New Libby gunsmith opens shop

When Milton Wetherill was 12 years old, he took apart his Daisy BB gun and nearly gave his mother a heart attack.

Wetherill’s BB gun had a cock to load it, but his friend Teddy owned a Crosman pump, which shot harder and faster. Growing up on a farm in Arizona, Wetherill and Teddy hunted sparrows and doves.  

Weatherill wanted his gun to be as powerful as Teddy’s, so he took the gun apart, and inserted a clutch spring from an old car into the cocking system.  

What at first angered his grandpa quickly impressed him.

“I could put a BB through a sparrow then,” Wetherill said.  

Almost 50 years later Wetherill, a master gunsmith with 44 years of experience, opened up Wetherill Custom Gun and Repair.

“I love guns, I’ve always loved them,” Wetherill said. “I’ve always loved tearing things apart.”

There are a lot of part changers in gunsmithing, replacing old gun parts with new ones ordered from a factory. Wetherill is a part creator.

“I do things that other people can’t or won’t,” Wetherill said. “They’re not putting the art, the talent, the craftsmanship into them.”

The first thing a customer sees when walking into Wetherill’s shop is a sign that reads: Attention, you have one, three-minute question for free, after that all questions are at your cost of $37.50 per 30 minutes.

“There is no such thing as one question when it comes to firearms,” Wetherill said. “I don’t even go out in the parking lot because people will make U-turns into the lot to ask me a question.”  

Vickie Wetherill, Milton’s wife, runs the front desk. When Milton speaks with customers, she peppers his comments with accomplishments he normally would not say about himself.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve had a master gunsmith around here,” Vickie Wetherill said. “He does a lot more than he is asked to do.”

Milton Wetherill’s first customer since moving back to Libby from Missouri in 2013 was a Pennsylvania man, whose hunting trip would have been canceled had Milton Wetherill not fixed his gun.  

Since opening, Wetherill is lucky if he can get to a customer’s guns within six weeks. He is that busy.

“I’m a perfectionist,” Wetherill said. “It’s great for the customer; it’s lousy for me.”

One of Wetherill’s recent customers was Phil Alspaw, pastor of Libby Christian Church. Alspaw needed a handgun fixed for his son, who was headed to Alaska to guide horseback trips into Denali National Park.  

Alspaw said he initially needed just a couple things fixed, but Wetherill discovered many more problems with the gun.  

For example, the gun’s hammer was fractured. The weapon could have misfired.

To fix the gun, Wetherill crafted a tiny piece of metal with a jeweler’s saw. Wetherill said another gunsmith would have sent the gun back to the manufacturer.

Wetherill provided Alspaw with exact details of the repair process.

“I would go back in a heartbeat,” Alspaw said of Wetherill’s business. “He was extremely informative and honored his quote.”  

Wetherill washes his hands almost 70 times a day, until his fingers split, for the sole reason of keeping his projects free of dirt, grease and metal shavings.

His formal training in gunsmithing began May 1970, with his teacher, Bill Hatcher, who Wetherill said read books from the back to the front.

“He was a (jerk) to work for,” Wetherill said. “He told me, ‘If you want to do this, you are going to have to prove yourself,’ so I did.”

Soon after learning the art of gunsmithing, Wetherill served in the Air Force during the Vietnam War in 1973-75.

Wetherill said he wanted to join the military, so he went down to the recruiters office. All the recruiters were out to lunch, and the first one back worked for the Air Force.  

After passing the American Gun Institute certification course in 2003, Wetherill opened his first shop in Missouri. Wetherill said he enjoys doing repairs and helping people, but his ultimate goal is to build his own weapons.

Wetherill last built a custom weapon 28 years ago. He spent three consecutive months building the 12-gage shotgun with which “you could do dental work in the polish.” It sold for $15,000.

“I enjoy putting my name on a fine firearm that I’ve made,” Wetherill said. “That’s my legacy, that’s what I want to be remembered for.”

Wetherill hopes to pass his craftsmanship onto one of his grandsons.

“What makes a gunsmith is someone who can take a weapon that is dysfunctional and make it functional,” Wetherill said. “You have to have a passion.”