Twisted Oak Gunsmithing, LLC is owned by Hank and Laura Hisey. Hank is a native of Front Royal, VA and Laura is from Williamsburg, VA. They have been married for over 25 years and have lived in Warren County for all of them. They have a great love of God and Country. Hank has served as leader in his church since 1987 and is currently a ley pastor/elder at The Camp of Faith Church in Stephens City, VA. Laura has served in the church beside Hank from the time they were married to the present. Hank is a retired federal employee who served the country at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for 29 years. Laura is an accomplished CPA who runs her own business out of her home and with Twisted Oak Gunsmithing, LLC. They are the proud parents of a daughter, Lydia and a son, John.
Twisted Oak Gunsmithing, LLC was established in 2016 out of the home of Hank and Laura Hisey. Hank performs the gunsmithing and manages the business. Laura assists by performing the accounting. Hank’s master gunsmithing training was received from the American Gunsmithing Institute where he received certificates in General Gunsmithing, Handguns, Shotguns, .22 Caliber Rifles and Hi-Power Rifles. He also has over 40 additional hours of training in gunsmithing techniques and skills along with training in TIG welding, machine shop and metal heat treatment techniquesWe specialize in firearm repair, maintenance and modifications along with other services on many types of firearms and strive to provide you with the quality work you and your firearm deserve.
Growing up I was a typical young man who loved to
play war and Cowboys and Indians.
My parents bought me a Daisy Red Rider BB gun (without the
compass imbedded in the stock) to help usher me into manhood. A couple
of years later, after having proven myself with my Red Rider, they
bought me a pellet pistol.
Both guns brought me and my friends great joy.
Beyond my BB and pellet gun, I
didn't have much interest in guns or hunting.
My Dad didn't really hunt.
He took me hunting one time (mostly to shut me up0, and I went a
second time with a neighbor who took me turkey hunting. Neither time
caused me to catch the hunting bug.
However, sometime in my early teens my Dad did buy me an Ithaca
Model 51 20 gauge shot gun. It was technically his, but in reality, it
was for me and became mine when I turned 18.
Unfortunately, the gun had cycling problem that resulted in
frustration and lack of interest.
In
my early 20's, after church in the Summer, a friend of mine asked me if
I would like to go fishing.
I went with him and had a blast, so I went again, and again, and again.
Through the many fishing adventures, we became good friends.
When late summer came around, he asked me if I wanted to go
hunting; I told him yes, but that I had very little experience.
Through our conversation I revealed to my friend that I had never
shot a hi-power rifle. Soon after, he took me to the farm where we were
to hunt that fall. He
brought his Marlin 336C 30-30 lever action rifle along to shoot.
That afternoon my life of indifference to firearms changed.
My friend handed me his gun, showed me how to operate it safely
and how to load it. I put
the Marlin to my shoulder, and with much trepidation and fear of the
gun’s kick, I pulled the trigger. After the gun fired, all I felt was
power and adrenaline; I knew loved guns. Within the week, we went to a
local gun store and purchased my first hi-power rifle, the same gun as
my friend’s, a Marlin 336C with a Tasco scope for the upcoming big game
season. Not too long after
that, I bought a Remington 870 for hunting squirrels. Somewhere around
this time I became a member of the NRA and subscribed to a couple of
hunting magazines. I was
getting a taste of hunting and reading the magazine end-to-end. I was
learning different guns were needed for different types of hunting and
situations. I was beginning
to get fascinated with firearms along with hunting.
Inside these pages you will find some of the services we provide (but not all.) A place for customers' guns stories, articles: about real firearm problems that have come through the shop and how we fixed them; about customization work and more. There is also a place for feedback in our Contacts page.
The following year, I decided
that I wanted a more accurate gun for big game, since the place we were
hunting had the possibility of 200 yard plus shots.
