We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Chris Walden. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Chris below.

Chris, appreciate you joining us today. So, what do you think about family businesses? Would you want your children or other family members to one day join your business?

I think family businesses are important yet they are dying here in America. My wife and I started Precision Firearms LLC in 2012 right after having our first child, so we have grown this business with our children heavily involved. All three of my children love to come to the shop and help in all aspects of the business. While working side by side with my children and beautiful bride I have the opportunity to teach them integrity, honesty and quality work. The opportunities we experience allow me to model working hard and earning the reward for it, something I think a lot of people are missing out on. These opportunities do not come without hardships though. When we do fail, my family sees it, they feel the implications of it, we learn from the experience together. There are also long hours at the shop away from my family, and they feel this also. They see the work it takes to be successful, and apply it to other areas of their lives. I cannot wait until my kids are a little older and are able to come work side by side with me more. I see this being something that we can all enjoy and benefit from.
Now this hard work and benefits come from sacrifice, spending time away from the family can enrich the family life but can also damage it if you allow it to overcome you. There is a fine balance that must be monitored constantly and adjusted on the fly immediately. At the end of the day, my family is much more important than anything else on this earth, and raising my children the right way is the greatest responsibility my Wife and I can hold. I would encourage anyone working for themselves to pay attention to the needs of your family just as you pay attention to the needs of your business. You cannot take it with you when you shuffle off this mortal coil, but the legacy you leave behind can live on for many generations, good or bad!

Chris, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Chris Walden, my wife, Maggie and I own and operate Precision Firearms LLC. A local gun shop with full service gunsmithing that aims to treat customers the way we want to be treated and perform the high level of quality that we expect in services rendered to us. I come from a long line of mechanics. At the age of 10, with my father’s help, I rebuilt my first diesel engine. I went on to work in the field with my father maintaining heavy equipment and eventually landed my first “real” job as a diesel mechanic at the age of 16. I loved hunting and shooting sports and found myself tinkering on my own firearms in the garage. I loved working on firearms so much that eventually apprenticed under a small local gunsmith in my free time. By the age of 18 I found myself with an Airframe and Powerplant License from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach Florida and eventually landed a job as a line mechanic at Dulles International Airport working on commuter aircraft, a much better paying job than gunsmithing. I continued my career in Aviation working in various functions from general repair to machining and heavy structural repair and ended my career at Gulfstream right here in Savannah, GA as a Senior Airworthiness Inspector in the Landing Gear, Flight Controls, Wheels and Brakes overhaul backshop. All during that time I was running a small gunsmithing operation out of my 2 car garage in Rincon and continuing my gunsmithing education through American Gunsmithing Institute. I am now a certified and highly experienced gunsmith in the area. We bought out Thunderbolt Guns in March of 2022 and moved the gunsmithing operations into a retail store front located in Thundebrolt, GA. We continue to grow and increase the services we offer to our wonderful client base. We are truly blessed to be in this location and love serving the communities firearm needs. We offer new and used sales, service and training.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

I got my Federal Firearms License with the goal to get awesome firearms at great deals and save our friends some money as well. It quickly turned in to a great side hustle. We were doing gun shows all over the state of GA, some online auctions as well. Then I really got going with gunsmithing in 2014 and loved every minute of. The next 7 years were very slow growth mostly on word of mouth advertising simply due to our high quality work. My first big milestone came in 2021, when I left my job at Gulfstream and was able to support my family just off of the income from our business. It was a huge pay cut but it worked. The next biggest milestone was when we bought out Thunderbolt Guns and here we are. It’s been a long journey and it has only gotten harder but we will persevere through it.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

My attention to detail and the high quality gunsmithing work as a result. Not to mention our amazing customer service that comes from putting our customer relationships first.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.precision-firearms.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/precisionfirearmsthunderbolt/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/precisionfirearms2012llc