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Montana firearms industry doing great...except for lack of qualified machinists !

Milacron

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Interesting NPR story yesterday... read transcript or listen at link below -

Firearms Industry Booms In Montana : NPR

SIPE: Finding skilled machinists is one of the hardest things for us right now. I've had to bring guys in from outside because they really had offers in job service for months and never got a call.
 
Wow,
What a great report and well done.

Too bad they're in Montana or I might try that new vocation......gunsmith.

But I would have to take my snow shovel, that's a deal breaker for me.

:cheers:
 
Well, Montana isn't exactly the manufacturing hub of the nation. I suspect that might have a lot to do with it.

Even folks that would relocate, have to wonder what they'd do if the job went south. I love that country... Montana and Wyoming are some of the most beautiful places in the USA, but I'd never work there. Retire, perhaps, but not rely on Montana industry to make a living till then.
 
Npr

more truthful than most.
I had a chance in the 70s to move to Idaho to machine mining equipment,only machining job for a 1,000 miles,I didnt take that job,they closed up later.
Glad I stayed in the Deetroit area.
Gw
 
Keep in mind that just because it's on NPR, it isn't necessarily completely true.;)
They are not perfect on "breaking news" type situations, but on stories of this nature they are true...you have the actual company owner telling the story in his own words...you think perhaps they used an actor ? :rolleyes5:
 
Are they looking for gunsmiths or machinists? I was watching a show on Discovery about a gun store, and the dude running the lathe damned sure wasn't a machinist!
 
They are not perfect on "breaking news" type situations, but on stories of this nature they are true...you have the actual company owner telling the story in his own words...you think perhaps they used an actor ? :rolleyes5:

I wasn't insinuating that they used an actor, I was talking about the fact that just because one shop owner and another startup company claim that Montana firearms manufacturing is "booming" doesn't mean it's necessarily the gospel.:rolleyes5:

Good jobs for machinists are hard to find everywhere in the US; finding a good job as a machinist might be even harder in MT due to fewer opportunities.

It's hard to attract talented locals with the wages this particular company has been advertising.
 
One of the reasons it is hard to get folks to relocate is that an area with little manufacturing often doesn't have a second company to jump to if the first that you relocated for doesn't work out. So it's all or nothing.
I'm the only shop in thirty miles, then there's another and he's the only for another thiry miles....

Coyotekid is correct, the particulars of a small gun mfg or two may not be indicative of what's really happening up here. NPR with their love of hunting and weapons may not have a gaggle of gun enthusiast contacts to draw upon....

However, it does seem like the gun industry in MT is solid, From what I've been told....(but I only know a few folks that are gunsmiths....)
 
Here is the website for the first company listed:

7hbqU.jpg

L9oNn.jpg



That's not going to attract anybody. The main page looks hacked together and shitty and the job listing is completely generic and has no wage listed.

The second company doesn't have any employement opportunities listed.
 
Ugh, yet another owner expecting someone else to solve their problems. Machinists can not be manufactured like some part. The basics can be taught, but it's practical experience and training, over the course of years, that yield "machinists". If they cannot find a machinist now, than the long term isn't looking pretty.
 
Don,

I don't know how honest the owner is in telling you what the truth is. I will say,one of our local Conservative radio talk show hosts was downgrading the people without jobs for not taking a tomato picker job for large grower in PA. A few days later, he had the owner on his show.

"They won't apply for $16 jobs?" "Well, they won't all make $16 an hour, you get paid for what you pick." "But they could make $16 bucks?" "Very few could make $16 bucks. It is back-breaking labor. I (AYE) wouldn't do it, couldn't do it."

That left him nonplussed. More or less, "But that is EASY work, picking fruit!"

Don't believe everything you see or hear on TV or radio.

Cheers,

George
 
I was talking about the fact that just because one shop owner and another startup company claim that Montana firearms manufacturing is "booming" doesn't mean it's necessarily the gospel.:rolleyes5:

Good jobs for machinists are hard to find everywhere in the US; finding a good job as a machinist might be even harder in MT due to fewer opportunities.

It's hard to attract talented locals with the wages this particular company has been advertising.

This is the 3rd or 4th thread that's been posted about companies claiming a lack of qualified machinists. But in every case so far, they wanted experienced machinists for fast food wages.
 
minimum wage maximum effort

Got an email today Pittsburgh Pa. area:

“Needed immediately CNC machinists. Must be able to operate all types of machining equipment. $10.00 per hour and after probationary period $11.00 per hour”

And they wonder why there are no machinists. I get two or three calls a week from head hunters asking me if I know any machinists looking for work. I just laugh and tell them “Good Luck”!
Cheap bastards have killed the trade. Go to China for machinists, see what you get.
 
Well Gosh. Somebody in Montana hiring????

My HVAC guy worked for a firearms manufacturer in Montana a few years ago. Running a CNC Mill.

I asked why he left the nice gun company job with elk and mule deer hunting just out the door.

His answer? "I could not make a living wage to support my small family. So I moved to the Coast and started with a company installing heat pumps".

Same old story, manufacturers want the best but will not pay.

Below is what MRC makes, I have several that I bought from the first production run years ago:

montanam99001.jpg
 
This is the 3rd or 4th thread that's been posted about companies claiming a lack of qualified machinists. But in every case so far, they wanted experienced machinists for fast food wages.

This ^^^^

I'm not a machinist, but I lived in MT for several years, and had dealings with Cooper Firearms in Stephensville. (Definitely stay away from that guy...)

Montana is an expensive place to live, and the wages are low. Think Tucson, AZ, or anywhere else that's attractive geographically or climate-wise, where there's no shortage of people willing to do whatever it takes to scratch out a living so they can have a postcard view from their back porch.
 
The whole "we can't find machinists/programmers/engineers" thing is such BS. If you offered $250k per year salaries you would have more machinists than you know what to do with.

When somebody says "I can't find an X" what it really means is "I can't afford an X".
 








 
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