I also wanted a .22 rifle for squirrels, because I got tired of
picking out shot when I skinned them; even worse than that was biting
down on a missed piece of lead. So, the guns I purchased were a
Remington Model 7400 in 270 Caliber and a Marlin Model 60.
I became fixated on accuracy,
so I started reloading. I
then bought a Remington Model 700 in 22-250 caliber and glass bedded it
to make it more accurate. I
started buying gunsmithing books to find other ways to soup-up my guns.
The problem I had was two-fold: I didn't have expendable income
to buy tools, and I was scared that I would ruin my guns if I did what I
was reading in my gunsmith books.
I knew I needed more instruction than what was found in books.
About this time, I began looking in the advertising section
located in the back of my magazines for gunsmithing schools. I was
looking for one to attend in the evening after work- thinking, surely
there must be one within driving distance.
What I found surprised me; there were only two gunsmithing
schools (as far as I could tell) in the continental United States.
The closest was in Pennsylvania, and the other somewhere west of
the Rockies. I had just started a new job with the federal government
and didn't want to leave it to go and learn at one of these two schools.
One day, while checking the advertising section hoping a new gunsmithing
school might have sprung up nearby, I saw an advertisement for a
gunsmithing course on VHS tapes (Before DVD's) offered by the American
Gunsmithing Institute (AGI).
I thought this way may be the answer, but one thing was stopping me, it
was more than I could afford.
So, I abandoned my dream, but never forgot it.
Not long after this, my good friend moved away,
and along with that, I lost access to with the hunting property (I was
always his guest), but the replacement for this loss was much more than
I could have dreamed. You
see, God gave me the perfect woman (yes, they are out there if you let
the Lord do the picking) to be my wife, and I married her.
Fourteen months later we were blessed with our first child, a
girl, named Lydia then six years later we had our second child named
John. From the time we were married and for the next 13 years we lived
in an apartment, then a townhouse, and finally we bought our first home.
All were too small to store my guns and definitely too small for a gun
shop. All my gun "stuff" stayed at my parents' house. I also stopped
hunting a few years after Lydia was born.
But I still hadn't forgotten my dream.
In 2001, my father passed away and then 2 years later my son
John. These life events
changed us all, so we decided to move on to start a new life by moving
to a new home. After 4 years we finally persuaded Mom to move in to a
new house with us. My
government career had been blessed, so that we could buy a big enough
house for all of us to live plus 5 acres land, of which 3 1/2 acres were
woods. The house came with a full basement and plenty of room for a shop
and a place for my guns.
During this time, I regained
interest in shooting. I
built a backstop on my property and built a shooting bench and began
shooting. I started
reloading and bought a Caldwell pistol rest so I could check the
accuracy of my reloads for my pistols by taking the human factor out of
the equation. I started
using the rest and found a glaring problem.
The remote trigger device was temperamental at best.
I examined how it worked and decided I could design something
that functioned more reliable.
To do this I had to be able to accurately drill and cut metal
with tight tolerances. I bought a benchtop mini-mill and a mini-lathe.
Both of these pieces of equipment needed refining straight out of
the box, but on the upside, part of the fun of owning these types of
mills and the lathes is that you can use them to make them better.
This become a hobby unto itself.
I got caught up making things for the lathe and the mill,
forgetting why I bought them.
Eventually, I remembered.
One
day I way reading NRA's American Rifleman and saw "THE Advertisement."
AGI was back in the picture.
This time they said to contact them, and they would send materials about
their gunsmithing courses. I
received the information packet in the mail December of 2009.
Just in time for AGI's Christmas sale.
I read the packet over and over again, trying to figure out which
course I wanted. I knew all along which one, but the price tag was
turning me off. My wife knew I was struggling with the decision. On the
last day of the sale, New Year's Eve, I was in my shop studying the
packet. She gave me a little push that I sometimes need.
