Fixing guns to make ends meet: The side hustle

Editor's note: This story is part of an occasional series on solo entrepreneurial ventures known as "side hustles."

Ed Bergum's side hustle began 55 years ago with a broken piece of metal about the size of a toothpick.

Previously:
• A hard day of ricing makes the beer go down easy
• Skinning hides to pay for fun: The side hustle

Bergum grew up on a farm near Bancroft, Iowa, fixing machinery with his dad and spending his off hours improving his aim with a Marlin bolt action .22-caliber rifle. One day the rifle quit working, which dramatically shortened Berum's list of available pastimes.

"The firing pin broke," he recalled. "I figured, it can't be that complicated."

These days, Bergum lives south of Bemidji, down a long gravel road. From his garage, he runs Ed's Gunsmithing — a place packed with gun safes and bulky old tools.

So at 14, Bergum took the gun apart and replaced the pin — and the rifle worked. That day marked the beginning of a lifelong side hustle and Bergum has plenty of company.

Census Bureau data show an increase in people working on their own. About 390,000 people have an entrepreneurial venture, often on top of a day job. Included in that number are self-employed construction workers — not a side hustle.

I found him there, perched on a bar stool tinkering on a pump action .22-caliber with old dentistry picks.

"The thing with a pump action — it works like a car," he said. "When the oil runs out, it quits working."

Someone hadn't oiled the gun he was working on, so it jammed.

Through years of construction work and a few other jobs, Bergum practiced gunsmithing on the side. When he moved to Bemidji in 2005, he began the business in earnest, turning his garage into a legal gun shop, with gun safes and bars on the windows as required by law. He obtained a federal firearms license.

For a while he hoped to turn his side hustle into a full-time business, but that didn't work out.

"I make enough to keep the lights on and a little extra for my time," said Bergum, who has a day job driving a bus for the Bemidji public schools.

There are only two gunsmiths in the Bemidji area, and many gun owners in the area, so it would seem like a great market. But Bergum only fixes three or four guns a week, sometimes fewer.

At about $40 per fix, that's not enough to make a living. Even with a license and incorporated business, the gunsmithing is still a side hustle.

It's hard to make a go at full-time gunsmithing, now that the industry has been upended by YouTube, the do-it-yourself hub of fixing things.

When Bergum broke his Marlin, he had just two options. Take the thing to a gunsmith, or rip it apart himself and hope to goodness he could get it back together.

He opted for the second, but most other people lack his confidence.

These days, a kid with a broken gun can hop on the Internet and watch someone strip, clean and rebuild a similar Marlin in an eight-minute YouTube video. It's easily accessible, and has nearly 12,000 hits.

"Go on YouTube," he said, "There are videos of people fixing just about every kind of gun."