He told his Boss, “Take this Job and Shove it!”

AGI President Gene Kelly recently interviewed Archie Brock, who told his boss ‘Take this job and shove it!’

Gene Kelly:

Hi, I’m Gene Kelly, president of the American Gunsmithing Institute. I’m a gunsmith myself, been gunsmithing for over 40 years, and I have with us, one of our students, one of the AGI students, American Gunsmithing Institute students, Archie Brock. Now, Archie’s been with us for just a little while and his plan was to study gunsmithing, to do it part-time and maybe as a retirement income, but then something really big changed, and I want him to tell you all about it. Archie, tell us your story.

Archie Brock:

So I was working full time in law enforcement and got more and more interested in doing gunsmithing. A little passion of mine since… Well, I started shooting at about the time I was five, six years old. My dad taught me how to shoot and I’ve been enthralled with guns ever since. So during my time in law enforcement, I developed more desire to learn about firearms and really start playing with them and working on them more, learning more about them. And I had an opportunity to go to work, apprenticing part-time with a gunsmith locally. He was very encouraging of me to get more education, to get some schooling. I looked around at some different things and I’ve got a wife and a couple of small kids and a full-time job. I was not able to go to a brick-and-mortar school. It was not an option. The closest program to where I live is about a three-hour drive one way, so definitely not feasible. And I got looking around and discovered AGI, and I’d done my homework and looked at the instructors and their teaching, and the funny thing is most of them also taught at brick and mortar schools as well, so decided to give it a whirl. And here I am, and I am not in law enforcement anymore. I’m full-time running my own shop and just wide open. Absolutely wide open.

Gene Kelly:

So Archie though, I’m going to probe you a little bit, because I heard this story that you were working as a police officer and some people wanted you to do some things that you didn’t want to because you felt it was wrong.

Archie Brock:

That’s correct.

Gene Kelly:

Tell us about that.

Archie Brock:

So, here in North Carolina, general statute is very specific of once a state of emergency has been issued, the governor is allowed a time period to write executive orders that are enforceable by police officers as well as different areas of public safety throughout state. And unfortunately, the executive orders for the state of North Carolina were issued outside of the allotted timeframe.

Gene Kelly:

Oh.

Archie Brock:

So there’s a problem there. That was one issue with them. Second issue was that they were restricting the amount of attendance that you could have at a religious establishment, and the constitution says you can’t do that.

Gene Kelly:

Right.

Archie Brock:

So that in itself was a problem. I am not comfortable telling people that they cannot go to a private-owned area if they’re not wearing a mask. What is owned by an individual is owned by an individual and nobody has right to mandate that somebody else has to wear a mask there unless it’s the owner of the facility.

Gene Kelly:

Right.

Archie Brock:

So my chief had said that we had to enforce this order and I stood up and said, “No, it’s not ethical. It’s not moral and it’s not legal, and I won’t do it.”

Gene Kelly:

Not what I swore to when I took oath to defend the constitution.

Archie Brock:

That’s correct. That’s correct.

Gene Kelly:

What’d you do about it?

Archie Brock:

I quit.

Gene Kelly:

Wow.

Archie Brock:

I turned in my stuff and said, “No. Not going to be here. I’m not going to be associated with it.” And I made the decision, but I still have a lot of friends in law enforcement, and I know a lot of chiefs and sheriffs throughout the state, and the sheriff in my county, he was the first one to file a lawsuit against the governor to put a halt to this order, and he immediately, the date that the order was issued, he had a press conference and publicly announced that it was illegal and he would not be enforcing it, nor would his deputies. And the sad part about that is he’s the sheriff of the same county at which the police department that I was working at resides in. But my chief did not want to follow suit and stand behind the sheriff, so that was that. I turned in my equipment and I turned in my certification. I’m no longer sworn.

Gene Kelly:

So basically, you told him, “I’m not going to break my oath to the constitution, take this job and shove it. I got options.”

