Anyone shoot rifles made by Lon Paul? Tell me about him and his work.

Loon has made several rifles for me, including my .505 Gibbs. .500 Jeffrey, .450 Watts, .318 Westley Richards and .350 Rigby Magnum. He is a consummate craftsman and his rifles perform flawlessly. Ask Phil Shoemaker.

several years ago , the chapuis DR I bought in an AR group buy from dale nygaard developed a 20 lb rear trigger pull,, sent it back to dale for repair, and because he had a shoulder repair issue he sent it to lon paul… lon paul repaired it,, he does great work..

What do you need to know about him ?
He is a one man shop, highly knowledgeable about most guns, can repair most and if you like older American classics like G&H or early 1900's English guns he has few peers.

Lon is a great guy and builds a great rifle. I bought a 9.3x64 he built for another client. I wanted a little background on the rifle and gave Lon a call... he spent an hour on the phone with me discussing that particular gun. As Phil said, his work on my rifle has classic, clean English lines, functions flawlessly and is accurate. Can't go wrong IMO.

Ross,

Lon's work is fantastic. He built a 375 WBY for me and has customized or repaired several others for me. If you are willing to put in the time and the cash he will build you an amazing example of understated elegance. I don't get goose bumps over guns but the 7x57 Lon built and I handled recently before it went to the owner made me consider if I really needed two kidneys or not.

Mark

I got to meet one of Mark's client's and a customer of Lon's in Zim. He had two Lon Paul customs along and I got the same feeling as Mark. Champagne taste on a beer budget sucks for me. I have handled some pretty nice machinery and Lon's stuff would have to be at the very top.

He is as good as they come, Ive seen and even shot some of his guns, second to none..

I have the .505 Gibbs he has on his photo webpage. It performs flawlessly and is very accurate. It's built on a Vector action. I believe Lon has had a setback as he lost his shop in one of the wild fires. I certainly wish him the best.

Lon is a hell of a guy..great craftsman. I have not heard much after his Fire years back.

I have been friends with Lon for quite some time and shared many hunting camps with him.
When people ask me how he is doing after the fire I always tell them he will never recover

He is still building guns !

And as good as ever! One of Lon's talents is his eye for detail. He can build a Rigby style, that once fooled Paul Roberts!, or a Holland and Holland, or a Wesley Richards, or a Jeffery style. They are not all simply
"Rigby style" as many think.
But he like American G&H style and has his own style as well.

Lots of good words about Lon Paul.

I can only add one small addition. A while back he posted an extremely nice rifle on the .375 H&H Facebook page that in my mind was perfect in every way.

I was impressed by how open he was to questions. Yes I suppose one could say he was doing a little advertising but he seemed to be a very nice guy and patiently answered every question with a complete answer. I only wish I could have afforded to have him build me one just like it.

Lon built my first "expensive" rifle; a ZKK 602 Mauser custom in 458 Lott. It was a gorgeous piece.If you want to know anything about original Rigby rifles, or have one restored, Lon is the man to go to.

I had Lon rebuild a Win M70 Stainless Classic in .338WinMag so that it would hold 4+1 for personal use and backing up moose and bear hunters.

Had two failures to feed in the first 100 rounds but the next 1500+ have been flawless and I've run it hard and soft, slow and fast, rain or shine, clean and dirty, upsidedown, on Wednesday, and six other days in the week, and it's about due for a new barrel because I've shot the crap out of it.

The man knows how to make a bolt action work.

Nobody ever called you a slow learner Mike !

Thanks for the info and to Biebs for putting me in touch with him. Just sent one rifle to him to take a look at (an old Rigby). Will be talking about a project as well. He is a pleasure to talk to. Knows his stuff!