About
My name is Charles Couillard
I am 20, I am a qualified artisan gunsmith, and I do two things: I restore the firearms history left us, and I build the ones that do not exist yet. The same hand serves both: precision, patience, respect for the material. And one conviction, fixed to the bench: in this trade you learn all your life, and I am only getting started.
I grew up in Normandy, on land where history surfaces everywhere. My grandparents' farm, the stories of 1944, the objects the soil still gives back: that is where my attention to old things was born. Understand an object, identify it, bring it back without betraying it, or choose to leave it as time made it.
The rest of my time: military history and militaria identification, hunting (licence passed first time), and self-taught piano with Queen at full volume. Not a footnote: my graduation project was a Winchester built as a tribute to Freddie Mercury.
Path
From microtechnology to fine gunmaking
- 2021-2024
Vocational diploma in microtechnology, Lycée Dumont d'Urville, Caen
Precision trades: optics, mechanics, electronics, fine assembly, reading drawings. During internships: orthopaedic implants (18/20 at Simon Médical), tin soldering at Factem, dental wax work, plastics machining. That is where I learned to love impeccable work.
- 2024-2026
BMA Gunsmithing and CAP Armurier, Lycée Benoît Fourneyron, Saint-Étienne
Two years in the French capital of fine gunmaking: machining, fitting, woodwork, gun mechanics, firearms history. Graduated with the French Craft Diploma in Gunsmithing (BMA) and the CAP Armurier.
- 2025-2026
Winchester M1885 “Freddie Mercury”, graduation project
Nine months in the workshop to turn an Uberti base into a one-off piece, certified compliant by the French National Proof House in Saint-Étienne. A €1,510 budget, held.
In the field
The workshops that trained me
John Dillinger gun shop, Beaulieu-lès-Loches
Gunsmithing internship with Pierre Le Bihan and Christophe Berruet: repairs, recommissioning, customer contact.
Jacques Denys gun shop, Saint-Hilaire-du-Harcouët
Gunsmithing internship: workshop and shop floor, the trade as it is lived day to day.
Precision internships (vocational diploma)
Wax dental prosthetics, medical implants from drawings, industrial sub-assemblies: rigour before gunsmithing.
Skills
- Machining (lathe, mill)
- Fitting and stock bedding
- SolidWorks CAD and drawings
- Woodwork (stock, forend)
- Metalwork and polishing
- Gun mechanics
- Finishes: lacquer, leather, heat tempering
- Working English
My CV, on one page
Education, internships, flagship project and skills: everything on one page, laid out like a workshop drawing. Available in two languages.