The Cody Firearms Museum has a replica colonial gunsmith's shop, with tools, wood shavings, firearms in various stages of (dis)repair, and so on. As a young man I came to know a gunsmith who by preference did a lot of work on muzzle loaders, and when I go visit that museum periodically I go into that shop. Everything in there reminds me of that old gunsmith who is now passed on. talk about memories. Of course, his shop is now history too.

There is probably more real gunsmithing going on in amateurs' basements today than there is in the yellow pages.