favorites

Below is a short list of some of the people and places I love to do business with. The list is starting out small but thats only because I haven't had the time to finish it and we'll continue to add to it in the coming weeks and months.

No, you can't request to be put on this page and you can't buy a spot. This is not a paid endorsement and no one listed here has played an active part having thier name in the favorites listing.

Simply put, these are a few of the folks and/or companies who have proven themselves to be a pleasure to do business with, they all have my highest esteem and I would recommend any and all of them to my customers and to my family without any hesitation. You could say this is the exact opposite of a complaint site, you know, the ones where everyone with an axe to grind has a shot at putting down the company in question, whether or not the complaint is valid or true.

Not wanting to show favor to any particular person or business, I decided not to use pictures (with a few exceptions), company logos or even fancy fonts, just a simple text listing in pretty much alphabetical order with a link to thier web sites; thier performace speaks for itself.

Gunsmiths	Cowboy Work	Guns for Sale	Books by DRC	Used books	Bullet 'N Press	Favorites; you are here
Other Services	Custom Casings	Obsolete Gun Parts	What's New?	Ctgs & Ammo	Links	Wanted

131 Main; a restaurant. If you are around and about Charlotte, Cornelius or, Asheville and soon Raleigh, NC these restaurants are T-riffic! Great food, honest/first class service, fine dining at reasonable prices. Highly recommended by the gunsmith - and how can you get better than that?

Brett and Kim Boyd at the Single Shot Exchange. Remember when you could buy a magazine and its overall quality was so good that you actually looked forward to reading the advertisements? Well friends, Brett and his wife Kim still publish such a magazine. SSX is a small, mom and pop magazine that happens to be published not far from us, just over the border in South Carolina. Reading this great little mag is really like a visit back in time, you come away feeling warm, friendly, on top of that the thing is just chuck full of great information. But its not just about single shot rifles, although that is certainly its intended focus, older firearms in general are granted the full attention of the editors. I recently had the priviledge of meeting the Boyds and getting to see their operation, these are gun-folks, through and through. I came away impressed, relaxed and with a renewed faith that honorable journalism is alive and well.

Brownells; the gunsmith supply company in Montezuma, IA. This is a company yes, but we also have a long personal relationship. I've done business with Brownells since the late 1960s, so long in fact that it was my great pleasure to have known the late Bob Brownell well enough to have called him my friend and on some levels, Bob was definately a mentor for me. I can tell you his encouagement during a slack time for us back in the early 1980s helped to keep my spirits up enough to stay in business. As many of you know, Bob's business practices were 100% honest and in my experience, his son Frank, now joined by grandson Pete have bent over backwards to carry on this wonderful tradition of great products, great service and 100% standing behind what they sell. I like that manner of doing business, as you know there aren't many companies today who still behave like that; I applaud and support Brownell's for holding to it.

Courtney Brownewell and the Honor Bracelet "When our Son-in-law, Sgt. Anthony Anderson was called for his 2^nd tour of duty in Iraq, we wanted to do something special for our daughter to honor his service to our country. We commissioned Courtney Brownewell of Mooresville, NC to design and make this bracelet as a symbol of his dedicated service in the North Carolina National Guard and the United States Army."

Andrew's passion is race cars and he currently competes in the Late Model class on NASCAR race tracks you may be familiar with, such as Hickory Motor Speedway. If you enjoy cars and racing, please check out the Carlsen Racing web site, I think you will enjoy it. The Carlsen family are close friends of our family and OLDWESTGUNSMITH.COM is proud to help to sponser Andrew in Number 99! www.andrewcarlsenracing.com.

Ed Cox at Circle CX Antiques. For several years now Ed has been carrying parts for many old Colts that you won't find anywhere else. I've been buying and using his reproduction 1878 parts in my shop for years, the service is professional and the parts are top-notch.

Jim Dubell at Delta Gun Shop. Jim bought out Cliff LaBounty's reboring and rifling shop. This shop does top-quality, first-rate reboring work, as good as Cliff did and some of the best you will ever see. Delta Gun Shop, 989 Bear Creek Road, Colville, WA 99114 (509) 684-5855

Foredom Electric Company. These folks make, among other things, some of the nicest flexible shaft hand grinders in the world. To show you what I think of this company's products, here is a copy of a short letter I recently wrote to Larry Weeks at Brownells about my Foredom "CC" tool.

Mike Harvey of Cimarron Firearms and Texas Jack's. I've been associated with Mike since about 1998 when he first imported the ASM Schofield. This was when I first got the chance to write two of these guns up for Bullet 'N Press and I have watched as his Texas-based business has grown by leaps and bounds. Mike is a first-rate guy and a died-in-the-wool, real old west history nut. He prides himself in delivering the most authentic products possible to his customers and I can speak from experience, he runs all his business dealings fairly, like the grand Texas gentleman he is.

