The U.S. Air Force Gunsmith Shop is getting a new name and command. After 48 years of operations here under Air Training and then Air Education and Training Command, the shop is realigning under Air Force Materiel Command.

Now known as the U.S. Air Force Gunsmith Integrated Product Team, the 11-person unit is remaining in secure bunker facilities here.

The realignment makes sense, since AFMC has been the shop's approving authority for more than 30 years. The team now falls under the 542nd Armament Sustainment Group at Warner Robins Air Logistics Center, located at Robins Air Force Base, Ga.

Fourteen weapons projects are listed on a chalkboard beside the team superintendent's desk. The first one is a modification from Air Force Space Command so that M-4 and M-16A2 rifles cannot fire a live round when they are supposed to be firing blank rounds.

Master Sgt. Ruben Lucio, the superintendent, said this team is one-of-a-kind.

"We have repair, modification, development and technical skills that no other Air Force unit has," he said.

Sergeant Lucio said the team’s new mission statement is: "Provide weapons sustainment and technical solutions for ground-fired small arms supporting the U.S. Air Force Small Arms Program through rapid response."

He said the arms include rifles, pistols, grenade launchers, shotguns and machine guns.

Joel Layton is a contractor working as the logistics manager to transition the unit from AETC. He said Gen. Curtis LeMay established the U.S. Air Force Marksmanship Center here in 1958 after incidents in Korea showed a need for all Airmen to undergo small arms training.

Mr. Layton said the marksmanship center was the start of the combat arms and gunsmith career fields.

The shop was in its peak in the early 1960s when it had 64 competitive gunsmiths to work on all the shooting teams' weapons, said Bill Moore, who is the team’s only certified gunsmith. He said the Air Force had 20- to 30-man teams for rifle, pistol and shotgun competitions. Competitors had their own Air Force specialty code and their only job was to practice shooting and compete, he said.

"In their heyday, the early to late 1960s, nobody could beat the Air Force shooting team," Mr. Moore said. "They were rock solid, some of the best shots anywhere. In Olympic competition, the Air Force was always there. They set records the Air Force still holds today."

Those days are long gone, he said, and competitive shooting became an extracurricular activity.

Mr. Moore still works on guns for various Air Force teams when they need his expertise, including making aluminum stocks for the international .22-caliber rifle shooters, working on AR-15s (similar to the M-16) for the high-power rifle teams and doing all the .45-caliber work for the pistol teams.

In the larger shop area, Staff Sgt. Brendan McGloin was sanding a wooden stock he was making for a Remington .308-caliber rifle for training purposes. Sergeant McGloin said he was working on cutting vibration of the barrel by bedding it in the stock with a compound that seals itself around the barrel and keeps it from moving.

"This is getting into the physics of it," the combat arms specialist said. “Any barrel that fires, when it shoots, it whips. So what this does is make sure that every time that barrel shoots a round, it always returns to the exact same spot. So when you shoot, it's more accurate."

In another area of the shop, Staff Sgt. Kevin Payne, a machinist, was working on an M240B machine gun feed tray. A piece of metal is being added to the tray, making it smaller, so that it accepts only blank cartridges, which are shorter than the live rounds.

The modification was requested by the Expeditionary Operations School at McGuire AFB, N.J. Only prototypes have been made so far, and they will be test-fired to see which prototype feeds the blanks the best before production begins, Mr. Layton said. Training units and technical schools Air Force-wide will probably request the improvement, he said.

Back in the vault area, Staff Sgt. Timothy Nesbitt explained another project involving the M240B. After several incidents throughout the Air Force with M240Bs experiencing serious failure, procedures were developed to inspect the guns. Sergeant Nesbitt, who is a combat arms specialist, is responsible for validating those results.

The Air Force stopped using the M240Bs that did not pass the new standards. The Air Force is awaiting the Army's final decision of whether they will replace the defective weapons or develop new measurement criteria. The Army is redesigning the buffer system, which was the cause of the failures.

(Courtesy of Air Education and Training Command News Service)