" Life for a Small Town Gunsmith "

Dwight G. Angel

A Message from Brownells 

( https://www.brownells.com/the-trigger-times/2a-lifestyle/

we-the-people/beginners-guide-to-becoming-a-gunsmith/)

In 1938, Bob Brownell’s gunsmithing hobby was making enough profits to add part-time gunsmith to his list of businesses. 85 years later, we're hoping to encourage a new generation of gunsmiths from the millions of builders, tinkerers, and firearm enthusiasts we’re proud to serve.

Many folks get started in gunsmithing as a hobby. They work on their own guns and learn what they need to know to tackle each project. As time goes on, the person's skills grow, and they take on more and more complex projects. If you're already installing sights, mounting a scope, changing triggers, and performing other upgrades, you're already on the road to becoming a gunsmith. You may start out on modular modern guns, then work back to older, more complex firearms. When you work on a gun, you develop a firm knowledge of how it works.

In fact, that's how our founder Bob Brownell got started! He was a knowledgeable, skilled amateur, entirely self-taught, who "hung out his shingle" to provide gunsmithing services in Montezuma, Iowa, in 1939.

An amateur who did it for a long time got so good he became a pro is not entirely unheard of even in the 2020s, but it is a long, slow path, maybe one more followed by happenstance than with intention.

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Many gunsmiths in fact, close for the summer, and are only open during hunting season. Tradtionally many gunsmiths have operated from their homes, because may could not afford year long costs of business operations. 

A major reason that it is so hard to find a gunsmith is that gunsmiths often have to work another job full time to support their families.  Over a period of time many gunsmiths have become old and died. It can take years to become a gunsmith, acquiring knowledge, skills, abilities and buying equipment and tools.

Traditionally gunsmiths were either self taught, or the skill was passed down from family members. Many young people have not been interested in becoming a gunsmith and the number of gunsmiths in American has decreased substantially.

The gunsmith in our story had a long road of being self taught gunsmith and he had done gunsmithing work in many places. The gunsmith had always had the challenge of reduced summer income. He had to survive the hard summer months when most people were not thinking of guns and there is little gun work coming into a gunsmith shop.

He started to learn gunsmithing and began his first repair shop in Tampa, Florida in 1984, which was operated from his home. This shop name was Angel's Antique Arms & Accessories.

After moving to Tallahassee, he had his first commercial gun shop on Woodville Highway in Tallahassee, Florida. This shop name was known as Law Enforcement Gunsmiths & Police Supply. He operated this shop after working his full time job in the evenings and on every Saturday.

After a short period, the gunsmith needed more room and a better location for increased traffic passing by t draw more business. He moved to Gaines Street, in Tallahassee. This shop was one block from the state capital. It was also known as Law Enforcement Gunsmiths & Police Supply.

During hard summer months when the Gaines Street Gun Shop business became too slow to pay rent and bills, he was forced to move again to Capital Circle near the Tallahassee Airport. This location was no advertised or well known. It was not very visible to the public.  Once again, slow business caused him to move to an even smaller shop, with lower store rent and operating cost, on Tharp Street in Tallahassee.

The Tharp Street move had just occurred when Tharp Street was closed by the City of Tallahassee, for road construction. This made it near impossible to get customers into the Tharp Street Gun Shop.

Customers were not willing to fight a closed construction road, to make it it to the gunsmith. So he was forced to move again, this time to a home based business in his double car garag. He did his gunsmithing work here for several years. 

After a couple of years of working from his home, he would travel Highway 90 West going to his full time state job when he found an old grocery store building that was vacant in Midway, Florida. The building had been the Henry Dover Gas & Market, dating back to the 1940's.

When he found this old store, the doors were swinging open, the store had been abandoned, and the inside was empty and dirty. After painting the old building inside and outside, this became the gunsmith business new home for over 18 years. He ran this business Monday through Friday evenings after working his full time state job. He also ran the business every Saturday as well.

The store was close to Tallahassee and was only about 10 miles away on Highway 90 He soon learned many potential customers would not drive to the little town of Midway, Florida in Gadsden County. Unfortunately the public image of Midway at the time, was a place many people did not want to visit due to criminal activity, very few businesses, and being a poor economic area.

