American Gunsmithing Institute

Welding — DVD

Distance Education / Napa Administrative Office
Napa, CA
Certificate Of Completion · 100% Online
Welding — DVD
AGI is approved to operate by California’s BPPE and registered with the Idaho State Board of Education; it is not accredited by a USDE-recognized agency.
Self-paced distance learning: video lessons on DVD are shipped to you, and all exams are taken online. No campus attendance is required.
Tuition is $1,497 plus $23 shipping and handling when paid in full; total charges including sales tax are $1,636.02.
This self-paced program takes up to 12 months to complete, with 22 hours of video instruction.
No application or registration fee is charged.
Federal financial aid is not available; AGI accepts VA Veteran Readiness and Employment (Chapter 31), WIA and other approved third-party funding.

Welding — DVD is a Certificate Of Completion program (100% Online) offered by American Gunsmithing Institute in Napa, CA. The program takes Up to 12 months to complete, with a total tuition of $1,497.

Program Overview

Upon successful completion, this course results in a Certificate in Welding Theory, preparing an individual for entry-level employment in the welding trade. Certificates of this School do not qualify an individual to work as a registered or licensed, independent Contractor, nor do they qualify as welding certification. Individuals who complete the Welding course are NOT certified welders.

Testing and certificates. When you complete the video instruction, you will take an online examination. Exams are online, not timed, and are open video; once started, an exam must be completed within 60 days. When you pass your final exam with a score of 80% or higher, you will receive a Certificate in Welding Theory.

What sets this Program apart

AGI’s Complete Welding Course is the most comprehensive, video-based, welding course ever produced. This 22 hour course covers everything from history to set-up, to safety, to how to make the perfect weld, and takes you right up into the molten metal so that you can SEE how a weld is made, with close-ups from just inches away.

A special section on TIG welding focuses solely on welding small parts for gunsmithing, and the course closes with a shop tour of an actual welding job-shop and welding projects that put your skills into use.

Admission Requirements and Process

Admission procedures include speaking with an Enrollment Advisor to review courses offered, reviewing school policies and procedures in the School Catalog, and receiving the School Performance Fact Sheets prior to signing the Enrollment Agreement. Students must also meet age and other requirements, prove English language proficiency, and agree to the financial terms, payment terms, and the cancellation and refund policy.

Each prospective student’s request for admission, supporting documentation and admissions interview are considered by school personnel to determine if the prospective student has the skills, requirements, and competencies to succeed in a distance-education environment.

General Requirements

  • Not a Convicted Felon
    Each student must attest under penalty of perjury on the Enrollment Agreement that he or she is not a felon or prohibited from possessing firearms.
  • English Language Proficiency
    Students must be able to read and understand English at the level of a graduate of an English-speaking high school; applicants whose first language is not English must submit a…
  • High School Diploma Not Required
    Students are not required to be high school graduates (or equivalent); those without a high school diploma are assessed by the Student Advisor as to their ability to benefit.
  • Technology
    Applicants must have access to an internet-capable computer, an internet connection, a web browser and an email account on file, plus a functioning DVD player (or comparable video…
  • Government-Issued Photo ID
    AGI requires a copy of a valid government-issued photo identification (driver’s license or passport) to be kept on file to verify the student’s identity.

Application Process

  1. 1
    Speak with an Enrollment Advisor
    Admission procedures include speaking with an Enrollment Advisor to review the courses offered; call 1-800-797-0867 to reach a Student Advisor.
  2. 2
    Review the Catalog and Fact Sheet
    Review the school policies and procedures in the School Catalog and receive the School Performance Fact Sheet, which must be provided to you before you sign an Enrollment Agreement.
  3. 3
    Assess Your Distance-Learning Readiness
    Students are given the opportunity to assess their ability to learn in a distance education format, online and by DVD, with the Student Enrollment Advisor using AGI’s Distance Learning Questionnaire.
  4. 4
    Sign the Enrollment Agreement
    Choose a payment option and complete the online Enrollment Agreement, attesting that you are not a felon or prohibited from possessing firearms; California students upload a photo of a government ID.
  5. 5
    Acceptance and First Lesson
    You are notified of acceptance when you receive a copy of the executed Enrollment Agreement by email or paper copy, and AGI transmits the first lesson and materials within seven days.

Program Schedule

Self-paced. Length: Twelve (12) months or less, with no prerequisites. As a distance education-correspondence course, no attendance is taken; lessons occur at a time and location determined by the student.

Start date: the date the Enrollment Agreement is signed (catalog tuition schedule: "Start Date: Date Signed"), and AGI transmits the first lesson and materials within seven (7) days after accepting the student.

Students who do not pass their exams within 150% of the recommended self-paced course length, and do not contact the school to ask for an extension, are automatically withdrawn from their course. AGI offices are open 8 am–6 pm Pacific time, Monday through Friday.

