Shotguns-Laser Engraving

Christy and I are getting into the sport of 3 Gun which has required us to rethink most of our gear and led us to purchase new shotguns. Now, as the Couple That Shoots Together that means everything is twice as expensive as we are gearing up for two but we are having fun getting everything ready to go. As you might have noticed from our posts about dyeing our mags and my competition belt set up that we like to customize our gear. Since Christy has our logo on her competition pistol we thought it would be fitting if we did something similar to our shotguns.

We happened to stumble on a small store near our house one day called Hip Flask Plus.They offer a large amount of products that can be custom engraved for very reasonable prices. You can also bring in your own items to be engraved which quickly peaked our interests as soon as we heard this. Next, we had to find out whether or not they would be willing to engrave firearms and firearm related gear to which we heard a resounding, "Yes"! That's all we needed to hear. The staff of the store is an enteresting cast of characters that are very friendly and very helpful and they were all about helping us come up with some ideas.

A couple of weeks later we packed up the shotguns and headed up there. As soon as we walked in we noticed they were swamped with customers so it looked bleak that we would be able to get the engravings done that day. One of their staff members, John,  who has helped us before approached us and we told him our idea for the shotguns. Without hesitation he quickly went to work on the design and had a proof for us to look at in no time. After a couple of tweaks to the design and the font he was ready to go.

We decided to get the extended magazine tubes engraved with our logo. We took the tubes off of the shotguns and handed them to John. We had to decide on the size of the font  which was hard to judge since it was going on a round tube. As John was getting the first tube lined up inside of the laser engraver, Christy and I both were starting to get a little nervous since this was not a cheap part and there was no going back once the laser started. We had faith in John so we gave him the green light to proceed.

We watched and filmed the first tube being done and the laser engraving process is fun to watch. Then, right before our eyes, our logo begins to appear. The more that appeared, the more excited we got. After one extra pass with the laser it was done and it looked great! We all three breathed a sigh of relief as the tube emerged from the machine. Now it was just a matter of repeating the process on the second tube which also turned out great!

We wanted to give a huge "Thank You" to the staff at Hip Flask Plus for getting us in at such short notice and for doing such a great job [and for keeping us entertained]. Now I just have to convince Christy to buy me the 3D wooden T-Rex head that they have for sale. I mean, my birthday IS in just a few days!

Watch the video of the engraving process here!