Daniel Casey has spent more than two decades at the anvil. Here is how a kid with a library card and a homemade forge became one of the best-known traditional gunsmiths and bladesmiths in the country, told through his own words and the reporters who have covered him along the way.
A forge made from a brake drum
Daniel grew up in Beebe, Arkansas, and was home-schooled by his parents, Joe and Janie Casey. He read every book on pioneers, long hunters and the frontier he could find, and noticed something the heroes in those books had in common: every one of them depended on a blacksmith or gunsmith.
At 12 he built his first forge out of an old Chevy brake drum, with his little brother Charlie working the blower. By 14 he had built a better one with family friend Tom Harvell. He later traded farm labor to homesteader Rex Harral in exchange for lessons in mountain crafts, forge welding and tool making.
Learning from Hershel House
As a teenager Daniel watched instructional videos made by Kentucky gunsmith Hershel House and was hooked. He went on to spend several summers in Kentucky learning knifemaking and gunsmithing from House and his brothers. Speaking to THV11 in 2016, Daniel said it was House’s work, his methods and the “character and aura that went with him” that drew him in (KTHV report via WUSA9).
In his late teens Daniel also worked as a blacksmithing demonstrator at the Historic Arkansas Museum in Little Rock, according to the museum’s longtime director, Bill Worthen, in a 2016 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette profile.
A newspaper story that changed everything
In 2013 Daniel’s wife, Chelsey, convinced him to invite the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette to his shop. The feature that followed caught the eye of producers, and in early 2015 Matt Ayres of Half-Yard Productions came calling. That led to a three-day test shoot and, eventually, Daniel’s own History Channel series, Iron & Fire, which premiered on April 11, 2016.
The show followed Daniel, his brother Charlie Casey and his nephew Jonathan Kulik as they built flintlock rifles, tomahawks, a replica of the original Bowie knife and more. In that 2016 Democrat-Gazette interview, Daniel described rifles and pistols from the 1770s to the 1830s as the shop’s specialty, and said nothing leaves the shop unless it meets his standard.
Heirlooms, not products
Daniel builds every piece to order. He told THV11 that a single gun can take anywhere from 300 to 1,000 hours, that shaping the stock is his favorite part of the job, and that he wants customers to see what he makes as a family heirloom.
Casey Arms today
Daniel and Chelsey founded Casey Arms during the final months of filming Iron & Fire in 2015. After the series, Daniel competed on History’s Forged in Fire in Season 5. In March 2022 he launched the Casey Arms YouTube channel to show how his pieces are made by hand, and he continues to take custom commissions and teach small, private classes at his shop in Romance, Arkansas.
Want the longer version in Daniel’s own words? Read his About page, or see the full list of coverage on our In the News page.