Archie Brock:

That’s a polite way of saying it. I was not that polite. I was not that polite. I stood in front of the entire department and told the chief what he was telling us to do was not moral or ethical.

Gene Kelly:

Man, you got backbone.

Archie Brock:

Well, it’s not the first time I found myself in a situation like that, but I’m sorry, I pride myself in my law enforcement career of standing up for what is right. It doesn’t matter whose side you’re on, it’s standing up for what is right. And the oath of North Carolina is very plain. You are a protector of the constitution, as a law enforcement officer, and I’m sure it’s that way in a lot of states.

Gene Kelly:

Yeah. I swore the same thing when I was a deputy warden.

Archie Brock:

Yeah. You know exactly what I’m talking about then.

Gene Kelly:

Yeah. Absolutely. What I love is that you had the power, not just the determination and the spunk and the belief system and the backbone to do it, but you also created options for yourself and your family, so you could say, “Take this job and shove it. I’m not going to break my oath to the constitution. You can’t make me.”

Archie Brock:

Yeah. That’s right.

Gene Kelly:

And a lot of people don’t put themselves in that position. So tell us what you did. You became a gunsmith, you studied our program. What happened since?

Archie Brock:

So actually, I had opened up my gunsmithing shop. Let’s see, it was in December 2019 when I actually opened up the shop. And I was running full-time as a gunsmith at that point, but I was still relying upon the salary there from the police department. Things were going good and business was picking up rather steadily. I made a decision in, it was about May last year that I was going to… And this was obviously after the issue with the police department and I’m away from there. Business had steadily increased and I had an opportunity to purchase a CNC machine. I jumped on that opportunity. It was delivered in July and things have been just insanely busy. I turned out for my first year operating, and again, I’m by myself, I turned out over 900 guns that I’d done repairs or customizations on.

Gene Kelly:

Excellent!

Archie Brock:

That’s anywhere from doing just minor cleaning, doing their sights, all the way up to full blown stenciled Cerakote work, right on into fully machining the slides, reflex sites, et cetera, made custom one-off parts. For example, I made a lefthanded mag release for Walther PPS, that turned out where it fit better than the factory mag release did. But those don’t exist. Although the frames are made to be ambidextrous, the parts don’t exist for it. We had contacted Walther and they said, “Yeah. No, we don’t make one.” So I did.

Gene Kelly:

Right On!

Archie Brock:

And put it in, and the customer was absolutely thrilled and I probably worked on another 20 guns after that for the same customer. Everything comes in from him as something I’m making custom parts for. One-off parts that I’ll never make again, but we can do it. The beautiful thing about the CNC is the programmings always there. Once you get it right, it’s saved in the computer and you ain’t got to worry about it. You can throw it in and upload it and start cutting them out in moments.

Gene Kelly:

Well, talk about how your DF&R training has helped figure those things out.

Archie Brock:

Well, so I’ve always been a hands-on guy, and many years ago I worked in automotive, and I had a guy that I worked under. He was a Ford master technician. He told me, and this was back when I was in high school, he said, “You want to learn how to fix cars?” I was like, “Well, that’s what I’m here for.” He says, “Well, in order to learn how to fix a car, you got to know how it works.”

Gene Kelly:

Yes, sir.

Archie Brock:

He says, “You cannot come in and be a parts changer. It doesn’t work that way. You won’t have work, you won’t make money.” He says, “But if you know how the design is supposed to work, you can fix anything,” which I did apply his principles and studied and studied and learned. By the time I was 20 years old, I was electronic specialist for General Motors, so certified Mr. Goodwrench and everything. But I got tired of automotive.

Gene Kelly:

Guns are more fun.

