also sends clients his way, and he has individual clients, referred by word of mouth.
Turn-around and cost of jobs vary widely, depending on the amount of work requested. A simple repair can be turned around in as little as a week, he says. Rebuilds usually take six to nine months, sometimes more when he's backed up. Pointing out the full gun safe in his shop, Hardcastle notes that he's got 15 different projects going on at present. If a simple repair job comes in, he'll shuffle it into the mix rather than making it wait for a rebuild to be completed.
Simple parts replacements, like that broken hammer, for example, run about $75-$80. Re-barreling will run around $350 for the labor and anywhere from $250 to $400 for the steel itself. A full rebuild — with a new barrel, stock, necessary parts and full finishing — usually runs around $3,500 to $4,000.