Lisa Keller at VTI Replica Gun Parts. Lisa took over the business void left by the closing of Maria Uberti's company, Uberti USA in Lakeville, CT and she stocks a huge inventory of parts for almost all makes of Italian replica firearms. This lady is just super to do business with and unlike many gun parts businesses, VTI takes the extra pains to be sure you get the right part the first time, service is terrific and quick!

The Peninsula Grill,112 North Market Street, Charleston, SC 29401 http://www.peninsulagrill.com/ If you are ever in Charleston, this is THE place to eat! Everything is top-drawer; food, service decor, ambiance; they do nothing wrong and everything right. One of our favorite dining destinations, anywhere.

Larry at Precison Automotive in Clover, SC. If you live in the Charlotte, NC area this information may do you some good. You would have to look a long time to find a better little automotive repair shop, these guys are tops, knowledgeable, smart, honest and you won't find a better automotive mechanic anywhere. Worth driving a hundred miles for! Precison Automotive Specialists, Inc., 806 No. Main St., Clover, SC oprecisionautom@carolina.rr.com phone (803) 222-5003 or fax 803 222-7030 (I don't know how you could get a better referral; this is one precision repair shop recommending another!)

S&S Firearms (Philip Siess), we have done business with Phil on and off for many years and I can tell you this outfit is top drawer, a real pleasure to do business with. For parts and accessories for older US Military weapons and "Military Americana". . .honest dealings, fast delivery, great merchandise and on top of that. . .they know what they are talking about. S&S Firearms, 74-11 Myrtle Avenue, Glendale, New York 11385 (718) 497-1100 or Fax (718) 497-1105, find em' on the Internet at www.ssfirearms.com

Ron Smith at Smith Enterprise. I met Ron some years ago at an antique arms show in Vegas and we struck up a friendship that very day. Smith's name is a real fixture in the arms industry, remember those outrageously high quality M-14 receivers that were available a few years ago? That was one of Ron's projects. His dad is also pretty well known, he built the original forged Sharps recievers for C. Sharps a few years back. Ron is still into military stuff but he also manufactures a cool line of sights for old rifles. What gets my attention is his line of Colt parts, these are the finast quality replacement-internal parts for the Colt Peacemaker that you can buy at any price. Yeah, they are better than 1880s Colt parts! Needless to say, Ron is great to do business with and I have yet to buy a part from him that wasn't perfection itself.

Jim Supica at Old Town Station. Jim is an old friend and fellow Smith & Wesson nut who has become one of the country's most noted antique firearms experts. I asked Jim to write the forward for my S&W Sixguns book not because of his notoriety, but because I respect him very deeply as a truthful, knowledgable gentleman. Jim runs an antique arms sales company called the Old Town Station, tucked away out in the boonies of Kansas. This guy is simply the salt of the earth, one of the most honest and forthright antique arms dealers I have ever had the priviledge to know and it has long been my pleasure to by able to refer folks to him.

Black HillsAmmunition: http://www.black-hills.com/ I don't usually get so excited about a product that I offer them a shot in the arm or free advertising, but this is one case where I have to make an exception. Over the last couple of years I've had the chance to shoot several thousand rounds of Black Hills ammunition in various and sundry calibers and in many different firearms. I actually got started using BH ammo while writing the book Guns of the New West. Black Hills supplied a lot of the ammo we used for the gun tests in that book and I liked it so much I have taken to buying it and using it whenever I need factory ammo in preference to anything else. What's so special about BH ammo? No matter what caliber I try and in a wide array of firearms, it has proven itself to be accurate and 100% consistently reliable ammunition, the likes of which I have not seen from factory ammo in many years, if ever. For Guns of the New West and a few of my other writing projects since, this brand of ammo gave exceptional accuracy in .45 Colt, .44 Russian, .44 Colt, 38-40, .38 Special, 45-70 and 38/55 calibers. In fact, especially in .44 Russian or .45 Colt if I don't have my own handloads ready for an important shoot; I select Black Hills; the out-of-the-box accuracy levels are as good as anything I have ever loaded. So, that's why Black Hills Ammunition gets a big thumbs up from this shooter/writer!

Uberti's 1866 replica. I love these guns! Yes, they almost all have little quirks and there are a few things about the way they are made that I would change if I had any influence, which I don't, however the 1866 is a super rifle that just runs and runs. In many ways its like an old Volvo; it looks like an antique but you always know it will start! I've been shooting and working on these rifles for years, ever since they began to import them and I can tell you they are far more dependable than the genuine article. On top of that, I have only had one of these in my hands that was not a wonderfully accurate gun and that one had a bore that was so badly leaded from bad ammo that acuracy was impossible. These same happy comments actually apply to the 73' model, I just happen to have a soft spot for the 66'.