Archie Brock:

Well, you’ve always got the stress of worrying about people’s cars and every time you turn around, you got somebody trying to run into you on the roads and was like, “Nah, nah.” I got tired of the automotive industry and went into law enforcement. But at the end of the day, the only way that you can fix something is you got to know how it works. You got to understand the principles of the design, why it’s designed the way that it is and what it causes it to do. The beauty of AGI is they go over each one of those principles. If you don’t understand it, watch the video again. To me, that’s the biggest discouraging part of the brick and mortar schools. You go in there and when you walk out the door, if you forgot what they said, and you didn’t take good notes, your teacher’s not going to be happy the next day when you come back and ask them the same questions again. They don’t like that. It keeps them from progressing. But with the AGI, you pop in a disc and you can look over stuff and the information is always there. You always have it. If you don’t, it’s because you lost the videos or you let somebody use them that you shouldn’t have.

Gene Kelly:

Don’t let anybody borrow your tools either!

Archie Brock:

No. Never let somebody borrow your tools. They never bring them back. I’ve done the Master, the Advanced master, so I pretty much got everything that AGI offers. Looking at the different armorer’s series there’s only maybe about 25 of them that I haven’t cracked open, that I haven’t looked at. Given my area, there’s certain guns I just don’t see very often. There’s not a lot of them around, so it’s not something that I really need to worry too much about. Then there’s other things that it’s always there.

Gene Kelly:

The nice thing is when you have the library like that, if one does come in, then you can pop it, because there’s what? Over 66 armorer’s courses right now.

Archie Brock:

Yeah.

Gene Kelly:

Yeah.

Archie Brock:

That’s right. The other thing is in this schematics for them. You wind up getting seven, eight guns or so to a part on your bench at one time, if you’re not paying good attention, you might forget where some of that stuff goes. So it’s nice to be able to have stuff you can refer back to, whether it be the schematics or the videos, just because you got a picture of what the parts are don’t mean you know how to put it back together.

Gene Kelly:

That’s right. Some of those torsion springs and so on.

Archie Brock:

Yeah. Does that leg go over that arm, or under that arm?

Gene Kelly:

That’s right.

Archie Brock:

I will say this much. The gunsmith that I had apprenticed under, he had went it to a brick and mortar school, but when he did, he was not married, he did not have kids, he was in his 20s and he could. And he’s been doing gunsmithing for, I guess, close to 40 years now and he’s very knowledgeable. He’s very good. He’s a highly skilled individual. But something that he doesn’t have is the videos. But you can rest assured that if you get in his shop and you start scratching your head, he’s going to say, “Get the book. Get the book.” He has a whole office of nothing but manuals for all these different guns out there. The end of the day, you’ve got to have some type of resource. There is too many firearms on the market for you to know each and every design from memory. People like me aren’t going to remember it. I’m sure there’s some man out there who could, but not me. You’ve got to have something to refer back to, however, majority of the things you’ll find is just understanding the design. You don’t need someone to hold your hand, to tell you how to fix it. You understand the design, you can tell why it’s doing what it’s doing and what you need to do to correct it.

Gene Kelly:

That’s right. That’s why AGI from the beginning, and from the time I was a student working under master Bob Dunlap, he drilled into our head, design, function, repair. Like you said, you can’t fix it if you don’t understand it. And by understanding and looking at every sequence and understanding the sequence of things happening, when something breaks down, you can see where that transition point was, makes it pretty easy to repair at that point. Some people, like you said, they’re parts swappers. They just keep throwing parts at it, hoping that they’ll fix the problem, and that’s just not the way to go about it. Hey, Archie. So you have gotten very successful, it sounds like, at this. You put in your effort to do so. You were able to take… Like I said, I admire the ability to say, take that job and shove it. “I won’t compromise my beliefs.” That’s huge. But you started on a plan B long before you got to that point, right?

