ADVICE on pricing this Traditions Custom Build

[ZDC]

Hi all - for background, I've been building custom stocks (rifles/shotguns) since the early 70's, having apprenticed under the demanding and critical eyes of two of the old masters who drilled into my brain and hands everything they learned during their decades of gun-building at L.C.Smith (the old factory was in my growing up town). My impeccable work since then has routinely sold in the over $5,000 range for new stock builds depending on the level of carving, checkering, inletting precision, complexity, etc.
This Tradition build is my first "entry" into building a muzzleloader - a Traditions Shenandoah. For this build, I pushed the relief carving limits of the available wood on the Traditions stock (not easy), did a lot of re-shaping of the lock sections, and did considerable antiquing on brass and wood finish. This rifle is carved both sides, tom and bottom, butt to muzzle. Clearly, having completed this first muzzleloader build, I fully respect the work that custom muzzleloader craftsmen produce.

That said - I'm completely at a loss for how much a new - unfired custom build of a Traditions kit is worth (yea, I know, a lot less than a custom build of a Kibler kit).
My thought is that this gun should easily fetch $1,800 - $1,900, but maybe it's only worth $500. Or maybe $3,500. Seriously, I know the value of my work in custom large caliber hunting rifles, but the muzzleloader world is completely new to me.

Advice is welcome (and since I have thick skin, don't be afraid to to tell me I wasted a few hundred hours for nothing). Thanks in advance.

Awesome work, the craftsmanship is incredible , but unfortunately the mechanics of the gun being a traditions really hurts things. I think you should be able to get 600-700 for it.

I would highly recommend buying a few kiblers and doing the same work. With a stock like that and the good reputation of kiblers barrels, locks, and triggers, you will be able to fetch a good price.

 

[user 59734]

Awesome work, the craftsmanship is incredible , but unfortunately the mechanics of the gun being a traditions really hurts things. I think you should be able to get 600-700 for it.

I would highly recommend buying a few kiblers and doing the same work. With a stock like that and the good reputation of kiblers barrels, locks, and triggers, you will be able to fetch a good price.

Thank you, ZDC!!!

 

[Bad Karma]

Hi Pathfinder - Although I didn't "acclaim" anything other than what customers pay for certain custom builds, and that I've been building for a 1/2 century give or take, that's OK to question.

To make a point, there are more than a few custom stockmakers and checkers (who you've also probably never heard of) who make an effort to "acclaim" themselves to provide new customers a little background, these two for example: About – The Stock Doctor and Metal and Wood Home - but we all have different scopes of specialties that we like and different ways to communicate that information.

And although Keith is no longer building, he provides a little "self acclaiming" on his muzzleloader builds. About

It's interesting to note that, not unlike many other custom builders that you don't know, we usually have secondary income sources - from building duck calls, to selling wood refinishing chemicals. Mine includes developing artificial intelligence software, and teaching custom gun building as faculty at a gunsmithing college.

It's tough to make a living relying solely on building custom guns.

Many of my photos go back to the late '70, some being now faded Polaroids, but all obviously pre camera phone - we've not been successful at creating high resolution images from old grainy photos. That said, here are a few: A. H. GIBBS

The Winchester 1895 shown under "Repair • Restoration" was a ground-up museum restoration of General Ben Viljoen's personal rifle and now resides in the Boer War museum in South Africa. You can disregard the page on which I'm Testing the pricing for the Traditions muzzleloader since that's the subject of this discussion thread in the first place.

Just don’t build the AI that decides humans are a virus and wipes us out…

WRT the stocking of your Traditions kit. Nice work, I suspect 800 would be the very top of the range for something like this but like dropping an LS-1 into a Chevette, the number of customers who would be excited by such a prospect is fairly limited.

 

[Mulemauler]

ArmorerRoy - Although Kibler is a 100% upgrade, it's still a "kit". Do ANY custom builders start with a kit, or do they separately source the stock blank, lock, trigger group, barrel, etc., and fit them together? It's my understanding that the "kit" element of a build ensures that all the components will fit together (if properly built).