Cost of Attendance and Financial Aid Information

Cost and Financial Aid Information is an estimate for general reference only. It is not an offer or guarantee of financial aid or of any price, and what a School charges you may differ.
Total Program Tuition
≈ $1,497
Total Program Cost
≈ $1,636.02

Cost of the program (DVD, paid in full). Tuition $1,497.00; shipping and handling $23.00; 7.75% sales tax $116.02; registration fee: none; Student Tuition Recovery Fund: $0.00. Total charges the student is obligated to pay: $1,636.02. Tuition is charged by the course, and any tools and equipment provided by the Institute are included in the total program cost.

Payment options. AGI offers students the option to make payments with no interest charge during their program of study; AGI generally requires an initial payment prior to beginning a program of study, and students authorize automatic credit card payments under the payment plan. Students may also pay in full before the scheduled start date.

Financial aid. This Institute is not accredited by an agency recognized by the United States Department of Education (USDE), and this Institute’s students are not eligible for federal financial aid programs. It is recognized as a non-accredited program which meets the requirements of 38 USC §3676 and 38 CFR 21.4254 and accepts students through third-party authorizing agents of the State Compensation Insurance Fund, Workforce Investment Act (WIA), and the Veterans Readiness and Employment, Title 38, Chapter 31.

Agency and third-party funding. Employers and other agencies, such as vocational rehabilitation at the state level, may be available to assist students in funding their education. For VA Chapter 31, the school must receive the approved Form 28-1905 before the scheduled start date; the Institute invoices the VA and payment is made directly to the school.

Other fees. The first two exams are included with the course; repeat exams are $20 each.

Refunds. AGI provides for a full refund if the student is dissatisfied with the course, provided the request is made within 365 days of enrollment, the student has not passed their first test, and everything AGI sent is returned. Students enrolled with payment plans or in online delivered programs may cancel at any time, but payments made on the plan before cancellation are not refundable.

FAFSA. AGI does not participate in federal student aid, so it has no FAFSA school code.

Curriculum

The course outline below is from the AGI 2026 Student Catalog. The catalog lists the lessons without individual lesson hours; the course totals 22 instruction hours.

Required Courses

Subject #Name
Lesson 1Introduction
Lesson 2History
Lesson 3Safety
Lesson 4Gas Welding
Lesson 5Arc Welding – MIC
Lesson 6Arc Welding – Stick
Lesson 7Arc Welding - TIG
Lesson 8TIG Welding – Small Parts
Lesson 9Welding Symbols
Lesson 10Projects Padlocks

Career Outcomes

This course prepares individuals for employment in positions involving entry-level welding work classified as “maintenance” under General Maintenance and Repair in position titles such as Maintenance, Maintenance Mechanic, and Facilities Maintenance Technician. All contractors/builders must be licensed by the Contractors State License Board in order to perform work in California.

US Dep. of Labor Job Classification Code: DOT 819.384-010 Welder, Combination.

Job placement. This Institute does not offer employment placement services and does not and cannot promise or guarantee either employment or level of income or wage to any student or graduate. The work available to graduates is usually freelance or self-employment.

School Performance Fact Sheet (California residents, calendar years 2023 & 2024). 2023 and 2024: no students began the program, so no completion or placement rates are reported. Total charges for students completing on time: $1,636.02. License examination passage rates are not applicable, and no salary data was reported.

What to expect as a American Gunsmithing Institute student

Distance and online learning. This Institute offers a Distance Education-Correspondence Course where the video instruction is offered on a set of DVDs and online. Classes are not offered in real-time. The Institution uses an online learning management system which provides instant feedback when possible or within 24 hours to students on lessons and projects upon taking quizzes and tests online. Students also have phone access to Student Advisors and faculty when needed.

Testing. Students must pass online tests with 80% or better. Three attempts are allowed. If a student fails the third attempt, they must contact their Student Advisor or AGI’s Technical Services Manager and review the course material before retaking the test.

Student services. Students will be assigned to a Student Advisor who serves as a primary point of contact for academic-related matters. For questions on course content, instructors are available for student questions, which will be responded to within 3 business days or less.

Resources. Students have free access their first year to the Gunsmithing Club of America, where there are student specific resources such as student forums, coursework study videos and access to instructors and other professional gunsmiths who provide advice and assistance.

Campus Address

Distance Education / Napa Administrative Office
351 Second Street
Napa, CA 94559

Why Accreditation Is Important

State Approved / BPPE. American Gunsmithing Institute is a private institution approved to operate by the California Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education (BPPE) pursuant to the California Private Postsecondary Education Act of 2009 (CA School Code #2800501), and is registered as a Proprietary School with the Idaho State Board of Education.

