As many know by know, the incredible riflemaker Tom Burgess passed away last year. His son Chris is attempting to locate the owners of various rifles which are still at Tom's shop. Please pass the word around so that anyone who had a rifle at Tom's shop can arrange to get it back. Thank you.



Tom M. Burgess, riflemaker, died August,2008 in Kalispell, Montana. At the time of death he was in possession of personal property entrusted to him for various work. If you have a claim to any property entrusted to Tom M. Burgess contact his son Chris at(406) 755-0433 no later than June 30, 2009. You may also email Chris:

chris(AT)jbursolutions.com

Well, not only was Tom Burgess a true gentleman and craftsman of the first order, but it seems that he has raised a son to be proud of.

RIP Tom.

John

Absolutely.

Chris is a great guy and is working very hard to sort through everything Tom had and get it back to the right people. I want to personally applaud him for his efforts.

Red

With all due respect to Tom,I wonder what will happen to his ideas and his methods and his blueprints and his way of doing things. He manufactured many very useful and attractive items for the trade and it would be nice if someone were to continue on with those traditions.

I understand that somebody is (or at least was, in 2008) indeed making rings to the Burgess design (with his blessing).

I cannot recall the name though...

It would be nice if some of Tom's other items like his safety were also manufactured (and hopefully with a share of the profits going to his fine son... see above!)

John

quote:

Originally posted by 22WRF:
With all due respect to Tom,I wonder what will happen to his ideas and his methods and his blueprints and his way of doing things. He manufactured many very useful and attractive items for the trade and it would be nice if someone were to continue on with those traditions.

I hope that they aren't copyrighted.

quote:

Originally posted by gzig5:

quote:

Originally posted by 22WRF:
With all due respect to Tom,I wonder what will happen to his ideas and his methods and his blueprints and his way of doing things. He manufactured many very useful and attractive items for the trade and it would be nice if someone were to continue on with those traditions.

I hope that they aren't copyrighted.

Thankyou all for your kind words for my brother Chris and our dad. I wish to assure every one that my mother and Chris are intent to conserve and propagate all we find of dads methods, but customers pieces parts and assemblies are the first priority. We are trying not to disturb jigs, fixtures and the notes laying all about but it is a daunting task. For example there are probably 100-200 notes and calculations scrawled on matchbook covers and the back of "Far Side" day calendar cartoons in the vicinity of one fixture or another. (ok, I admit I often get distracted by the cartoons). As you might expect there is a lot of cause for happy and sad reminiscing in this process. The vast majority of the burden falls on Chris as I'm one state and 4 hours west. Again thanks for your patience and appreciation.

ThossonM

I once had the pleasure of visiting with your Dad in his shop for the better part of an afternoon. I enjoyed it very much, especially the stories your Dad told about his younger days in Washington State, and his dealings with Jack O'Conner. But I couldn't figure out how your Dad found anything in there. He certainly did have a distinctive filing system!

One thing some of these "visitors" might want to consider is this. How much time do you take away from a craftman's schedule when you spend and entire day or half day BS'ing with the guy. Have you ever considered paying him or her for the time spent at his hourly rate? I know a lawyer would charge handsomely!

Mr. Kobe

I did consider the amount of time I spent with Tom. While I was there I constantly asked him if he would prefer that I leave so that he could get going with some work and he kept telling me he would like me to stay. Once he warmed up to you Tom was a very gracious man. Through more email communication I learned Tom really enjoyed visiting with people, and he enjoyed talking about his youth and about his escapades in the gunsmith business.

And I did in a sense pay him for his time in that I ordered a set of his custom scope rings and left the money to pay for them. It took awhile to get them, but they were worth the wait. Sadly, I later sold them, which was a bad mistake on my part. I don't think I have ever visited with a Gunsmith that I didn't place an order for something or leave some work for something. In fact, I think that visiting your gunsmith when you have work should be the norm. It might take a bit more time for the gunsmith to visit with his customers, but in the long run it might alleviate many of these problems that we seem to be reading about more and more here on AR where folks are having trouble with their projects, or Smiths are having trouble with their customers. You wouldn't buy a new car without going to drive it, and your wife wouldn't buy a new dress without going to try it on. Why shouldn't a person visit with his provider and get the details squared away in person. And then of course its the Smith's perogative to tell the customer if he is busy and doesn't have time to visit.

Many lawyers do charge for their time when visiting with people. I surely don't. In fact, I don't charge clients for any of the time they spend speaking with me, either at my office or by phone. I don't want them to be afraid to communicate with their lawyer.

Gosh, you sure are a sensitive type. You must have thought it was you I was referring to.

Why you haven't been in my shop since I threw you out a few years back so it must not have been you I was referring to.

quote:

Originally posted by Jim Kobe:
Gosh, you sure are a sensitive type. You must have thought it was you I was referring to.

Why you haven't been in my shop since I threw you out a few years back so it must not have been you I was referring to.

You didn't throw me out. You advised me you didn't want to do work for me after I complained that the action I left for you to surface grind sat in your shop for well over a year and a half before I got pissed off enough to come out and get it. After recently seeing some huge gaps in the inletting of one of your rifles, and one of your bolt welding jobs, I am glad I did come out and get that action before you ruined it for me. Its a good thing, because since then I have found a couple of folks who have done work done for me that far exceed the quality of work you do, and they didn't take a year and a half to tell me they "didn't get to it yet".

Once again the man has to resort to lies to get his position into favor.

Good luck on the next election, judge.

Mr. Kobe

The election was just last november, and if you would have went to the polls you would have seen that I was not on the ballot. I am not a judge.

Do you deny that you had my 1909 Argentine action in your shop for a year and a half without ever having done anything to it, and that I had to call you and come out and get it? If you do, it is you that is the liar.

This thread was turning out to be a nice little tribute to Tom Burgess until you stuck your nose into it. Shame on you.

How about showing some respect to Mr. Burgess and his family and take your fight to another thread.