You've obviously have some skills, get some good components and will make into a rifle most anyone would be proud to own. While Kibler "kits" are fine quality by their nature are mostly all alike. You can change up some details but they are just what they are. From scratch you can build anything you can envision. There will always be a demand for a quality rifle but no builder I know builds them on spec. If it is built to fit the image a particular customer has, it is a custom build just for them, otherwise it is just a pretty rifle.

 

[user 59734]

That was going to be my response too. Thank you for getting that out there.:~)))
Buy a Kibler kit and do it over. Just chalk this one up to "Sperience." Sell it for whatever you can get out of it. I'm sure someone will give you $500.00 for it. Just my opinion.
God bless:
Two Feathers

Hey Two Feathers - I love that photo of your shop with all the ML's lined up (and yes - I do like your specialty product focus). Keep up the great work.

 

[user 59734]

You've obviously have some skills, get some good components and will make into a rifle most anyone would be proud to own. While Kibler "kits" are fine quality by their nature are mostly all alike. You can change up some details but they are just what they are. From scratch you can build anything you can envision. There will always be a demand for a quality rifle but no builder I know builds them on spec. If it is built to fit the image a particular customer has, it is a custom build just for them, otherwise it is just a pretty rifle.

Thanks, Mulemauler. Indeed - bespoke builds are client-directed. My research and quickie-build of this this Traditions rifle is part of that journey.

 

[Ghost23]

You'll get over 500 bucks. These guys don't have a clue. I restored a lot of cva hawken rifles and most of them fetch 500+. An unfinished cva mountain rifle I had sold for 750.

Plus there's a lot of snobs on here that look down their noses at cva and traditions guns. They'll tell you your stuff is cheap junk and shoot you a dollar store price, unless it's their gun they are selling. Then it's Tiffany prices.

I have a finished CVA Mt rifle. Give me the name of the guy that bought your for $750! I will gladly sell mine for more!

 

[user 59734]

From a style standpoint an opportunity was missed. The shot of the nosecap shows how much wood should have been removed. Notice the wood standing proud of the nosecap. The fore-end should have been cut down thinner from the nosecap to the first ramrod pipe to match the nosecap. and a molding cut beside the ramrod channel.. Also the nosecap should have been replaced with a better one. The difference between an elegantly shaped stock and a club is about 1/16".

Hey - EC121 - are you referring to my nose cap? Here's what I did to try to get it dialed in, but I'm all ears if you have specific recommendations. Thanks in advance.

 

[Electrod47]

I vote to contact Traditions and ask if they would like to buy it and hang it their office wall.

 

[user 59734]

Your time wasn't wasted. What IS the value of learning?
But it's still a Traditions kit,, you should keep it.


Or ponder humility as your next life lesson.
Your choice.

p.s. there ain't 5k worth of butt plate install with this lesson. And I have seen 5K+ ML's.

Hi Necchi - I believe it's important to remain grounded in reality. In the world of custom rifle builders, there are some who command $10K, $20K or more, and they spend perhaps 300-400 hours or more per build. That's their slot.

My sweet spot is the $5K region, and I deliver every bit of custom value for that price range - and there's no humility required - I'm just relaying facts.

However, when it comes to ML's, I'm a newbie - I only built one so far to see how my rifle-building expertise would translate to MLs. I learned that I have a lot to learn. If you can provide me some quality advice on building custom MLs, what the best locks, triggers, barrels and most demanded styles are, let me know. I'm all ears.

 

[user 59734]

I vote to contact Traditions and ask if they would like to buy it and hang it their office wall.

Now THERE'S a thought! But they probably don't like me since I raised hell on about a dozen poor quality issues, not the least of which was a ramrod that looked like a twisted spaghetti noodle, lopsided castings, incorrect machine inletting, wrong lock-to-bolster geometry, etc.

 

[kelljp]

Just need the right person to see it.
At the local gun store they have a rack of guns for sale on commission.
I've seen ridiculous prices on some of their firearms sell .
Personally as nice as your rifle is id find it hard to part with.