AGI is not accredited by an agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.

  • A reliable indicator of quality
  • Approved program of study
  • Qualified instructors
  • Recognition by employers nationwide

Accreditations

Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education (BPPE)

Images

Robert Rizzetto, Master Welder and AGI welding instructor
Robert Rizzetto, Master Welder and AGI welding instructor
AGI and Gunsmithing Club of America instructors

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to be able to weld and machine to be a gunsmith?
Well, if you want to optimize your capabilities and be able to work on a wide variety of firearms, and customizing, and solving problems and so on, yes, you really should learn welding and machining. The good news is the American Gunsmithing Institute has entire courses A to Z on how to weld and how to machine. We start off with what exactly is lathe and how do I look for the right type of lathe? And then all the different things in machining utilizing a lathe from external threading, internal threading, boring, reaming, knurling and many other aspects. On a mill, we teach you the same from setup all the way through various operations. So, you’re going to learn A to Z machining through courses from the American Gunsmithing Institute. In those courses, we even take you further and demonstrate many various aspects of building tooling, and also how you would set up a shop, how you read blueprints, et cetera. On the welding side, we teach you everything you need to know about welding. And even if you’ve done welding, you’re going to learn a lot from this. I was actually a teacher’s assistant in welding class way back in the day. And what I found difficult was to show anybody how to weld, because I couldn’t hold their hands and give them the tactile feel. And they really couldn’t look over my shoulder and see exactly what I was doing. So, what we did was we created a special filtering system so that we could take our cameras in and show you close up every aspect of welding. And literally almost in the molten puddle. We bring you in that close and what you’ll see as the instructors explaining and demonstrating, you’ll see the control of the molten puddle, how you control it, how you add the filler rod and every aspect of welding. So, we cover gas welding, stick welding, MIG welding and TIG welding. We cover gas cutting and plasma cutting. And all aspects of welding out of position, setting up your shop, reading welding blueprints and so much more. So, all the information is available to you in these courses. So, you can learn to be a machinist and you can learn to be a welder and they’ll take your gunsmithing skills to the next level.
What are the different types of courses that AGI has available?
Well, AGI has created a number of different courses to answer the needs different people have. So, for example, we have armorer’s level courses for people to maintain and understand their own firearms. And even to be able to potentially do some basic repairs. Remember an armorer is someone that’s only qualified to do maintenance and swap out parts. A gunsmith can do all of that, but they also do repairs and repair parts, make parts and much more. That’s an armorer and we have over 60 different armorer’s courses that encompass families of guns. And some people say to us, “Well, I have a 1911, but mine is stainless.” It doesn’t matter. The 1911 as you’ll see with the cutaways and all of the design and function aspects that we teach in an armorer course even will help you understand how that gun works. And it doesn’t matter what your finish is on the gun, it covers that entire family of guns, even by different manufacturers. Same goes for AR-15’s, Smith & Wesson revolvers and so on. When you understand how a family of firearms work, you literally are able to understand not just your gun, but the thousands of guns that use similar types of systems. And that’s just an armorer’s course. And again, over 60 of those are available, you can find those at www.americangunsmith.com, . Now the next level of course, that we have is what we call our Certified courses. And what we mean, the certified courses is not the Professional Level Gunsmithing Course, but it’s specialty courses. And some of the specialty certifications that we have available are the AGI Certified Glocksmithing course, which is building custom Glocks. We have building the custom 1911 Pistolsmithing course. We have AR-5, M4 riflesmith course. And each of those covers everything from basic reassembly to advanced techniques to customized. And it has its own testing and certification with it. We also have a law enforcement armorer’s course with the same testing and certification on common firearms that are used in law enforcement. We have an AGI Certified firearms appraiser course. Now, firearms appraising is a great add on to any gunsmithing business because people will bring you in their firearms. You’ll appraise them for them using our systematic process. That’ll make you look like a pro from day one. And they’ll now know what their firearms are worth for insurance purposes, for estate purposes, for taxation or in unfortunate cases where divorce or some other reason of separation of assets. So, you’re going to have all these different options for additional certifications. Most of which come with our highest-level course. So the next level course up is our Professional Gunsmithing Level One Course. Now this is the core, the core design, function and repair course where Master Gunsmith, Bob Dunlap and other instructors teach you Design, Function, and Repair in approximately 175 hours of instruction. All on both broad introduction to gunsmithing, handguns, complete D&R of handguns, complete design function, and repair of shotguns, centerfire rifles, and rimfires. So, when you understand all of that, you’ll be able to do all kinds of general repair gunsmithing. And have many of the skills you need for customizing and obviously for maintenance. But beyond that, our next level is what we call Level Two, within that we’ve added in the machine shop course. So, you can learn all about machining and also some other customizing courses. The next level is what we call our Master Level