The wife and I have been talking about opening an FFL and started to draw up a business plan.  In research we realized that there is a seemingly good gunsmith school within driving distance, Pittsburgh Gunsmithing School.  Is PGS a reputable school?  Both the wife and I are talking about using our GI bills and attending together.  I might add, we are not looking to be gunsmiths to help us get an FFL but rather because we enjoy tinkering and working with guns and there are not too many smiths in our local area.

Here are my primary questions if someone could assist me:

-Is PGS a real accredited school or is it one of those Joe Blow college things?
-Is there a distinction between having an FFL for selling/ transferring firearms and keeping them overnight (as a smith would/may)?
-Just because I have an FFL doesn't mean I have to sell guns, correct?  The biggest hurdle we would experience with that is stocking inventory of new guns, we simply don't have that kind of capital at the moment and would probably work solely with used guns in the beginning, if we even start with selling guns.  We would/will be getting our FFL for the sake of working on arms to start off with.

PGS probably is myour biggest concern, we don't want to piss away our GI bills.

stick with the brick and mortar schools, preferably ones associated with the NRA. Trinidad comes to mind. We had a thread a couple weeks ago that asked the same question, the author of the thread chose going the mail order/internet campus much to the dismay of many here. If you have time and are near DesMoines Iowa tomorrow and Wednesday stop in to the Brownell's conference going on. You will have a chance to see many of the established schools reps and get a chance to talk with them. Well worth the trip, I went last year and it was very informative.

I believe I read that thread which his schooling seemed to be a little different than what I am looking at.  His questions certainly weren't in line with what I was asking and he was, as I understood, a much older gentleman essentially looking to keep busy in retirement.  I'm 26 and she's 23, we want to take this and start our own business and career.

So a quick google search shows me that the nearest NRA Short-Term Gunsmithing School is in Troy, NC.  PGS is a brick and mortar establishment but will it not being the "Ivy League of Gunsmithing Schools" hurt us?  I won't be doing any University of Phoenix or mail order nonsense.  I'm specifically interested in hearing about Pittsburgh Gunsmithing School in Pittsburgh, PA before possibly giving them a buzz in the next few days.

While I could use a road trip, I will be about 2,000 miles from Des Moines the next two days.

ETA: It only took me about 800 posts to figure out how to use the search feature although I still suck at internetting overall.

After 15 years in construction, and 22 years in education I finally put my papers in for retirement. I am actively looking to get into another line of work and I am seriously looking at the summer courses at Trinidad. They are NRA supported and fairly reasonably priced. I suspect I was thinking of Ashworth School above. I apologize for not reading more closely. Got on their site and it looks very interesting. I can't remember if they were at the Brownell conference last spring. I will have to do more digging on them.

It's a bit in-between.  Their credits won't transfer to any other "real" colleges, and a degree from there won't be recognized by some companies or institutions, but it's not an out-and-out "no real work, send us a check and we'll send you a degree" type of diploma mill.

PGS is accredited by the same trade-school accreditor as the Colorado School of Trades (the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges), but it's not as widely accepted as the accrediting bodies for regular 2 and 4 year colleges, like the regional accreditation held by Trinidad State Junior College.  If you don't need the regional accreditation for reimbursement or career advancement purposes, and don't care about transferring credits to another college to work on a 4 year degree or the like, the ACCSC accreditation is probably "good enough".