Don,

I have a question for you that semi relates to this thread.

Part of my business is running sales training. If you like, we give the salesman some "custom" or "Echols" treatment.

Now these blokes have an income that depends directly on their work efforts, attitudes etc.

They can literally earn from $0 to the sky is the limit.

Now let us say that one of those salesman is interested in guns and is only in his low 20s.

Is he better served by me saying to him "look you are only young and won't make much money, so stick with the idea of getting an old 303 or M96 in 6.5 X 55"

I can assure you that is the worse thing that can be done. He needs to be thinking BMW, Echols, house on the waterfront etc. otherwise he may as well just have a 9 to 5 job or some other low income work and join the masses.

In my opinion, anyone who does not strive for the top things, wastes the opportunities provided by countries such as America and Australia.

Mike

It must be your society. Here independence is first.

I am a sales rep also. I ignore the promotions or turn them in for cash. I got a free fax machine and mileage allowance. Show me the money. I am self motivated.

I strive to be first or best also. It just never occured to me that someone needed to get a hunting rifle's screws turned. I always thought a custom gunsmith was for nice wood or barrel fitting.

I looked for those issues of the rifle that Allen listed and I fould numbers very close to #151 but not it and gave up. I really don't care what John Barness said about another product anyway. Did you ever read anything negative about a product in a gun rag? They all just kiss up and try to get loaners or work done free. The only ones that ever told the truth were Finn Aaguard and Elmer.

Don said:

It must be your society. Here independence is first.

Even more so over here. Australians are well known for fixing things with fencing wire. For example, our country people don't have your luxury of being near other people and towns and the John Deere place is a long way away

But if your logic was followed though you would dump that Pre 64 for good money and buy a 303 SMLE and pout the difference in the bank.

As a 30/06 man the 303 caliber will be fine for you. 10 shot detachable magazine, the fastest of all bolt actions. In fact you could have real independence beause you could buy a few of them with your Pre 64 sale proceeds.

As I pointed out to you in a previous post many bench shooters can chamber their own barrels but still like to own Stolle and Nesika Bay actions.

The funadmental difference between us, is that I and others strive to avoid having to fix stuff as much as possible.

In addition it is often far more profitable to have someone doing something else for you, which in turn increases your available time to earn money.

You mentioned on an earlier post about making some impellor for the water heater. You would be better off if you went out and made a lot of money and paid someone far less than you made to to that for you.

You also seem to be under the impression that you could do the metal work better than Echols. If you could then you would be able to get hundreds of dollars for making a set a scope mounts rather than fiddling about with the water heater.

Mike

[ 08-19-2002, 07:38: Message edited by: Mike375 ]

This is an interesting discussion.

Maybe this is another way to look at it:

Most factory guns work adequately. Some people, apparently including Don, are lucky with them and never get one that breaks or has accuracy problems. If you know you are one of those people (I am not), stick with factory rifles and put the money saved into stocks now while they are cheap.

Some factory guns break. That is unsurprising, all products break sometimes. Whether it is a gun or a car, the average person just maintains it adequately and then gets it fixed. If having to do this occasionally is acceptable to you, you can get by and deal with problems as they arise. Most of the time they won't.

The next level up is to take the factory product and analyze the components that are known to be inadequate or prone to failure, and fix or replace them preemptively. So we glass-bed the action, replace factory triggers with proven designs that are crisper and more reliable, lap the locking lugs, tighten pistol slides, etc.

The utmost level is to take the firearm apart piece by piece and analyze how to remake or redesign components that might pose a problem -- i.e., trying to go one better than the factory. As I read the articles on Echols rifles, or Larry Vickers pistols, etc., this is what they do.

Whether it is worth it depends on how much you are willing to spend to avoid problems that may or may not ever occur in the same gun as it comes out of the factory box.

One question I had about the Echols product specifically -- Echols said in one of the Rifle articles that he only builds the Legend for belted magnums because "we know how to make them feed." That comment has always hit me a little strange -- since non-belted, rimless cartridges have been around even longer and are theoretically simpler, why don't "we" know how to make THEM feed?

John

Listen, if you've got a problem with something I've said, why don't you spell it out in plain English instead of acting like someone who needs to hide behind a gimmick of some sort.

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