the artistry of his prose is astounding. , , .those four sentences on technical vs. crude are so subtly brilliant . .

Though, it turns out that the story is Johnny Mnemonic (http://lib.ru/GIBSON/j_mnem.txt). I misremembered and he only makes his own ammo. This is the opening paragraph:

“I put the shotgun in an Adidas bag and padded it out with four pairs of
tennis socks, not my style at all, but that was what I was aiming for:
If they think you’re crude, go technical; if they think you’re
technical, go crude. I’m a very technical boy. So I decided to get as
crude as possible. These days, thought, you have to be pretty technical
before you can even aspire to crudeness. I’d had to turn both those
twelve-gauge shells from brass stock, on the lathe, and then load then
myself; I’d had to dig up an old microfiche with instructions for hand-
loading cartridges; I’d had to build a lever-action press to seat the
primers -all very tricky. But I knew they’d work.”