She reminded me of two things: first the dream I had for over
twenty years to get trained in gunsmithing and second, I now had the
resources that weren't available to me when first desiring to become a
gunsmith. So, I took a deep
breath, called AGI and ordered the top of the line Pro Gunsmith Course.
The box from AGI was delivered
about a week or two later. I
unpacked the box, laying out all of the separate courses, tools and
assorted materials. I
started watching videos in the order AGI recommended and soon was taking
the tests. I eventually made
it through all of the courses in my master gunsmithing course and
studied other courses and materials as well.
Not long after I
finished my courses, I began researching what it took to get my Federal
Firearm License (FFL) and start my business.
The first thing I needed to do was to
contact the zoning commission to find out what it would take to have my
home zoned for a gunsmith business.
The person at the commission told me
that I had to first get a conditional use permit from zoning commission
before I could apply for zoning for my business.
He started telling me how much it would
cost and how hard it was to get the permit.
He basically was trying to talk me out
of it, and he was successful.
I decided I wouldn't pursue it.
Not too long after my
disappointing conversation with the zoning commission personnel, I began
the process of retiring from the government early than I planned due to
health reasons. This process
took a while and was completed in March of 2015.
I now needed to supplement my income.
I decided that it was time to put to use what I had been learned,
and I called the zoning commission again.
This time, the commissioner herself answered the phone.
She was the complete opposite of the guy I talked to before.
She was doing everything should could to encourage me to apply.
I began the process in February of 2016 to get my conditional use
permit. In May of the same
year, I completed the process and received my permit, got my zoning
approved, business license, registered my business name, became an LLC
and applied for my FFL. I
received my FFL in August of that same year.
I applied to the State of VA and received their approval.
I then had to get home owners insurance that would allow a
gunsmithing business out of the home. The final legal piece to starting
the business was completed when I got my gunsmithing liability insurance
in November of the same year.
While all of the legal and
administrative issues were going on, I decided that, because of my back
issues, the work benches in my shop would not be comfortable, so they
were torn down. New benches
were built allowing me to stand or sit on a stool to work on firearms.
My lovely, wonderful wife and I worked on the benches in our
garage as the weather permitted. We finally completed enough of the shop
to start accepting business in late 2017.
At this point I was only accepting business
by word of mouth.
I received my first work in March of
2017 and did a handful of other jobs until I went public via Facebook
using my friend as my first contacts to the public in late winter of
2018.
The story starts when we moved into our current
home in April of 2006.
One
day I mused that we had a little homestead and, feeling whimsical,
thought it should have a name. Even if it wasn't a plantation or a
mansion, to me it was a grand piece of property worthy of a name. Like
many of my ideas the brain stopped working after the initial thought.
That’s as far as my thoughts went at the time.
One
day driving home from work, something caught my eye: something I had
seen and driven past hundreds of times, but his time it stuck out like a
sore thumb. It was a very
old, very big tree. What I
saw in the tree this time, that I hadn't noticed before, was that the
trunk was severely twisted. As I continued driving an idea hit me like a
ton of bricks. I thought to myself, “I have a twisted tree, an oak,
standing at the end of my driveway like a gate post. Hey, I said to
myself Twisted Oak could be cool name for my homestead.
But, Twisted Oak what? Something needed to follow Twisted Oak,
like “corral” or “farm.” Since, my land is neither a corral nor a farm,
I had to come up with something else, something described my property. I
started picturing my house and land, then it dawned on me, behind my
house there was a little hill a KNOLL. That's it. I had my name, Twisted
Oak Knoll. I was very
pleased. I didn't act on the name like getting it registered or having a
classy sign put up at the entrance to my driveway (I still might
someday). The satisfaction of having a name was all I needed.
Jump a head a few years to the time when I
decided to start my gunsmithing business.
One of the things I know a business needs to help it succeed is a
catchy name. It didn't take
long to find it; it was natural. Its name would be Twisted Oak
Gunsmithing. That's it. Nothing more. Just short and sweet.
