...or How I Spent My Summer Vacation. As part of fulfilling a lifelong dream of custom gun building, I recently completed my first semester at Trinidad State Junior College and am halfway through a summer apprenticeship with D'Arcy Echols and Co., of Millville, Utah. Working with D'Arcy has been an eye opening experience. Some of the things we do at his shop are light years beyond anything that we are learning at Trinidad or what I've seen in any printed material. (That isn't a swipe at the Trinidad school, it is an excellent school for learning the basic skills that are vital to be a success in the trade) For example, I took a few of my own personal rifles down to D'Arcy's shop to learn to do some trigger work on them. Two of the rifles are pre-64 Model 70s in .30-06, one of them my grandfather's rifle which has killed numerous mule deer, whitetail, coyotes, skunks, raccoons, and about every other miscellaneous varmint that can be found on a Montana ranch. I've used that Model 70 for years with no problems at all. It fed perfectly (or so I thought), it was accurate, and it was the Rifleman's Rifle. The trigger was a little creepy so I stripped the gun down and asked D'Arcy to show me how to stone the trigger. He looked at me with one of those, "What in the hell did they teach you at that school?" looks and then proceeded to examine the fit of the trigger and sear pins which was a bit on the loose side. The bolt stop had always been rough to operate on this rifle which I learned was due to an undersized pin and an oversized hole which would allow it to wander around and bind. We proceeded to put the receiver in a special Burgess receiver jig and punched out the hole to a size which we had determined would give the best fit for the trigger and bolt stop without binding up. We then attached the trigger to a special jig and punched out its hole, checked the parts for fit, put the trigger back in the jig, place it on a surface plate, measured the sear engagement, placed the jigged trigger on the magnetic base of the surface grinder, ground it to the optimum engagement measurement, reassemble, and then checked the pull for weight and consistency. We also checked the firing pin sear surface angle and the firing pin safety engagement angle for optimum angles. On this rifle these were ok but if they were not we would have milled or ground them till they were right. We also checked the amount of movement of the firing pin when the safety was engaged and disengaged. To make a long story short my "perfect" rifle now has a trigger pull that is exactly 3 lbs, absolutely crisp, safe, and only varies by a few ounces when the safety is engaged and disengaged. And all with no stones, clipping of springs, valve grinding compound, virgin maiden's oil or all of the other home remedies one finds on the internet. And then we made it feed cartridges like I've never had a rifle feed before.

Brian Bingham

XL Bar,

Great info regarding the trigger work! But, don't stop there tells us more...Like how you and D'Arcy made your rifle feed cartridges flawlessly.

Regards,
Dave

I'll second that request.

XL Bar, I really enjoyed your post. You're part of a great gunmaking tradition, the likes of which helped mould D'Arcy himself in the early days of his career when he attended and graduated from Colorado School of Trades, apprenticed under masters like Jerry Fisher, developed a close and lasting professional bond with Tom Burgess, and D'Arcy has continually networked with other fine riflesmiths through the years, plus he shoots and hunts A LOT. He never lets moss gather, has never been bound by tradition, and yet he's never forgotten his "Classic School" roots.

That's part of the reason why ALL of my big game rifles are Echols-built. There has never been a riflemaker I trust or respect more than D'Arcy, and since he and I are the same age, when he retires from riflemaking, I'll retire from getting rifles built..........

AD

XL,

Glad to hear that we'll soon have another smith on par with D'Arcy. Love to hear more from you and him on what your learning.

Just make sure that you don't let D'Arcy near the computer without proper supervision. I swear that he has an aura of computer malfunctions about him.

Tell him Lisa says hi!

-Steve

I`m jealous, a action reworked in D`Arcy`s shop for free and getting a education from a master while doing it!
You have no idea how many would die to be in your shoes...........

XL,

Way to go. I too am envious. I had a similar opportunity but could not accept at the time due to a new child. A man has got to have his priorities, or so they tell me.

Still, I have to say that through the contacts I've made on this forum I've gotten a far better education than I ever did at school. And you just contributed.

I'd be interested in seing what Mark Stratton ends up teaching next year at Trinidad.

Thanks for sharing.

Not only that he is a super human being...I think his first job was working for Jack Belk..George Hoffman and I used to get a kick out of ragging on him at Dallas about plastic stocked rifles, both of us knowing full well that they were probably the best plastic stocked rifles made and hey D'Arcy can make a fair to middlin wood stock if he puts his mind to it! I miss old George and I am sure D'Arcy does too...

The time spent with D'Arcy would be hard to put a value on... I too wish I was in your shoes.

Be sure and plug the off ear so what he tells you doesn't run out the other side...LOL...

There is immense value in getting Mr. Echols' procedures down on paper the way you did with the M70 trigger. There are so many skills and techniques that are passed down orally and never get documented. Sure, writing it up is not the same as seeing it done, but it is still precious information. Imagine if Pope, Schoyen and Hubalek had detailed their barrelmaking methods, how we would treasure that data today.