I don't think the show will be back, and Red Jacket went out of business, even the history channel's influx of money into it couldn't save it.
A poor economy combined with poor business decisions was its downfall.
I met the Hayden's, Will and Stephanie, and Stephanie's husband Kris Ford, back in September of 2011 when they were here in Nevada filming, we have a mutual friend, they were out here visiting his shop and filming in both it and their own shop for a back to back pair of episodes.
The entire cast came off nothing like their characters on the show, so over lunch I asked Will about it, why the difference.
His response was that the show was entirely scripted, he hated it, but that he was desperate to keep the shop afloat so he, in his own words "sold my soul to the devil" and took the history channel's money. He has a wife and kids to support, and was in danger of losing the shop when the HC came along and offered the show.
They provided the majority of the "business" from that point on, and provided the shop you see on the show (his old shop was much, much, smaller, and he only had 2 people working for him, Joe and Vince) and they bought that big HAAS multi-axis machining center, plus a lot of other tooling, but from what he said, he wasn't going to get to keep it when the show ended, and at that point in 2011 it had just been renewed for 2 more seasons.
I owned and operated a gun shop for over 40 years, while at the same time having a 31 year career as a federal agent, the gun shop would have gone bust in a hurry if I had made some of the business decisions that they did on Sons of Guns, even with the income from my primary employment with Uncle Sam to help out.
Watching the show used to make me cringe for all the reasons stated in the above posts about mickey mousing the work, comments about $600 Harbor Freight calipers, etc. but it was entertaining at times to watch to see how many screw ups I could spot per episode.
I met Rich Wyatt of American Guns twice while on the job, didn't care for him at all, he was as arrogant and brash in real life , long before the show was on the air, as he was on the show. His brag that he was the last gunsmith in America that could build a gun from scratch got a laugh out of me.
I can do it, did do it a number of times, including drilling and rifling the barrels, machining the receiver from bar stock, etc. and I suspect a good many of the members on this forum could do it as well even if they had never worked a day in their lives as a gunsmith.
Wyatt was a police officer at one time, in a town of 187 people in Colorado. As far as I know, at least when I was in his shop on business, he had no police record at that time, but that was nearly a decade ago.
His wife and step kids were not in the shop on either of my visits, so I never got to meet them, a fellow agent mentioned in passing to me that he believed the wife had a career earlier in adult movies, but he hadn't followed up on that lead yet. So maybe she's the one with the record.
My personal opinion is that they didn't have to script in too much of the drama on that show, not with him on it.
Too bad they can't put a show out there which really shows the workings in small or one man gun shop, without scripting, drama, etc. Of course the only folks who would watch a real, live, down to earth show like that are those of us with an interest in firearms and machining, so it probably wouldn't draw much in the way of sponsors.
