The American Custom Gunmakers Guild has a system in place for recording the details about the building of custom guns by its members. This is called ‘Hallmarking’ and it is administered by the Guild’s historian. It is very similar to what the gun collecting fraternity would call a ‘factory letter’. The process is simple; the maker supplies the details to the historian and a document is created listing all of the specifications about the gun. the type of wood, the length of pull, the weight, the checkering lines per inch, the barrel length, the type of stock finish etc. Of course the advantage of hallmarking the gun at the time of its completion is all of this information is recorded with the historian, and at anytime years later a new owner may request a copy of the document to verify that the gun is unaltered from the original makers specifications; much the same as a factory letter from Colt or Winchester provides for collectable guns. The cost for this option is $30.00.

The Dallas Safari Club show is just around the corner. It runs January 5th thru the 8th. For the first time ever over 30 ACGG members will be displaying in a special ‘Gunmakers’ section. Although this IS NOT an official ACGG event, the Guild itself will have a table there to greet attendees and explain our mission. YOU will have an opportunity to join as an Associate member and receive ‘GUNMAKER’ which is the Guilds official publication and Journal. Gunmaker is 40 pages dedicated to the building of the highest quality firearms written by the gunmakers them selves.

There are feature articles, large format photos, and page after page of technical tips dealing with all kinds of shop secrets.

Be sure to stop by the Guilds table and see the current raffle project which is a wonderful double gun, and for goodness sake if you have heard about Gunmaker magazine, this will be your opportunity to see it in person and join the Guild. If you enjoy fine custom made sporting guns you won’t want to miss this opportunity.

The Guilds official show will be in Sparks Nevada at the Nugget Casino January 20-21-22 , and it is also well worth a visit. Starting in 2013 the Guild will hold its official exhibition inside the Dallas Safari Club show.

This is the 2012 custom gun calendar….  featuring the work of ACGG members

The good people at Brownell’s have created this and all of the proceeds will benefit the ACGG Education Foundation. The Foundation does good work focusing on educating the future gunmakers of America and helping and assisting the various gunsmithing schools. Price is $15.00 and they can be purchased directly from Brownell’s or thru the Guild, or at either the ACGG exhibition in Sparks Nevada (Jan. 20-21-22) or at the Dallas Safari club show ( Gunmakers area Jan. 5-6-7-8) .

If you appreciate fine gun work and hope that fine gunmaking has a future in America than buy a calendar (you need one anyhow)…and be sure to thank the good folks at Brownell’s.

Once again Al Lofgren of Michigan is the stockmaker and Brian Hochstrat of Idaho is the engraver, I am the metalsmith and metalfinisher.These photos were taken during the metal finishing process. A part of which included doing a deep etch rust blue on the back ground areas of the engraving. As I mentioned the metal finishing is ‘in process’; once completed the background will be a very dark black, the gold will sparkle and the raise steel sculpts will be french grey..

You can see the completed and finished rifle at the annual ACGG exhibtion in Sparks Nevada in January. I’ll post photos of the finished work after the exhibition.

Here is a photo of good friend and client Richard Gerding with an elephant taken in September. The ivory goes an incredible  70.4 and 72.6 pounds on this tusker. The rifle Richard used is an original Mauser sporting rifle type B , built in 1911 and in the original 10.75 x 68mm caliber. The rifle came through my shop last year for a complete 100% wood and metal restoration and some front sight work. The Elephant fell to a single brain shot and Richard also reports he used it while participating in following up a lion wounded by another hunter.

I am really happy to have played a small part in Richard being able to use a splendid vintage rifle which is exactly 100 years old to take one of Africas big five.  The elephant was taken in the Kazuma/Pandamasui area of N.W. Zimbabwe.

Here is another photo of Richard with a cape buffalo taken with a rifle we named ‘old ugly’. This is a VZ-24 Mauser built in .458 Win. Mag. using a Douglas premium barrel and a Bell and Carlson Medalsit stock (Yes, I have some experience with ‘other’ synthetic stocks). This Buff was taken in the Cheridzi Conservancy in S.E. Zimbabwe. Richard was on safari with ‘Buffalo Ranger Safari’s’. By the way the buffalo measures 40 1/2 inches wide. Way to go Richard.

The photo here is of an E.J. Churchill 20 bore shotgun stocked by Jerry Fisher and in my shop for stock refinishing.  You can notice that I am using a clean piece of t-shirt for the rubbing and that I use a coffee can plastic lid to hold just enough oil for the current session of polishing. The salt-pepper shaker holds ‘rotten stone’ which is the flour like substance used for the polishing. With this set up I can easliy dip the t-shirt pad into the oil – rub it on the stock and ‘shake’ just enough rotten stone on the stock for the polishing effort. The ‘polishing’ oil for this stock is a product called ‘Velvit Oil’ ; which is the original oil finish that Jerry used. Often depending on the particular project other ‘polishing-rubbing-finishing oils’ will be mixed up.

I am very happy to announce that I am in the final phase of testing a new item for my offerings. After years of disgust in observing the rather poor design and construction of synthetic stocks I am very happy to tell you just how impressed I am with the D’Arcy Echols carbon fibre ‘Legend’ stock. This is a well thought out product, its construction is excellent and the design is top notch. Not only that but its appearance is excellent and I am happy to now offer these as an option for my clients.

Don’t misunderstand me too quickly; I am not in the synthetic stock business. The D’Arcy Echols Legend is the only product I’ll work with.

I honestly never thought that I would be working with synthetic stocks but so many clients who are very serious hunters kept asking, and finally the Echols Legend came on the market. With such a good product availible, it didn’t make any sense to not offer it as an option for my clients.

This began at last years Safari Club show with a meeting with D’Arcy and Brian and looking at the product. Last March I began building my prototype rifle. The rifle you are looking at is a Pre-64 Winchester M-70 in .300 Win. Mag. the barrel is by Krieger and this one has bottom metal from Duane Wiebe, and has a custom checkered bolt handle knob. The metal finish is cold rust blue.

I completed this rifle in August and have been testing it now for over a month; so far I have 120 rounds through it and am delighted with the performance.

At the Dallas Safari Club show and Convention in Dallas January 5-8 2012, I’ll be offering this as an additional option for my clients.

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Here is a skirting package for Color case hardening a Jerry Fisher 1 screw grip cap. The purpose of the skirting is to help hold the color producing charcoal against the parts during the quench process. It is only a bit of theory; but as the 1400 degree part goes into the quench a ‘steam pocket’ develops around the part as it enters the quech. The steam pocket is not a good thing regarding getting good colors so inorder to ‘break up’ the steam pocket during the mini-micro second of the quench process an air hose is run into the quench and the air flow makes the quench bubble quite a bit, the bubbling quench helps to break the steam pocket – but it also washes the color producing charcoal away from the quenching part. So inorder to help hold the charcoal against the part for just a touch longer we use ‘skirts’ around the part to hold the charchoal. The bubbling air flow breaks the steam pocket – the skirt holds the charcoal against the effect of the bubbling air flow….I hope that makes some sense.

Here is the ‘assembled package’

And here it is going into the crucible, ready to be packed with charcoal and ‘cooked for 2 hours at 1400 degrees”.

This is the end result; the yellow and rose colors are an indication that we did indeed hold the charcoal against the part well..