FITZ wrote on Dec 1
st, 2008 at 12:59pm:
I have been hearing of Al Story and his action castings for many years but had not seen either him or any samples of his work. Now I have pictures of both. No wonder he keeps a low profile. From the appearance at least he has a quality product. Cannot believe he would put that much effort into the outside without doing the same inside. Now I have another want item on my list. An Al Story Borchardt. Thanks for the post. Regards, FITZ.
Hello FITZ,
I think you have got the 'Handles' mixed up. (your by no means the only one to get confused, been there, done that myself. lol).
Al Story of the Borchardt Rifle Co. Silver City, N.M. is not the same person as Rodney Storie, who manufactures a number of single shot rifle action kits, made from castings, which are marketed by Wes Stanley, under the Trade Name of Frontier Arms.
To the best of my knowledge, Al Story machines all his parts from metal bars, no castings being involved. I know a lot of his machining work is done using CNC machines, I have nothing against that, I wish I knew more about CNC work, (I'm an old fashioned milling machine handle cranker myself, that's the way I was trained, oh, so many years ago).
From what I have seen in pictures of Al Story's (machined from solid steel stock) rifles, they are very faithfull to the original Sharps 1878 design.
A look at the pictures of Rodney Storie's 'Sharps Borchardt' casting kit and the supposedly 'finished action' (on the Frontier Arms web page)
See:-
(You need to Login or Register to view media files and links) reveals a number of 'errors' that would not help the first time 'home build gunsmith enthusiast' one little bit. Having some 80% of a home made Borchardt Action completed by myself from plans (that were not particularly accurate to start off with). I know a little of what I am talking about. See:-
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