By Jayden Quinlan

On life’s winding path, we all occasionally look back and ask, “How did I get here?” I have stumbled a few times, but I have also had help from a special group of people to whom I would like to express my gratitude. From the kid firing a .22 for the first time, to the veteran who still cleans that Garand, to the people I met at the Brownells Gunsmith Career Fair, I want to say “thank you” to everyone in America’s Firearms Culture. Without you, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

My first mentor, Mark Jimmerson, fanned my interest in long-range shooting from just a spark into a full-grown inferno. He taught me skills that I apply each time I settle in behind a rifle. After a few years with Mark, I enlisted in the military to help fight the War On Terror. During training for my first tour, the fire Mark helped kindle still burned, as I bought every book about ballistics I could find and I studied feverishly. When I returned to the states, I wanted to learn even more. I had always been interested in gunsmithing, but my enlistment still had another two years on it, with another deployment in my future. A distance learning program seemed to be the only way for me to study gunsmithing. Because military tuition assistance would not cover it, I had to spend the only savings I had built up.

So I read the numbers of my bank card to a nice lady over the phone and haven’t looked back since. I still keep my four binders full of course notes near me all the time. Earning my Pistolsmithing Certification was a nice pat on the back before I was redeployed. I spent the next year in a small Southeast Asian country, living in a 20 ft steel container with two beds and a few shelves. Before I left home again, I had started teaching some long-range shooting, and my students wanted to keep learning. So I wrote detailed articles and training pieces for them, e-mailed from my little metal box of a home.

Perusing our temperamental Internet on a day off, I discovered the Brownells Gunsmith Career Fair in Des Moines, IA. Before that, I had planned to go work for my hometown gunsmith for free just for the experience after I left the service. But the Career Fair seemed like another good opportunity–if I could make it back to the states in time. I was scheduled to return a week before the Career Fair, but getting there from halfway around the world would prove to be complicated.

Murphy’s Law really tested my patience on the trip. We arrived in Guam just as the devastating earthquakes and tsunami struck Japan. Then our aircraft needed repairs, causing me to pull my hair out for four more days. We finally left Guam, but had to stop in the Marshal Islands, where three-foot waves crashed over a two-foot wall along a runway none of us could see until we touched down. But I was one more island closer to home and the Gunsmith Career Fair.

When I finally arrived in Des Moines, Iowa, two things made me very nervous. First, I had spent over a year living in a third-world country, and simply wasn’t used to America again yet. Second, I wasn’t sure how my distance learning education would stack up with students from the best gunsmithing schools in the nation. Nevertheless, I put on my big boy pants and put together a plan.

My first stop was a seminar by Mr. Bill Gravatt of Sinclair International titled “Alternative Careers in the Industry.” He spoke about the value of gunsmithing knowledge for ammunition and bullet companies. My love for and relentless self-study of ballistics had finally found a home. Afterwards, I snagged Mr. Gravatt and stuttered my way into a conversation. I was talking to a real “mover and shaker” of the industry and I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to be nervous when talking to one of them–at least that’s how I felt. Bill was great and agreed to read some of the pieces I had written about long-range shooting for my students.

I was surprised, to find myself in a few interviews, and I met more of the industry big names I had only read about in magazines. On the second day, I introduced myself to Paul and Sharon Dressel, the famous custom gun makers, and got lost in conversation for the next three hours. Paul was putting on a seminar about the importance of ballistics knowledge for today’s gunsmiths, and he asked me to help—I assumed he meant setting up for the seminar. I was taken completely by surprise when Paul called me out of the audience to help him explain various ballistic subjects. The whole time I spoke, I kept looking for the Career Fair Police to come arrest me for being a student posing as an instructor, but they never showed.

Sharon Dressel read some of the e-mails I had written about long range shooting, and she decided I needed to be published. It is due to her efforts that the madness I jumble together makes it to an audience. I am greatly indebted to her and Paul. After the Career Fair, I was on Cloud Nine. Mr. Gravatt told me to e-mail him my resume, and that he would send it to some bullet and ammunition manufacturers he knew well. I wasn’t about to let this opportunity slip away and soon found myself in contact with two ballisticians at major companies. They offered me jobs and I dove, head first, at the one that seemed to be the best fit.

As I sit writing this in my one-bedroom apartment, I cannot help but reflect on how I got here and smile. By day I work as a Ballistic Engineering Technician at Hornady, and by night a freelance writer. I am making ends meet doing what I love, and what a powerful statement that is! Each day I learn something new and cannot help but be eager for the next lesson. In some strange way, I feel like I have succeeded. But at the same time, I know success is not a place but a journey. When I look back and think about the road I have traveled, I have to stop and offer up a big “Thank You” to everyone in the firearms culture—the shooters, the industry figures, those who taught me, those I met at the Brownells Gunsmith Career Fair who helped me get into the industry. Without all of you, I wouldn’t be where I am today.