Archie Brock:

That’s right. Yeah. Honestly, if I was in the position that a lot of officers are in, that’s their bread and butter, it carries their insurance and it provides for their family, and they don’t have anything else to fall back on, it’s not easy decision for them to make. I can honestly say with my personality, I would’ve walked away regardless, but my wife did not complain at all when I said, “I’m turning my stuff in,” because she was comfortable knowing that I had something to fall back on. Like I said, it was already getting to a point where I was running out of time. I couldn’t do both things. So it was only a matter of time before I walked away from law enforcement to begin with, however, it was really nice not to have to worry about it. Like I said, I turned in my stuff and I haven’t slowed down since. I average out working a minimum of 12 hours a day. Like I said, I’m by myself and we’re putting out as many guns as fast as we can with quality. There’s one principle I stand on that I will not waiver from, I don’t take prepayments. Customers come in, “Well, let me give you money for parts.” “No. I appreciate it, but no.” My principle is, you don’t pay until you’re satisfied, and every customer, I am yet to have a customer say, “Well, I’m not satisfied.” You want to strive to be a perfectionist. It carries your name for you. I don’t have to advertise. I don’t advertise. I do have a Facebook account for the business and I do put up pictures and stuff because people like to look at pictures. They like to see the distressed waving American flag that was a unique design stencil specifically for this customer, and now it’s showing off to the world. Those things are nice. People like to see that. I can’t say that I’ve had any customers come in through that, but I’m not worried about it because word of mouth, I don’t need him to come in through Facebook because that individual I’ve done that gun for, he’s already brought in several other customers the day he picked it up, just based off of the pictures.

Gene Kelly:

Right. A couple points. First off, I’m sure your wife is a whole lot happier too that you’re not out there, even though you’re working a lot of hours, that you’re not out there on the blue line risking your life every single day.

Archie Brock:

Oh yeah. My kids are happier.

Gene Kelly:

I bet. I bet. Because you can flex your time and get to some of those things you couldn’t when you had a boss.

Archie Brock:

That’s right.

Gene Kelly:

Nice not to have a boss. Of course, when you’re driven like you are, and obviously, you’re a man of high principles, I’m sure you drive yourself hard. But some people want to be more flexible with their time, they can do it as a gunsmith. Just because a lot of people don’t think you can make any money as a gunsmith, how do you feel like you’re doing?

Archie Brock:

Well, I’ll put it this way. So the CNC machine that I was telling you I purchased. I purchased that machine brand new. I didn’t buy a used machine, I ordered a brand new machine. Everything with it and then of the tooling, et cetera, that I bought to go along with each tool holder each collet, each mill bit, all of the different gauges, just everything, it’s in excess, I’m somewhere around 30 grand in that. We’re sitting here, what? This is April, I’ve had that machine for less than a year and I’ve paid about 20,000 on all of it.

Gene Kelly:

Right on. Yeah.

Archie Brock:

And that’s still putting money in my pocket.

Gene Kelly:

And still putting money in your pocket and feeding your family.

Archie Brock:

Yeah.

Gene Kelly:

So you’re probably better doing better than you were at your other job.

Archie Brock:

Oh, heck yeah. You don’t make no money as a cop. That’s for sure. That’s for sure. Well, as an example, what I would go and work a 12-hour shift for the police department, the equivalent of that is about a half a day of my labor.

Gene Kelly:

Okay. So you’re making almost twice as much as you were making before.

Archie Brock:

Oh, hands down. Yeah.

Gene Kelly:

Wow.

Archie Brock:

Yeah. First year in, we turned over 80 grand.

Gene Kelly:

Just the first year?

Archie Brock:

That’s correct.

Gene Kelly:

Wow. Okay. So bottom line, if I can summarize for you and you tell me if I’m right or not, you were able to stand up to what you didn’t think was right, you were able to say, “Take this job and shove it,” and you said that was nicer than what you said. You were able to do your own thing and not panic your wife or your kids. You’re able to not only keep a roof over your head, but you’re actually moving forward with growth in your business, making twice what you were making before, and you’re not risking getting shot every single day, plus dealing with some of this defund the police and the other BS out there.

Archie Brock:

That’s correct.

Gene Kelly:

So I would say, Archie, hats off to you, man. What do you think about the other guys? Is there room for other guys in this industry?

