[guntutor]

Tom,

That is good to know. I understand that the service-level teams have to maintain those capabilities, and that is the right thing. However, my lament is the fact that across the military branches, there is little or no education and emphasis on actual "gunsmithing" among those who repair firearms. I attended the USAF Combat Arms Instructor Course in 1986, and that was a good course for what it did. USAF Gunsmiths (their real title, by the way), were with us for about the first six weeks, and then went off to the shops for their hands-on practical training. In the 1990's, the USAF changed their doctrine to reflect the "joint warfare doctrine" of the DOD. As a result, broad changes were made to the USAF Law Enforcement career field. The separate Air Force Speciality Codes (AFSC's) for the traditional roles of Law Enforcement, Security, and Combat Arms were eliminated, and a combined AFSC was created. This new AFSC has a letter "shred out" appended to it, to distinguish a "security forces" member's training, education, and duty status. When the new AFSC was created, and for another 8 years before I retired, I never knew of a "shred out" for gunsmithing. As a result, I do not know the current status of that program. I do know that the Army Ordnance Corps (and it's subordinate depots) are the "program manager" for small arms in the DOD (a scary thought!), and that their emphasis was on creating a single maintenance doctrine, which did NOT include "gunsmithing". If anyone on this forum knows the current state of the USAF Gunsmithing program, I'd appreciate a shout-out.

Tom, thanks for the input!