Im blue color or was sd has smithing background he always has good insight.
I am not, never have been, doubtfully ever will be a gunsmith. I don't even wanna be one. I did learn a bunch of maintenance stuff out of necessity. Was real simple @ our house, if you can't maintain it, you can't shoot/drive it. If I wanted to move on from that single-shot Stevens 20Ga, I'd better start paying attention or just outright cleaning dad's shotguns so I could have more than 1 shot. The 1100 dictated I'd better learn fast how to tear it down, clean it, and get it put back together. Mother F'n WD-40 taught me more than any book. Rem-Oil w/Teflon (vs. anything w/Silicone) was a GOD-SEND!! I could go at least 2 weeks without having to tear-down, clean, and re-assemble my own and dad's 1100's. Cleaned shotguns was a part of the deal just like loading the ammo.
Circa 1986/87-ish dad had a 12Ga Rem 1100 cut down to ~12LOP and a longer fixed full bbl chopped back to 22" and added screw-in chokes. It shot all of 70/30 high, maybe more, I know I didn't have to cover anything to kill it. I worked 2 summers @ the trap club and decided all trap-shooters are ASSHOLES!! Every single god-damned one of them. Doubt I've shot more than 10 rounds of honest-to-goodness "Trap" since I was ~14. There's one shooter/head club douche-bag in particular who's gotta be closer to 80 than 70 who if I saw, I might still kick his ass for being such a complete A-hole to us "trap kids".
I shot youth league the 2 summers I worked @ the club. Had to have 100 rounds re-sized on a MEC re-sizer so they'd run in an 1100 and then loaded on a Lee Load-All by Thursday afternoon before dad got in off the road. 50 for each of us, or I stayed home. Pre-Steel shot, it was my job to count 25 4-buck pellets into primed/charged/wad 12Ga shells, hand them back and dad would crimp them. Dad's buddy had 2 boys, the 3 of us couldn't quite keep up with the 2 dad's counting out buckshot while the dad's did the rest. The 4-buck was for Sandhill Cranes. Pretty sure dad had a serious vendetta against those things after the 1st few times he hunted them, hit several w/#4's, then #2's, and lead BB's that just kept on flying.
Swapped over to 302/303 Beretta's when I was in high-school and I was in HEAVEN!!
Wanna shoot gophers, no problem, but, better figure out how to keep that Marlin 60 or 10/22 running.
Got into high-school, got a driver's license and Prairie Dogs were only ~45Min drive. Shoot all the 223 ammo I want, but, I'd better load it back up so there was plenty if dad wanted to go. When dad set up the Dillon 550 I thought I'd died and gone to reloading heaven!! Never had to pay for ammo or components, just had to make sure I re-loaded what I shot. About that same time, maybe a little earlier, neighbor bought a progressive PW shot-shell loader. I had to run all the hulls through the single-stage re-sizer so the hulls would run through our semi-autos. I'd do 55Gal garbage cans full of 12Ga empties on that Muther F'n MEC de-primer/re-sizer. However, I was out of college and on my own before I really had to buy any ammo of any sort beyond the odd box of 22's.
Scope mounting, trigger jobs, stock-swaps, semi-auto shotgun & rimfire tear-down/clean/re-assembly, Shot-shell and centerfire reloading, all by Jr. High school and all in a little louvered-door hidden utility room off the basement bathroom.
'Smithing background, I hardly think so. Knowledge born out of dirty hands and a well-chewed ass.