How many man hours did it take to manufacture your Filipino 1911?

The Heckler & Koch MP7 in action.

Reuters has published a fascinating look into Filipino gun industry that is transforming from illegal backyard workshops to legal factories. The factory highlighted in the article, Shooters Arms Manufacturing, manufactures guns for American Tactical Imports.

ATI FX Titan being cleaned in the Shooters Arms Manufacturing factory.

The basic model ATI FX45 1911 has an MSRP of $489.95. How many man hours do you think it takes to make? (Emphasis added) …

“We are actually having some difficulty in keeping up with the orders because it usually takes at least two weeks to make one .45 caliber pistol, even if I work 16 hours a day,” he said.

“When we were children, we were already surrounded by guns. It was the world of our fathers,” said Elmer Genzon, a third-generation gunsmith who once made “paltik”, or illegal weapons, out of scrap metal and bits of angle iron.

“We grew up making guns.”

…

“We no longer have to worry about police raids and we also have a steady source of income, plus some health and other social benefits,” Genzon, 33, told Reuters while he wrapped a handcrafted model of a 1911 Colt .45 destined for a dealer in Rochester, New York.

A small army of 400 workers assembles revolvers and pistols at the Mandaue factory, which exports guns to the United States, Australia, Italy and Thailand.

The article is of a political nature, but I decided its non-political content was to good not to blog about.