Small American Business: Brimstone Gunsmithing

Tom Marshall

Do you love the idea of super sexi-fying your favorite gun, but hate the idea of parting with your beloved blaster for months and months at a time? Well then, settle into the ass grove in your recliner and let us tell you about Brimstone Gunsmithing.

Based in Washington State, Brimstone embodies many qualities we love in a small business, like customer service, manual labor, and beards. The Brimstone shop, sometimes affectionately referred to as “The Dungeon”, is staffed by four pretty awesome dudes who’ve embraced the artisan method of making your gun the best it can be.

The owner, David, started out as a firefighter and EMT. Between pulling cats out of trees and giving mouth-to-mouth to Seahawks cheerleaders, he began to work on Ruger 10/22 triggers. This may sound like a less than glamorous platform to start out with, but one of the photos we’ve included is a map. Everywhere on that map, you see a red pushpin is a town or city where somebody purchased one of his Ruger 10/22 triggers. His work was spread primarily through word-of-mouth and internet forums, and he quickly became a leading authority on everybody’s favorite rimfire – with an estimated fifteen to twenty thousand triggers in circulation.

David’s first employee, Brock, is a currently-serving LEO who smiths part time for Brimstone and has been tinkering with guns since most of our Minions were in diapers. Not long after Brock came on board, David was involved in a pretty nasty car wreck that left him bedridden for months. Hardly one to take anything lying down, David used his convalescent time to become a certified machinist and, once able to walk again, began to perfect Brimstone’s functional modifications for handguns.

 

David and Brock are joined by Brice and Ben. Brice served four years in the USMC as a LAV crewman. After separating from the Marines, Brice used his GI Bill to get a degree in eating crayons firearms technology. Shortly after graduating he was picked up as a contract armorer for MARSOC. Ben started out as an apprentice craftsman making rifle furniture – i.e., turning a chunk of wood into a fully finished rifle stock. Rumor has it the gunsmith he worked under has a bit of a reputation for burning through apprentices, and Ben still holds the dubious honor of being the longest-standing employee for this old school master craftsman.

All this history is cool, but why should it make you give Brimstone your business? Because they only own a single small CNC machine, and they only use it for RMR slide cuts. Every other service they offer is done on a manual mill. If you ask them to radius the edges on your slide or add forward cocking serrations, or cut giant windows in your slide so you can show off your awesome gold barrel, it’s all done by hand. Which means, technically, every single gun worked on by Brimstone is a one-off project. Every firearm that shows up in the Dungeon gets worked on by all four craftsmen, with each one contributing in their own area of expertise. To top it all off, their average turnaround time for slide work is less than a month. If you want one of those 10/22 triggers, it’ll probably be even faster. We think they’re a best-kept-secret worth a second or third look from anyone considering pistol mods.

(Speaking of pistols, the one you see here is the primary blaster of Tom Matturro, the HMFIC at One Chance Tactical Solutions. In addition to top notch pistol and carbine instruction, they also T&E some pretty awesome gizmos. Check them out on Facebook or the Gramz.)

-Tom Marshall

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About the Author: Tom Marshall is an interesting miscegenation of background experiences. He’s a former active duty US Army officer, but before that was a graduate of the US Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, NY. Before accepting his commission as a 2LT, Midshipman Marshall spent a year traveling the world on a variety of merchant shipping vessels, including several months attached to Military Sealift Command. After returning from sea, he spent a summer working at the HQ training facility for Blackwater USA.

Tom spent four years in the Cavalry with a Stryker Brigade, including a one-year tour to Iraq with 4th BCT, 2nd Infantry (“Raiders”). Among other assignments, he worked S-3 before taking over a Recce Platoon. He earned the rank of Captain and spent his final year in an HQ Company XO billet. After departing the military he spent about a year and a half working security at a federally-contracted Corrections facility before going back overseas in a PMC job working security and force protection for government personnel working in high threat environments around the world. Tom has written for Guns & Ammo, World of Firepower, SWAT Magazine, Black Sheep Warrior, RECOIL Magazine, and Emerge Social, a PR firm specializing in digital brand management for firearms-industry clients. He may or may not have been the inspiration for the best selling issue of Urecco. You can follow him on Facebook at /TMAuthor/ or on Instagram, @tom.marshall.author.