He continued to operate this store until Hurricane Micheal sent trees through the roof. The landlord was in his 80's  he and had no interest in restoring the building so he moved everthing home to four stand alone buildings to his residence in Havana, Florida.

After becoming an Auctioneer, and trying the auction house business for a couple of years, the gunsmith in our story, decided to once again, return to the life of a gunsmith.

He began looking for another little building, with rent that he could afford. This meant it had to be in a place where rent was not high, and probably meant an area that was not in high demand for businesses.

Dwight decided to built a small gunshop in an area where building rent would be very affordable. He had been a gunsmith for over 30 years working on people's gun. He knew the importance of low building rent, due to the hard months of summer, when little gunsmithing work comes into a gunsmith shop.

He often drove through Calvary, Georgia on his way to auctions and he was always interested in the little town. The town only had four buildings and a small part time Post Ofice. Three of the for buildings were empty and it appeared that this little town had outlived it's heyday, years ago.

He saw an empty building that had once had a booming life as a grocery store. The grocery store buiding was known as the 7 Kings Grocery, due to the family, with the last name of king, consisting of a family of seven people. But those days were long gone, and the little grocery store had been delegated to housing old furniture and clothes in storage for it's family owners.

As an auctioneer, he held an auction for the family to sell out old store contents of furniture and old clothes so he could move in and start to give the old building a new life!

He painted the walls and floors, installed steel security bars, and began moving into the shop. The shop sat visible from the highway, and was a 5,000 square feet building.

Once he completed getting the building ready to move into, he hauled many loads of merchandise, fixtres and display cases from his Midway Store, whic he contined to rent as a back p to the Calvary Store, in case it did not work out. 

He spent his days repairing guns, refinishing guns and parting out guns. He refinished gun metal, gun stocks, and event built some guns from parts.

When he had no guns from customers to work on, he would busy himself putting gun parts on the online auctions at gunbroker.com.

He had a friend whom he knew that operated a gun shop in Havana, Florida, literally for 50 years. His riends name was Hugh Moreland, often referred to as "Mr. Hugh". The gunsmith would obtain advise, directions, and find parts for guns he was working on from Mr. Hugh.  Mr. Hugh had a great wealth of knowledge about guns. Mr. Hugh often helped the young aspriring gunsmith with problem guns that he was working on trying to repair.

When Mr. Hugh passed away, the gunsmith managed to buy all of Mr. Hugh's vast collection of gun parts, dating back to the 1800's.

Because the gunsmith enjoyed Mr. Hugh's gun shop so much, and the fact he was a sentimental type person, the gunsmith even managed to buy all of Mr. High's antique pecan store display cases, from the family.

As a memory of Mr. Hugh's life spent as a gunsmith, one of the display cases they he obtained from the Moreland family, was left as it had been in Mr. Hugh's gun shop, with the items that were in the case, remaining as they had been in Mr. Hugh's store.

When going through old part guns, the gunsmith found an almost finished Tennessee Feuding Rifle, with the inscription “1945, Sapp, Delacy and Moreland”. This gun had never been finished.

After researching Mr. Hugh's family,  the gunsmith discovered that Mr. Sapp, was Hugh Moreland's grandfather ad a doctor in Havana, Florida.  Dr. Sapp, who had been very valued and influenced Mr. Hugh in his early life operated small clinic. It was also discovered that Dr. Sapp had died in 1945. Perhaps Mr. Hugh's gun work was stopped when his grandfather died, and the gun was left just were it had been, as a memory to Dr. Sapp. , and of when he and Mr. Hugh last worked on the project gun.

The Moreland's Gun Shop was in Havana, Florida has been torn down and now there are no traces of the former Gun Shop. People used to be able to see MORELAND'S signs all up and down Highway 19. But this was back in the “good ole days”, when Mom and Pop were alive, and well in America.

When going through the vast parts, and part guns from Mr. Moreland, our gunsmith soon discovered that there was way more gun parts than the gunsmith would ever use in local repairs, so he started to advertise gun parts for sale on gunbroker.com. This was very beneficial and reached customers all across the nation, not just in Havana.