Archie Brock:

Oh yeah, absolutely. Well, one of the things that’s driven my business up so fast was obviously the CNC machine. Most of the people around here, they look at it like, “Well, I don’t want to have to send my gun off to somebody on the internet.”

Gene Kelly:

Yeah.

Archie Brock:

In my area, actually, I’m the youngest gunsmith in the county. Everybody, the next closest guy to me, he’s knocking on the door of 80 and he’s one of the old guys to say, “You can’t make no money being a gunsmith.”

Gene Kelly:

That’s because he’s not AGI trained and doesn’t have the right mindset that we promote.

Archie Brock:

Right. And part of the problem is, is what I explained to him, I said, “If you’re charging $15 to clean a handgun, of course you can’t make no money.” I’m like, “You can’t even take the thing outside and blast it with aerosol and make money at $15.” You got to be realistic. You got to charge a fair price for the services that you’re doing. So yeah, the reason why you ain’t making no money is because of yourself. The guy I used to work for, he says, “Just don’t expect to get rich doing gunsmithing.” And I said, “Well, I don’t want to get rich.” I don’t. I just want to make a good look. I want to be happy. I want to be comfortable. I want my kids to be happy. My wife to be happy. That’s all. However, when I talked to him at the beginning of year, and we were going over… And I sub work out for him, by the way, because he doesn’t have a CNC machine and he doesn’t do Cerakote and he doesn’t weld.

Gene Kelly:

So he gives you that work?

Archie Brock:

Yeah. I do all that stuff for him. So we meet and we usually catch up and have breakfast once every couple months, and sometimes more frequently. But he was asking me at the beginning of the year, how did my year go, and when I was giving him numbers, his jaw hit the table and he said, “Well, I guess you’re buying breakfast today then.” And I say, “Well, sure I’ll buy breakfast. That’s fine.” But he was absolutely floored. He found it hard to believe that I was doing that well, however, he’s not going to question it because he knows I’m telling the truth. But the thing I told him, I says, “You’re skilled at what you do, but you’re not motivated enough to get it out the door.”

Gene Kelly:

Hmm.

Archie Brock:

Your turnaround times on average is six, eight, 10 months, sometimes a year or two years. There’s guns that he’s got in his shop that he’s had in his possession for five or six years and the work’s not being complete. So that’s number one reason why you don’t make money. I said, “All that stuff’s taking up real estate. Real estate ain’t getting no bigger, they’re not making any more of it. If you want to make money, you need to get the jobs done, get them out the door.” And he says, “Well, what’s your turnaround time?” I said, “No more than six weeks maximum.” He said, “Well, how you get it done so fast?” I said, “Because I don’t sit here and put it aside and say, ‘Well, I’ll order parts tomorrow.'” I’ll place parts orders, 10, 15 times a day. As many times I need to, I don’t care. I may have to pay-

Gene Kelly:

You’re able to fix a lot of things, having being able-

Archie Brock:

That’s correct.

Gene Kelly:

Yeah. Knowing the DF&R, you can put a spot of weld to on something you don’t need to order the part.

Archie Brock:

That’s right. Really, truth be told, majority of the stuff that I wind up ordering are special designed torsion springs, stuff like that. Most of the small coil springs, I can make them in house. Even if I don’t make them in house, I’ve got master set of Wolff Gunsprings, their spring stock, most of that stuff you can do in house. There is a few exceptions. Of course, there are some critical springs that you don’t really want to make.

Gene Kelly:

Right.

Archie Brock:

You’re better off buying. But most parts, I’ve got a 1864 Belgian Pieper in here now that I am making a new rolling block for it because it’s missing, it’s gone. The guy says, “I’d love to make this gun function.” I says, “Well, you can’t get parts for that. He’s like, “But can you make them?” I said, “Yes, I can. I don’t have a design.” And I told him, I said, “It’s probably not going to be identical to the original, I said, “but it’s going to be close because I got pictures and I can do make it look almost identical to it.” But then able to one understanding, how it works, you can see where the flaws are in it, which is why it’s missing to begin with. You can correct the flaws, make your parts superior to what the original parts were, so your repair is far better than the original design.

