Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Best gunsmiths in AK?

For rebarreling ann action? I picked up a spare 300 Ultra Mag and am thinking about a 338 Edge. Who should I take it to?

Thanks in advance!

Cheaper, faster, better, and easier to send outside...

Yes

Wild west guns.... seen it on tv. Must be true.

Here we go.

Thank you sir. That is what I figured.

Have stick, must stir!

I agree with Sitka Deer, on most G smith work send it outside.

Been to a lot of smiths in AK most of the money was spent fixing smiths work, than original work!

But Brian, (The Kid) at WW is great just want to limit my time at WW.

Andy Hawk is not bad as long as his hunting season does not interfere. The rest are "special" in their own ways.

Vince Baldauf is a good guy, but takes his smithing work to Stan Jackson.

'Slim' Lambert at Arctic Gun Trader in Nome.......... oh, wait, he moved downstates.

Homer Strickland in Anchorage, he's another very sound (and reasonable) smith..........or, wait, he moved downstates as well....

(I haven't used anyone up here since I lost the services of those two.)

Andy Hawk or Stan Jackson either one should be able to do your work. Just want to make sure Stan doesn't let one of his sons mess with your gun.

Stan started out halfassed and has not gotten better since you left... I think a lot of the stuff he blamed on his boys was not really his boys.

I have seen a ton of screwed up stuff come out of his shop.

+1 for Andy Hawk. He has done very well for me.

I've only seen a couple of rebarreled rifles by Stan Jackson. One was a .338 WM rebarreled to .458 WM that wouldn't feed from the magazine. When the rifle's owner contacted Stan about the issue, he said something along the lines of he knew about it and it'd be another trip to ANC to make it work and an hourly charge to make it right. I don't expect anyone to work for free, but being aware of the problem and not addressing it is an issue. Can't say that did much for my confidence in his work.

I've use Doug Albright in Fairbanks with complete satisfaction on a couple of rifles. He screwed the tube on my Fireball and it couldn't be any better IMO. He's done other machining work that has proven to be more than good enough.

Typically, I send rifles to be rebarreled to somewhere in the L48.

He's certainly getting up there. I wondered if that might be the case but he is good at blaming.

I have had Steve at Alaska Custom Firearms do work for me and he has treated me well.

I have direct knowledge of Steve doing some incredibly illegal and stupid things. I would never consider him for anything firearm related, ever!

I vote for Andy Hawk. He will give you a timeframe for the work to be finished and he sticks to it. He is also a perfectionist and very skilled. No surprises.

Homer Strickland moved to Arkansas and set up a various nice place. I believe he died a couple years ago with cancer. He left his machine tools to a young man in New Braunfels, Tex. This young man and Arnold Jewell were close friends of Homer. They visited Homer for several years and fished with him. I think the last benchrest match that I shot with Homer was 3 years ago at Pencil Bluff, Arkansas. I miss Homer.

Do you know Morris Melani, Alaska Arms? I have some of his scope rings and bases. I believe he also makes a Mod 70 style trigger for Mausers.