People across the country ordered gun parts from the gunsmith. He sent gun parts as far away as the State of Washington. Sending gun parts to the Carolina's, Texas, Montana and Wyoming were common.

All of these gun parts were shipped from the middle of no where, where people often said there was nothing there, in Calvary, Georgia.

As always, during the summer months his business was slow, because hunters and others that have guns to work on, were busy going to little league baseball, picnics, fishing, or staying inside where it was cooler.

Since the summer months were know to be slow, the gunsmith had built his business in a small town, but was able to do a good business selling on the internet. 

Buildings in Calvary, Georgia had sat empty, some for as long as ten years, because rent was so reasonable for an old building. The building the gunsmith found for his business, had been empty for over ten years.

People often said that there was nothing there, and wondered why the gunsmith put his business there. The gunsmith wanted a place to work on his guns, and he knew he could manage to pay rent, electricity and other bills, even during the summer slow months when little business came into the shop. The gunsmith placed his business in Calvary, Georgia, even tough there was nothing there, in the little town of Calvary, Georgia.

The gunsmith did not become rich, but he did what he enjoyed most, working on, building and repairing guns.

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Dwight Angel, Author

Dwight continues to work as a Gunsmith and operates Angel's Armory & Forge in Havana, Florida.

(850) 509-0979

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REPRINT FROM JUNE 7, 2015 ..........

Slower than Mayberry RFD

Life, even today, is much simpler, slower, and an easier pace, in this very, very small, unincorporated town in Southwest Georgia. A traveler on Highway 111 through Calvary, is likely to see more goats out and about, than people.

Originally established in the late 1800's, Calvary, Georgia has always been an agricultural community. It is perhaps best known today for it's once a year event, the Mule Day Celebration. Yes, I said Mules!

This event is hosted once per year, the 1st Saturday in November. A 40 year tradition celebrating the contribution of mules to agriculture.

In the 1940's – 1970's, Calvary had many more residents that it does today. The population in 2010 was 161, not many more now, I am sure. Shade tobacco employed a lot of people, as did the one time business of Joe McNair, which processed and packed vegetables for many of the big companies..

A large Ice House was once operated by C.Y. King, which was used to ice down trucks hauling produce before the refrigerated trucks we have today. The Ice House also provided cold storage and ice to area residents, as far back as when most people still had ice boxes, not refrigerators in their homes.

Joe McNair also operated the Gas Station which is still standing today, with the coveted “Citizens 77” station sign still hanging on the pole.

Calvary is located 3 miles north of the Florida/Georgia state line on Georgia Highway 111. At one time the town had four grocery stores, now only one remains, the Thomas Mercantile Store which has been around since 1912. Mr. Gerald Thomas now in his 80's, and his son Bruce, run the store every day except Sunday. They are continuing a family tradition that has existed since Gerald Thomas's father originally operated the store around 1912.

The Calvary Post Office still operates, but only part time. The original full time post master retired years ago, and the job never got a replacement. Currently there is a post master relief manning the office. If you need to mail something, you need to get to the post office before 12 noon. On Saturday, its only open from 8 – 10 am.

The only other business in town is Gunsmith Dwight Angel's, Georgia Gun Factory. Even his business is operated part time, on Monday – Wednesday from 12 – 6 pm.

A Gun Factory? Yes, Dwight is a General Gunsmith with over 30 years of experience fixing old guns. He has a building full of gun stocks and gun parts, literally hanging from the ceiling. Although he does not sell guns, he fixes and refinishes any gun that comes through the door. The biggest challenge for Dwight is finding parts for guns that go back to the 1800's, many of which come in from all around South Georgia.

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NATIONAL REGISTRY OF GUNSMITHS. COM

A specialized, very small occupational group, often situated in hard to find, isolated locations, finding a gunsmith can be a difficult task.

Many times gunsmiths work out of their homes, or in old buildings away from main stream traffic. The very nature of gunsmithing is often times a seasonal occupation. Hunters think about guns when hunting season comes up, and when that favorite gun fails to function after spending half a day driving for a weekend hunting trip.

When people need the services of a gunsmith, we can make it much easier to locate a gunsmith. If you are a gunsmith, or know a gunsmith tell them about us!