Gene Kelly:

I love it. And it all falls back to the Master Gunsmith, Bob Dunlap teaching us DF&R, right?

Archie Brock:

That’s right. That’s right.

Gene Kelly:

Design, Function, & Repair.

Archie Brock:

It’s a funny thing that mention him. About two years ago, I met an individual. He had moved here from the West Coast. He actually went to Lassen for gunsmithing, and funny story he told me, when he found out I was going through the AGI program, he says, “So what do you think about it?” And I said, “Well, honestly, it’s great.” At that time I had just gotten started in it, “So I’m still cutting my teeth,” I said, “but I’ve got no complaints right now.” He says, “You want to know something funny?” I said, “What’s that?” He says, “We actually used the AGI videos multiple times a week in the gunsmithing curriculum there at Lassen.”

Gene Kelly:

I know. They weren’t supposed to, but they did anyway.

Archie Brock:

Right? That was my first thought. I’m like, “I wonder if Mr. Gene knows that.”

Gene Kelly:

Yeah. I did.

Archie Brock:

That might be a bad thing.

Gene Kelly:

So they even use our program there because quite honestly, Bob teaches, and of course, all of our other instructors, teach at a higher level than what we got in the classroom, directly from Bob, because it’s more focused, it’s better thought out, the instructors don’t misspeak. They’re giving you their 40, 50 years plus of experience. We’ve got experience from guys from all over the place, like Darrell Holland, doing all the machining, Bob Risetto teaching the welding Bob Dunlap, Master Gunsmith, teaching all the Design, Function, and Repair, Gene Shuey, all the customizing, 1911s and Glocks. I’m sure he made a ton of money doing that.

Archie Brock:

Yeah.

Gene Kelly:

Yeah. So all the other custom rifle building, all of that, everybody shares their heart with our students because we want you guys to be so successful.

Archie Brock:

So to hit on some of the extra curricular stuff, like the machine shop principles and the welding. Like I said, I had a history in the automotive industry. Welding’s nothing new to me. I knew arc welding and I knew MIG welding. I had bought my own TIG welder and I had been teaching myself the TIG weld. However, when I started the welding program, I quickly learned that I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. All these years, all these repairs that I had made automotive with welding, while my repairs were structurally sound, the welding principles were not correctly done. My welding game, it’s night and day, the way that I weld now and what I can do with a welder now, versus what I could before I took that program. That course, and it’s a necessity. When I sit here and I look at my business, and how many times I pop in there and I throw a little dot of weld on something, and then I take and cut it back down and shape it from contours where it needs to be, fix the gun and out the door, and I scratch my head and like, “How do people…” Yeah, there’s a reason why they got wait for parts.

Gene Kelly:

Yeah. They’re parts swappers.

Archie Brock:

They can’t fix it. Not every part needs to be replaced. Sometimes you just need to fix them. You don’t need no high-end equipment to temper the steel. You can throw a bead of weld on there, you can anneal it, and then temper it right back to the specs, put it in the gun and you’re good to go. And you can do this in a matter of a few hours, letting the part cool and all that good stuff, and have the gun fixed. Or you can wait four or five weeks waiting for your parts to show up.

Gene Kelly:

Absolutely. Now you got that absolutely right.

Archie Brock:

The profit margins a lot higher when you fix the part versus ordering new parts every time you turn around.

Gene Kelly:

Absolutely. Absolutely. And it’s the difference between being a real gunsmith or being a parts swapper. So yeah, welding is critical and, like you said, you thought you knew, but you learned so much that your eyes were opened to the point you go, “I didn’t even know what I was doing before.” Same for most people on the machining, because Darrell does such a great job on the machine.

