above: Andrew Carlsen bringing home the wins at Hickory Motor Speedway!
My own 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, I'll be adding to this list 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 listing. Simply put, these are a few of the folks and/or companies who have proven themselves 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, company logos (except one) 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.
Favorite people and businesses . . .
131 Main; a restaurant. If you are around and about Charlotte, NC this place is T-riffic! Great food, first class service, fine dining at reasonable prices. Highly recommended by the gunsmith-how can you get better? They have 3 locations in the Charlotte area.
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, 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.
Andrew
is a college freshman, his 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 be able to help to sponser Andrew in Number 99! ww.andrewcarlsenracing.com.
Mike Harvey at Cimarron Firearms
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 how much 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, the service is terrific and quick!
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.
Really super products that I like. . .
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 have had the chance to shoot a couple 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 Guns of the New West, BH supplied a lot of the ammo we used for the gun tests and I liked it so much I have taken to buying it and using it whenever I need factory ammo. What's so special about BH ammo? No matter what caliber I try and in a wide array of firearms it has proven itself accurate and consistent 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, BH ammo gave exceptional accuracy in .45 Colt, .44 Russian, .44 Colt, 38-40, .38 Special, 45-70 and 38/55 calibers. In fact, in .44 Russian or .45 Colt I would buy Black Hills if I didn't have my own handloads ready; the out-of-the-box accuracy levels are that good. 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, it many ways like an old Volvo; you alweays 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. And, 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, acuracy was impossible. The same comments actually apply to the 73' model, I just happen to have a soft spot for the 66'.
To all of you on this list and those who soon will be; THANK YOU!
Dave Chicoine