My company has interest in a power plant in Boron CA and I've been "selected" to manage a major gas turbine repair there. I have Wednesday afternoon free so I emailed Butch Searcy and asked if I could visit his shop there and he said "yes". This is going to be interesting and probably expensive!

I am fairly jealous!

jeffe

Make him take you to his Mexican restaurant. You pay for lunch!-Rob

Fjord:

My father, who just bought a .577 from Butch, will be out there this Friday for his fitting and final selection of his engraving.

He's more excited than a kid on Christmas Eve!

quote:

Originally posted by Robgunbuilder:
Make him take you to his Mexican restaurant. You pay for lunch!-Rob

And have him show you his Corvette in the back room.

Above all else, be sure you take $5K with you for a deposit on a rifle.

Bring a camera with you just in case he says you can take pictures of some of his projects in development.

Stop by in Vegas and buy old Butch a nice girl! You'll get 2K off and Butch Too!-Rob

I got to visit Butch today. What a great host, 5 minutes after meeting him I felt like I had known him for years. Coincidently, back in 1989-1990 he was a welder building one of the plants that I now work with.

He showed me his operation (The Corvette was under a cover) and explained how his shop worked. He had four barreled monoblocs on one of the tables without the ribs installed and it was great to see how everything went together. Especially since there were three different calibers involved. I got to see the wood he had stored for stocks and the pantograph that he built for stockmaking. He had one of his guys hand fitting the action to a stock blank while I was there and you can easily see with all that hand labor why they cost what they do.

The highlight was getting to handle some of the guns that he had completed and now I understand why people covet them so. Forget the second shot and all that, it's the way the double jumps to the shoulder and lines everything up almost by itself that makes the difference.
A 10.5 Lb double rifle feels totally different than a 10.5 Lb bolt rifle. I think that after my first trip to Africa, buying one of Butch's 470's is going to be a goal of mine.

Butch gave me one of his logo hats as a souvenir and offered to let me shoot some of the guns if I'm in town when he's doing range testing. You can bet I'm going to stop in everytime I'm in town just to say "Hi".

If you guys get the opportunity (like Boron is on anyone's way) you owe it to yourself to see and handle some of these guns. Your attitude will quickly change from "I don't need one" to "how do I get one?"

I was there last week. All above is accurate. Butch and staff are top notch, no BS, nothing to hide, have it your way kinda place!

I'm getting a "Deluxe" Sidelock model .470 for competitions and hunting. Butch got me measured and feeling good about my choice of model and wood....Dirk the head gun smith (After Butch) is very committed to excellence and is way-sharp on the historic perspective of gun design and performance.

If you are serious about DRs and want a great looking rifle that is a "shooter" first, then butch is really the best option out there....He competes & wins, hunts and makes the rifles he uses - where else can you get that in a Double rifle maker.

Looking forward to taking him on in competition!!!

Jeff

Jeff, I saw the wood that you picked out for your rifle and all I have to say is "good choice"!

Frank,

Butch made me do it!!!

Which model are you getting?

JW

Did you guys see my almost finished 470/12 Ga with the feather English stock?

I handled your 12 guage barrels! The ribs are on, the bores are threaded for the choke tubes but they're still in the white. I told Butch that the 470/12 was exactly the combination that I wanted!

Yeah, and I used your stock to pound in my tent stakes when I camped behind the shop!!!

Ha, ha, hope you have a sense of humor!!

Didn't see it during my visit,

JW

Jeff

Frank,

Bring that "honey" along when we go to shoot our DRs sometime OK!!!?

JW

Jeff, the wood is hard enough not to be scratched when using it as a hammer.

Speaking of "hard wood"....Hozabout that video clip on Frank's signature....and we're all worried about the size of our trophy animal racks....Frank obviously has his priorities straight....the rest of us...well, ????

quote:

Originally posted by Jeff Wemmer:
Speaking of "hard wood"....Hozabout that video clip on Frank's signature....and we're all worried about the size of our trophy animal racks....Frank obviously has his priorities straight....the rest of us...well, ????

She'll make wood hard enough to pound nails with too!

Amen brother!!