Archie Brock:

Darrell is excellent when it comes to the machining stuff. I ran a brake lathe many, many years ago. Can’t work in automotive shop out knowing how to use a brake lathe, but as far as setting up and actually using a lathe for any other principle, I had never done it. Before I had interest in it and I wanted to play around with one, so I bought a small bench top, 7 by 10 lathe machine. You can’t thread barrel… Well, you can thread some barrels, especially if you set it up right, you can. But we’ll get to that later. But I wanted to start playing with a lathe and I’m a hands-on guy. So I had played with it a little bit, but doing Darrell’s machine shop class really changed the way that I run that lathe, and that’s where I actually was able to learn how to set that little 7 by 10 benchtop lathe up and thread barrels.

Gene Kelly:

Right on. That’s asking a lot for it. Yeah.

Archie Brock:

It is. it is. But remarkably, now can I do it as fast as Darrell can do it on a South Bend? Absolutely not. However, I turned down the head of a barrel, had to do a barrel swap for a Kalashnikov AK, got a green mountain barrel for it, and of course, it was too large to fit in the trunnion. However, I set it up on that little seven by 10 and I turned the head down, got it into the trunnion, pressed everything together, took it out and that AK shot better than it ever has. So much so that the guy paid wanted to give me double what I charged when he shot the gun.

Gene Kelly:

Wow.

Archie Brock:

Because he’s like, “It never shot like this before.” I was like, “Well, there you go. You’re welcome.”

Gene Kelly:

But also, you’re doing CNC work now, and so probably some of what Darrell taught you on the mill was valuable there too.

Archie Brock:

Well, it definitely helped me starting off. I’m self-taught when it comes to the CNC. I run a program, Fusion 360 is my CAD/CAM software that I use. So that part, I pretty much had to learn on my own. However, understanding feeds and speeds and all of that, that Darrell teaches was extremely helpful because it did minimize the number of end mills that I broke right off the bat. Knowing that, so this machine will cut 150 inches a minute, doesn’t mean that you should make it cut 150 inches a minute. Most of what we’re running on there is either really, really hard steel, or we’re doing a little bit of… Well, I do a lot of aluminum work, making custom parts for different things. So we do a lot of aluminum work as well. But understanding that you’re looking at a slide, how hard that slide is, you’re talking about running a small end mill. Now, granted, you can push the CNC machines harder than you can push a knee mill or a lot of other mills out there, just because of the design of them, and the computer will help compensate for your screwy behavior. But it was very helpful. Understanding how you need to set stuff up, paying attention to getting everything squared and trimmed like it needs to be, it makes a big difference. If you put a slide in there and you want to cut a taper across the top of the slide, if you don’t set it up right, you’re not going to have a taper, you’re going to have a big old flat spot.

Gene Kelly:

Yeah.

Archie Brock:

So it’s extremely helpful. If somebody told me there was only two things that I could buy, courses from AGI that I can buy, the machine shop and the welding courses would definitely be the two that I couldn’t walk away from. The reason why I say that over the gunsmithing stuff, not a knock on the gunsmithing stuff, but you can do a lot of different things in this world knowing the machine shop principles and knowing how to weld.

Gene Kelly:

Absolutely. You can make income a lot of different ways other than just gunsmithing.

Archie Brock:

That’s correct. That’s correct. So if I was told I could only have two, that would be it. I’ve talked to several people interested in AGI and I tell them all the same thing. I guarantee you, I put my name out there, I guarantee you that you’re going to be satisfied. The only way that you’re not going to be satisfied is if you do not have the intestinal fortitude to stick with it and to learn at your own pace. If you’re the type of person, where you’ve got to have somebody over top of you, whipping you to learn, then no, AGI is not the right program for you. But most people aren’t that way, not that’s going to be interesting gunsmithing, they’re driven because they have an interest in the program, and AGI is more than worth the money. Plus, y’all are good folks to deal with.

Gene Kelly:

Well, thank you for that. Well, Archie, man, this has been great. Again, I salute you for having the guts to stand up, tell them, “Take this job and shove it.” I love that.