 

[Ghost23]

Might put an ad on GunBroker and see if it sells. Most CVA, TC, Traditions go for top dollar on there. They always go past what I'm willing to pay.

 

[PathfinderNC]

Hi Pathfinder - Although I didn't "acclaim" anything other than what customers pay for certain custom builds, and that I've been building for a 1/2 century give or take, that's OK to question. I'm sure that a lot of what you see here is posted by people who are "all hat and no cattle".

To make a point, there are more than a few custom stockmakers and checkers (who you've also probably never heard of) who make an effort to "acclaim" themselves to provide new customers a little background, these two for example: About – The Stock Doctor and Metal and Wood Home - but we all have different scopes of specialties that we like and different ways to communicate that information.

And although Keith is no longer building, he provides a little "self acclaiming" on his muzzleloader builds. About

It's interesting to note that, not unlike many other custom builders that you don't know, we usually have secondary income sources - from building duck calls, to selling wood refinishing chemicals. Mine includes developing artificial intelligence software, and teaching custom gun building as faculty at a gunsmithing college.

It's tough to make a living relying solely on building custom guns.

Many of my photos go back to the mid to late '70s, some being now faded Polaroids, but all obviously pre camera phone - we've not been successful at creating high resolution images from old grainy photos. That said, here are a few: A. H. GIBBS

The Winchester 1895 shown under "Repair • Restoration" was a ground-up museum restoration of General Ben Viljoen's personal rifle and now resides in the Boer War museum in South Africa. You can disregard the page on which I'm Testing the pricing for the Traditions muzzleloader since that's the subject of this discussion thread in the first place.

I agree: credentials matter.

I see no photos on that website of any of your work except the kit gun your're discussing here.

 

[necchi]

If you can provide me some quality advice on building custom MLs,

Sure, spend some hours reading and researching this section of our forum;
https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/forums/the-gun-builders-bench.15/It's The Gun Builders Bench.
There are 19yrs of archived pages available, and we have been graced throughout those years with many professional builders of historical and contemporary ML rifles sharing their results, advice and skill sets.
If you dig you'll find the repeated naming of the supply houses that provide quality components

 

[user 59734]

I see no photos on that website of any of your work except the kit gun your're discussing here.

The photos in the "what I do" section show a glimpse of some of my work.

I'm sure you'll tell me all the faults that you discover in these builds, but then again, I'm probably not the builder you would buy custom work from anyway.

There are 100s of custom builders (rifles and MLs) because there are 100s of things some clients like, and don't like about each builders' skills or styles. Choice makes the world go around.

 

[poker]

Really nice and talented work, but whats this doing in the classifieds section? Or did I miss the part about it being for sale? I guess these fine moderators have way too many things to do, to do what should be done.

 

[user 59734]

Really nice and talented work, but whats this doing in the classifieds section? Or did I miss the part about it being for sale? I guess these fine moderators have way too many things to do, to do what should be done.

Hi Poker - yep, it's for sale - and I anticipated a listing price of $1,800 - subject to reality check and recommendations by valuation experts. There's suggestions of $500 to under $1,000 as being more realistic since it's built on a Traditions platform - so absent receiving an offer so far, I'll adjust the price when qualified price recommendations start zeroing in on a price range - pundits, trolls and critics notwithstanding.

 

[EC121]

If you want some real opinions from gun builders, put the rifle on the ALR site. Maybe in the gun building forum. www.americanlongrifles.org.

 

[Relic shooter]

Your background in gun building skills appear to be well above assembling pre-inletted kits,
but that depends on what price-market your interested in.
A master craftsman like Ron Scott gets big bucks for his creations but not allot of us can afford his firearms.
On the other hand, builder-suppliers like Kibler provides superb pre-carved kits with top quality components.
Kits by Kibler have near unlimited pricing potential & is a faster build in hands of a highly skilled craftsman.

Just an opinion from a long retired ML builder who used a duplicating machine to speed up builds & income flow.
Relic shooter