gunsmithing course. And this is obviously our most popular course because it not only has everything below it, all the Design, Function, and Repair Level One, all the Machine shop, all those customizing courses, but it also has the Welding course, the business success package, which includes all different aspects of how to set up your business, how to make it more profitable and so on. It includes certifications on a number of other firearms, such as the in 1911, the AR-15, the Glock for custom building those firearms. And building custom hunting rifles, building custom long range shooting rifles, and as I said, the machine shop course is in there as well and so on. So that Master Level course is an awesome course and has most of the information in it, but we take it up one level and that is the Advanced Master course. The Advanced master gunsmithing course has everything included in the Master Level course. Plus, we’ve done what we call expansion modules. So, each of those expansion modules covers a number of additional firearms in even greater depth and adds to the breadth of the knowledge you have. So, it includes an entire expansion module on handguns where we cover an additional 60 handguns. It covers expansion module on shotguns, where we cover all these additional shotguns. It has the pivot barrel course where we go into advanced, expensive side by side and over under shotguns and all the extra special details you need to understand with those systems. And it also covers an expanded rimfire, and there’s so many different types of rimfire rifles systems. One of the broadest use of systems is within the rimfire families. So, there’s all of that and the entire armorer’s course library and other additional courses that we’ve added just to the Advanced Master course. So if you want it all, you want the whole nine yards, enroll in the Advanced Master course. If you can only get started, start with a Professional Level One course that has that core Design, Function repair. And if you can’t get involved with any of that, well then we do have Armorer’s courses for your individual firearms because we’re trying to preserve America’s freedoms and America’s firearms by keeping them functioning. And those courses will help you immensely. So, the American Gunsmithing Institute has a course level that’s appropriate for you. And more than that, we have the Gunsmithing Club of America, which is an ongoing opportunity, an ongoing membership, where you can share with other like-minded individuals, and get monthly video instruction and training and access to an amazing archive. So, we welcome you to become an AGI professional gunsmithing student, we welcome you to get what video courses you need to maintain your own firearms. And we welcome you into the community of the Gunsmithing Club of America.
How long has the American Gunsmithing Institute been teaching gunsmithing and doesn’t the information get outdated?
The American Gunsmithing Institute has been teaching gunsmithing since 1993. At that time, I recognized that there was a huge gap in the educational system, where you could only learn gunsmithing by going to a campus-based school or some cheesy kind of booklet gunsmithing programs. And at that time I realized I really couldn’t recommend either because most people can’t just give up their job, move across the country and spend thousands or tens of thousands of dollars on their education. There had to be a better way. And that’s why we created the American Gunsmithing Institute. Another factor though, was that Master Gunsmith, Bob Dunlap, who used to teach at a gunsmithing school was retiring and he developed the design, function, repair system. And we wanted to preserve that system for our students and future generations. So, in 1993, we launched the American Gunsmithing Institute, and Bob’s teaching of systems and helping you to understand systems is evergreen. It’s going to be the same tomorrow, the next day and so on. And it’s going to be as relevant as the day, he taught it. For example, a 1911 45 automatic pistol. A bedrock firearm that we teach you is the single-action lock breach automatic system. We use that firearm. That gun has been around in almost unchanged form, other than cosmetically for over a hundred years. And Lord willing, it’ll be around a hundred years from now. That gun uses systems and many other firearms use the systems that it uses. They just look a little different. So, once you learn each of the systems, utilize our building-block approach. When we teach you a single action lock breach automatic locking system using a link system, then when we teach you the cam lock system, such as used on a Browning high power or on a Glock pistol, you don’t have to learn everything that’s the same all over again. We just teach you the differences. And that helps understand all these different firearm systems. And you’ll be able to identify those systems, even as they’re brought out in new firearms. Because you see there aren’t that many new systems. Most new firearms that come out are using variations on previously existing systems. Many of them were designed originally by John Browning himself. So, the material does not become dated. And the best thing is through our video programs, you are able to learn directly through classic video from Master Gunsmith, Bob Dunlap himself. So, you get the same experience that I got when I went through gunsmithing school, under the Grandmaster Bob Dunlap. But you don’t have all the wasted time and you can review it as often as you need to. So that’s the reason why what we teach at the American Gunsmithing Institute is not going to ever be outdated.
How do I access my course testing?
To access your Course testing you will first need to log into your AGI Student Portal account using the link at the top right corner of the website. From there you can simply click on the red “Access Your Course(s)” button and you will automatically be taken to your online learning portal and your testing material will be accessible there. If you are unable to access your course in this manner you may call 1-800-797-0867 for additional assistance.
Ready to get started?
Request information about Welding — DVD at Distance Education / Napa Administrative Office.
Welding — DVD