Archie Brock:

Thank you, sir.

Gene Kelly:

You had a plan B. Everybody should have a plan B-

Archie Brock:

Absolutely.

Gene Kelly:

… because you don’t know what could happen to plan A. Look at the stupid shutdowns we’ve had and there’s always going to be layoffs, there’s always going to be something and being your own man with multiple skills, like you just pointed out. You’re not just a gunsmith now. You’re a gunsmith, a machinist and a welder, you can do a lot of different stuff to survive and thrive. And you’re taking care of your family, your family’s happier. You’re obviously happier.

Archie Brock:

Oh yes. Oh yes.

Gene Kelly:

And you’re meeting a big need in the community. And like you said, a lot of the old gunsmiths that don’t get what we teach, and I think you know what I teach, you need to be fair, but you need to make a good living.

Archie Brock:

Right.

Gene Kelly:

And I teach all that and it’s in our master program and stuff like that, and the Advanced Master. So anyway, I salute you for standing in the breach. We need more guys like you out there. We need more gunsmiths. Millions and millions of new guns out there, millions and millions of new shooters. They need what we’re doing, but also America just needs us because what good is it to have the guns if there’s not people out there to fix them, keep them going?

Archie Brock:

That’s right.

Gene Kelly:

Anyway, Archie, thank you for your time, man. I want to keep hearing about your next success stories. It sounds like you’re just rocking and rolling.

Archie Brock:

Oh, you will be.

Gene Kelly:

If my math is right, you did over 1000 guns combined then, just that year.

Archie Brock:

Yeah. So based on what I had when I gave Ms. Sue the numbers, what I had actually invoiced on paper, as far as taking in guns, invoicing, sending them out, was just a little bit less than 900. With that being said, there is a local gun shop in town that I had a repair contract with, so I would do all of their repairs and I’ve done the Cerakoting for them and stuff. So I would go up there several times a month and just sit up there in house and meet and greet folks, and I worked on a lot of guns there that I never invoiced.

Gene Kelly:

It was through their business. That’s right. Yeah.

Archie Brock:

Right. Through their business. People come in, “Hey, can you need to do this, do that?” “Yeah, sure. Give me just a moment.” Take it to the back, do what needs to be done, bring it back, have it rolling. So I easily touched over 1000 guns, personal, last year. I wish I could give you an exact number. At no point in time last year did I ever think that I should be keeping the numbers better in my mind. I was just happy. Steady coming in, steady going out and I’m just happy-go-lucky. But in hindsight, I wish I would’ve actually kept better records on that because it would be-

Gene Kelly:

Much easier to work out.

Archie Brock:

Yeah. It would be really, really fascinating to be able to pinpoint and say, “Well, I’ve done this exact number.”

Gene Kelly:

Yeah.

Archie Brock:

But, oh, well. Too late now.

Gene Kelly:

It’s a goal for next year. You can beat it every year.

Archie Brock:

That’s right.

Gene Kelly:

I just want to make one final point. So you are making twice what you made as a cop, working on 1000 guns, doing a lot of stuff, having a lot of fun, and yet that’s only 1000 guns out of 385 million. How many more gunsmiths could be having a lot of fun and making a good living as well? All right.

Archie Brock:

Well, I’m going to tell you this much. It’s going to be a lot more than that because my goal is within the next couple years, I’m going to be actually transitioning into also manufacturing. So I’m going to be building a good set of those guns with my name on it out there, on the market.

Gene Kelly:

Right on, Archie.

Archie Brock:

That’s coming too.

Gene Kelly:

Good deal. Hey, thank you for your time, man. And we’re going to share this with a bunch of people.

Archie Brock:

Sounds great.

Gene Kelly:

So your phone will be ringing even more.

Archie Brock:

Bring it on!

Gene Kelly:

All right. Take care, man.

Archie Brock:

Have a good one now.