Each rifle that Nathan Heineke makes is a thing of beauty, the result of hundreds of hours of painstaking craftsmanship that carry price tags that might rival those of many people’s vehicles.
Even so, the last thing he wants is for them to be vainly displayed on walls.
N.L. Heineke rifles are meant for hunting — frequently, hardcore African safari hunting for dangerous game.
“A lot of it (rifle making) goes back to my passion for hunting, and my respect for the hunt,” the Laramie, Wyoming, gunsmith told Cowboy State Daily.
“It’s as much about honoring the traditions of the craft and the trade as it is about honoring the hunt, the animal and the pursuit,” he said.
His work doesn’t reflect modern trends, such as composite rifle stocks or red-dot laser optics.
Instead, he sticks to the old traditions of rich wooden stocks and blued steel barrels and actions.
“I consider myself not as an artist but as an artisan. My craft is as a gun maker, not a gunsmith,” he said.
It Started By Not Waiting In Line
Heineke was raised in Gillette and grew up hunting.
During the summers of his youth, he worked at the local public library.
“I was in charge of putting up the used books that were going up for sale,” he said.
That’s how he came across a book by master gun maker James Howe.
“I was fascinated by that book, I read it like a novel,” he said.
That’s how the seed of rifle making was planted in him, though it would take a while for it to blossom.
He was blessed with creativity but wasn’t sure what to do with it as he headed off to college at the University of Wyoming, where he ended up going to art school.
“I really had no intention of being an artist. All I wanted to do was get through the university as quickly as possible with a degree,” he said.
It was quite by random chance that he ended up in the art program.
“Registration was in the union ballroom at UW. And I’ve got a low-grade claustrophobia over standing in lines,” he said.
He initially considered being a history major, but the line for that registration table was long.
“I just happened to glance over to the art table, the visual arts department. And nobody was in line there. So I just walked over and became an art student. And that was that,” he said.
A Horrible Trip With A Fortunate Twist
While attending art school, he took elective classes in machine tool operations, gaining skills that would serve him well later.
For about four years after college, he worked a series of odd jobs. He had dreams of someday being a gun maker but wasn’t sure about how to go about doing it.
In 1996, his girlfriend at the time got an offer to study in Scotland, and Heineke agreed to take a trip there to visit her.
The trouble was, “I didn’t have two pennies to rub together,” he said.
While working an odd job in Gillette, he met a trucker who was looking for a good place to eat, and the two struck up a conversation.
Heineke recalls telling the trucker about wanting to go to Scotland to see his girlfriend but thinking it would be impossible.
“He looked me straight in the eye and told me, ‘You’re going to take that trip.’”
That gave Heineke the resolve to set his worries aside and find a way to make it to Scotland.
“The trip itself was horrible. I was supposed to be there 10 days but ended up staying two.”
He discovered that his girlfriend by then had moved on and was seeing somebody else.
Despite the heartbreak, the trip ended up not being a waste, but instead a source of inspiration.
“I took advantage of being there to visit gun shops in England,” he said.
There, he saw the work of towering legends in the hunting arms world; prestigious brands such as Holland & Holland and Rigby.
“That was my first exposure to world-class work. Previously, I had only seen photos of that grade of rifles in magazines,” he said.
That’s when he decided that he had to be a rifle maker.
“I thought to myself, ‘I can do this. Not only is this truly what I want to do, but I can do this,’” he said.
Hired On With Griffin & Howe
Heineke started building a few rifles when he had time and built up a portfolio of his work.
“I had to find a photographer for my portfolio. That was hard, because guns are notoriously difficult to photograph,” he said.
He started sending out samples of his portfolio. That finally paid off when he got a job offer from an American gun company, Griffin & Howe, Inc., at their New Jersey shop.
The “Howe” in the company name was James Howe, whose book had inspired Heineke years earlier.
He ended up working for Griffin & Howe from 1999 to 2004.
As much as he appreciated the opportunity and everything he learned, eventually he came to a point where he needed to grow, to strike out on his own.
A client, whom Heineke identified only as “Daniel,” was an astute businessman.
One evening over dinner, he opened up to Daniel about his frustration with his current job, and his desire to move on.
Daniel agreed to coach him in matters of business, and Heineke credits him for sharing the knowledge it took to establish his own brand.
‘Bespoke’ Firearms
For most of the 20 years he’s been in business, Heineke has built custom rifles, each crafted exactly to a client’s wants and needs.
His work reflects “the wonderful, rich legacy of finely crafted hunting weapons,” he said.
The English term for a custom-ordered, expertly crafted item is “bespoke,” he said.
“I’ve been in the business of bespoke firearms,” he said.
There’s no rushing such work. Heineke has produced as few as one and as many as seven rifles each year.
On the low end, they sell for around $24,000. The most expensive rifle he was ever involved in making sold for roughly $80,000 – for the sum total of his work, plus that of a custom engraver.
Heineke works in the basic hunting rifle formats – single-shot rifles, double-barreled rifles, or bolt-action rifles.
Some of them come with mounts for scopes, others are outfitted for iron sights, or aperture (peep) sights.
The gunstocks are made from walnut, aged, treated and oiled to perfection.
Heineke has made rifles chambered for just about every hunting cartridge in existence.
However, most of his rifles are in heavy-hitting safari cartridges, designed for taking down dangerous game, like Cape buffalo, with quick shots at close range.
Some of those include .458 Lott, .450 Rigby, .416 Rigby and .375 H&H.
Heineke knows firsthand the value of a rifle that can be aimed quickly and hits hard.
“I’ve hunted (Cape) buffalo quite a bit. Buffalos, when they see you, they are upset. When they wake up in the morning, they’re upset. They’re always upset,” he said.
All About Balance
The key to making an excellent hunting rifle is building good balance into it, Heineke said.
“Hunting rifles need good handling qualities, to be uncomplicated and well-balanced,” he said.
The interface of the forearm (front part of the rifle stock) and the grip is paramount, he said.
“They need to be getting your hands feeling the same thing and working in concert together,” he said.
With a well-balanced rifle, “It’s effortless. It takes all of the effort out of shooting.”
The natural flexibility of the wooden stocks also dissipates the wicked recoil produced by setting off massive safari hunting cartridges.
“If you want to increase the level of discomfort and pain, take the same rifle, and re-stock it in synthetic. Every ounce of the recoil will go straight into you,” he said.
Wooden stocks are more “temperature stable” than synthetic rifle stocks, he said.
Meaning, changes in temperature aren’t as apt to cause minute changes in the stock’s shape or its fit with the action and barrel, which might affect accuracy.
“When wood has been treated and oiled properly, it’s also moisture-stable,” he added.
What’s The Future Of The Trade?
Heineke said he’s moving away from one-off custom orders and toward making small “batches” of crafted rifles that can be marketed to interested buyers at large.
He also wonders about the future of his craft.
On the customer’s end, people seem to be getting more impatient. Few are willing to wait up to two and a half years for a finely crafted rifle.
From an up-and-coming rifle maker’s perspective, things might seem bleak, Heineke said.
“The biggest problem that I see with the trade is that it is so bloody difficult to make a living. I cannot honestly recommend that somebody get into this with the intention of making a living, especially if they have to support a family,” he said.
Selling one rifle for tens of thousands of dollars might sound like a quickly profitable gig. But there’s the considerable investment of time to consider.
And the materials certainly aren’t cheap, Heineke said.
A top-quality walnut gunstock blank can cost up to $9,000, he said.
“At the end of the day, the take-home pay is actually pretty minimal,” he said.
The future of custom rifle making might lie with people who do it “as a hobby” and as time allows, he said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
