.........or you can buy a lathe, jigs, fixtures, mics, gauges and reamers for about $20g's and build a bunch of them. It will save you about $350 each.
Depends on the Smith. Some of them are sticking it to people quite good. I stay away from smiths that just do complete builds and stay away from any other work on rifles. I don't care what their excuse is, it's like dealing with building contractors that don't want to come on a job and get paid a hourly rate for hourly work. They want to give a number for the whole thing and would rather you not be around when they did it. I've sent three contractors a$$'s down the road in the past 4 months untill I found one willing to give a days work for a days pay. Do the research and check pricing, remember smith works for you. He is paying his bills and playing with your and others money. Just like anyone else, some how in the past two to three years. I've been catching a bit of a attitude from some smith's I have talked to spread out across the country.
They seam to have the attitude of , send me your money and ill get to it when I get to it. Basically the attitude of they are doing you a favor. Screw those type of smith, I have 4 smiths I've stuck with over the years. 5 others smiths I had build rifles and will never deal with them again. I've had to send new builds to other smiths just to get the work right. I've had smiths instal a 7mm Vais Arms brake on a .300 Win Mag complete tactical build Rem700, McM A5, Krieger. After shooting the rifle and figuring it out after nothing making it to the target and the guy next to me getting "Spattered" next to me on the bench. I called the smith and he acted annoyed and would repair it but wanted shipping. Hahahah!
I had another smith do another brake and install it, paid the smith. Then sent my original smith the bill. Of course I never heard from the original smith but I proved my point.
That is one of my character flaws, being able to say "good enough". I was told that Al biesen was at one time buying up all of his earliest works because they were not of the quality of the later stuff, I was afraid of that myself and vowed never to sell any work that was not as good as could be expected anywhere. I wish I could get passed the fact that never will a job be "perfect"....the smith can always find his flaw. I would much rather it be a chuck mark that can be blasted out or a chip in the perfect bedding than a damn brake being off centerline or too tight.....lol.
Let me know when you get back around your shop and have time. How's Alaska treating you?
