The cost of insurance is one thing that drove me out of the business... as well as the specter of getting sued. Actually I had to have a real job to pay the bills. Luckily worked in a fire dept with it's attendant work schedule. I did trigger work on S&W revolvers and realized that people sometimes wanted the unobtainable/unsafe so quit that. Much of my gun work income was derived from firearm cleanings and repair of guns that were "improved" by their owners. Also most of the work was on shotguns mainly because that was what the majority of the shooters used in my area. Oh a cleaning job was usually done within 2 days 3 at the most and cost 30 bucks for most. Some were a bit more due to complexity. I must admit at certain times I did acquire a backlog of repair work. Money earned really didn't make gunsmithing a lucrative endeavor. For some reason I just liked it. Without the income from my other work and gun and reloading sales I would not have stayed in the business for almost 40 yrs. My real enjoyment came from building rifles(and shooting them) though..in an area where I was one of very few using rifles. I did not care for checkering stocks. Lol