I have worked in the printing industry for 10 years (until layoff) and for the last 2 years I have been wanting to try another industry. I want to work in an industry that interests me. What I would really like to do is to get into firearm distribution or manufacturing.

My problem is that I have no professional experience in this field. My only experience is that it is a hobby of mine. I don't have any idea how to put together a resume aimed at this target industry (or anything other than printing). How do I get a company to want to interview me?

For manufacturing, you might try taking some machining classes at the local community college.  Build some projects, tools that you came up with or neato MallNinja gun gadgets or whatever.  Point these out in the resume.

You might also try taking a job at a retail gun store, just to get some (admittedly low-level) experience.  You might make some contacts there with sales reps, or at least be able to peek at the boss's rolodex.

Just some thoughts.  Hope you get some answers from real gun-industry people on this.  Luck.

bump

Have you ever thought about working in the Graphic Arts field?  You can show them your portfolio of Photoshopped images on AR15.com. Maybe McUzi could write you a letter of recommendation.

[:P]

Whatever you do, don't follow me around. I could only lead you to the unemployment office.

The best thing to do is have incriminating evidence (photos) of the CEO haveing sex with goats. For some reason, that seems to open all sorts of doors.

I have worked as a machinist at 3 different gun manufacturers.  A lot of the people in management positions were not gun people they came from business backrounds.  It didn't matter to them if they made/sold guns or widgets.  It was just another product to them.  

At the last gun company I worked for in New Haven all they cared about was how many guns were built every day.  There were 3 production lines in the factory.  One for rimfire rifles, one for center fire rifles and one for shotguns.  Most of the machining work was the machining of barrels.  There was alot of assembly work also.  The recievers were made in another plant somewhere in the Carolina's.  The machinists or machine operators were grouped by skill level in grades D, C, B, A or AA.  I was hired as a Machinist-A to turn and chamber shotgun barrels on CNC lathes.  As a white man I was a minority in this plant.  There was a lot of resentment among the other workers because they hired me off the street instead or promoting (a black)from within. They tried their best to get me fired. The truth was a lot of these machine operators didn't know much about machining or even how to use inspection tools such as micrometers, calipers, indicators etc.  A set-up man would set everything up and all the operator would do was load parts into the machine and push the start button.  Don't take this as me being a racist.  If I was a racist I would not have taken this job as I knew what I was getting into.  I lasted about 3 months before I quit.  It was interesting as I learned a little about barrels.  I did get to turn barrels on all the production lines while I was employed there.  I was not impressed with the quality of the products as the tolerances were not held very tight except for maybe the chambers.  

Another gun company I worked for was Ruger.  I worked in the Southport plant for 13 years until they closed down the plant.  To work at Ruger you needed to be able to work fast and accurate.  The tolerances were held close and if you couldn't work within the tolerances you didn't last long at Ruger.  The quality of these firearms was much better than the other 2 companies I worked for.  I was hired as a young man in my early 20's with no experience. I learned my trade at Ruger.  I started on drill presses and worked my way up to 3 axis CNC machines.  I worked on the .22 auto's, .44 carbines and single action revolvers.  I also got to work as a repair man at Ruger doing warrenty repairs on the single action revolvers.  The best part about that was I had to take the guns into the range after I fixed them to make sure they worked OK.  I fired more ammo in a week at that job than I do in a year now.  I no longer work in the firearm industry but I am still a CNC machinist.  I still make parts for Blackhawks only not the Ruger revolvers.  I took my machining experience and I now am making parts for Blackhawk helocopters.

One nice benifit at Ruger was the employee purchase plan.  I was able to buy guns at distributer price.  It was limited to 2 guns a year for the employees personal use.

I was talking to my brother about that today. Considering the content of most of those pics I don't think an employer would be impressed. [:D]

There are lots of firearm related businesses very close to my house. [url]www.cfiarms.com[/url] is less than 2 miles down the road. [url]www.ptnightsights.com/[/url] is also pretty close. There is an RSR in the area. B-Square is close too.