Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Canada A Canadian Gunsmith - a snapshot

He doesn't make "tactical" rifles, and has a small shop just up the road from his famous grandfather, Ellwood Epps. Well, maybe famous isn't the right word. Ellwood has been gone for a long time, so he's not famous anymore.

Rob Wise is a few miles north of Epps Sporting Goods. Both are north of Orillia. He makes most of his money selling bait and fishing supplies to locals and tourists from the city. But he also works on rifles. He got his start in his grandfather's store. Here's a picture of the rifle rack behind the counter. You might think this is a gunsmith's shop from way back. Nope. This is Rob's place, but it was not taken 50 years ago.



Rob rechambered my 22 hornet Handi rifle to K-Hornet and has installed some barrels for me. I just thought you would like a peek. No doubt he will be retiring soon. Some of you will wonder how he manages to stay in business. There's no computers, email or tablets in his place. The closest thing to techy he has is an old phone and a bait tank with a pump in it.

Son of a gun...

Interesting, flew to Toronto in 1984 and went someplace my brother needed a rifle magazine and it was one of the few places that had it in like a warehouse place and then drove up to Elwood’s place and bought a few things there, had always wanted to see it since I was little and had read a catalogue from there my dad had.

Never knew why he had it, seeing as we lived in B.C.
Interesting place.

I think you visited just before George bought the place. Ellwood's daughter and SIL had it for a while, but she got sick and died. Ellwood took it over again in order to sell it.

Ellwood's catalogues were all over North America and Europe before the Internets. