He loves to fix guns

Some people are lucky and choose vocations that are also their hobbies.

That's true with Dennis Buchanan, who owns and runs Buchanan Armory in Electric City.

"I've always loved guns," he said Tuesday.

Buchanan came to the area after applying for and getting a position with the Bureau of Reclamation. That was from 2007 to 2010.

The new gunsmith (he has been open nearly a year) has a small shop on the highway across from the Vet Center.

Got a trigger problem with your gun? He can fix it. He loves working on guns.

"I have always had this thing of taking things apart and putting them back together," he said.

He and his wife, Amanda, and their two children, Donovan, 5, and Sadie, 4, live in Electric City.

"I have always wanted my own business," Buchanan stated as a customer walked through the door.

The gunsmith spent five years in the Navy where he served on a missile destroyer, targeting drug smugglers in Central America. Their task was to assist the Coast Guard in intercepting boats loaded with drugs trying to gain entry into the United States.

After leaving the Navy, Buchanan took a guard position in a Colorado prison and determined that it wasn't what he wanted to do. He went back to school and earned a degree in gun technology (heavy in math).

There, he learned the nuts and bolts of being a gunsmith, teaching him to confine his practice to taking care of customers with gun problems.

That involved sometimes making needed parts, cleaning, and adjusting parts so hunters had a safe firearm.

Buchanan has a consignment policy. He won't take a gun on consignment unless he determines it is a safe firearm.

Buchanan was raised in California. He got out of the Navy in San Diego where jobs were scarce, and that brought him to the Northwest.

The armory will do custom work, but will send the task out to a specialist.