Colorado School of Trades

09/30/2026

Design and Function Instructor, Jeff Evans and CST Student, Bereket Bekele working together to diagnose a Beretta.

Others are inletting and shaping stock, fitting furniture, refinishing stocks and doing general repairs/cleaning!

09/17/2026

Specializations student, Quintin Moffis using his stock making skills to make another custom walnut stock!

In these shots he is using the 3-axis mill to cut the barrel channel with a mortis bit.

09/16/2026

Congrats to our newest grads! Go rep CST and the industry well.

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09/15/2026

Congrats to our newest graduates! Brad, Nick, Sam and Tyler are on to go great things in the industry.

Good luck to these four Gunsmiths!

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09/14/2026

Huge progress for Myles on his full length Trapdoor r***e. Myles had a beat-up, old, Trapdoor barreled action and finished the metal first.

Using our rust-browning equipment Mr. Koester applied a gorgeous finish to add a sleek patina look. He then ordered a stock blank from legendary CST graduate, Cecil Fredi.

Since then he has inletted and began shaping the full length stock. It should be one glorious piece when he gets finished.

09/09/2026

Shown is current Specializations student, Myles Koester starting to shape the bottom portion of his Mannlicher stock.

09/04/2026

09/02/2026

The second quarter at CST demands our students learn machining. This is the section where they will utilize manual lathes, mills and other machines to build skills like turning, facing, reaming, and threading.

They will later on use this knowledge and the machine to complete their project r***es.

08/31/2026

We love fades! So does Mr. Ogle. Sam creatively used to complete a "Copper Patina" finish on his AR.

08/27/2026

What is going on in Design and Function on a random Thursday?

The most organic part to our program is that we take in roughly 3,500 customer fi****ms annually. Each of these projects consist of general repairs, customizations, modifications, etc. All customer fi****ms are issued with service writing paperwork and work orders for the Gunsmith in training.

You never know what you'll get at your bench; It could be a muzzle threading job, an entire stock repairs and refinish, checkering, bluing, Cerakote application or even a full rebuild with new parts!