LIVE OAK, Fla. — Nick Garrett didn’t believe it at first.

Even after he talked with a producer from a Discovery Channel show “Master of Arms” twice, Garrett still didn’t believe he was actually going to appear on the national cable weapons competition show.

“It largely seemed surreal,” Garrett said last week prior to his episode’s debut last Friday. “I told my wife I really didn’t take it seriously until they sent me the plane ticket.

“I just figured what are the odds that they’re actually going to fly me out here and have me do this.”

But they did and so did Garrett.

Working at Pickett Weaponry in Newberry the past 22 years, Garrett is used to building and working on weapons. However, the show did offer its challenges to the professional gunsmith.

The episode that Garrett was on, the contestants were asked to build a blunderbuss, a short-barreled firearm, the show described as the father of the modern day shotgun.

“In terms of the challenges that you’re asked to build, working with wood and metal is wood and metal,” Garrett said. “I guess to me it doesn’t really matter what the shape is. The hardest part was being in a new workshop … I’m just very use to my equipment.

“For me, the most challenging part was to walk into a new workshop with tools, in some cases, that I had never seen before and have a very short period of time to build something that I had never seen before and do it with a video camera in your face.”

Still, Garrett admits that once the competition began, so did a sense of normalcy.

“But once they said go and it was just time to work, other than the tools being different, it felt comfortable,” he said. “It felt like the same thing I do every day, which is make things, fix things.

“This was really interesting and a fun experience.”

Fun enough that Garrett hopes he can do it again. He said he’s already let one of the producers know he’d be interested if there’s a reunion episode or another challenge that fits his experience.

While the episode originally aired last week, it can be viewed online at https://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/master-of-arms/.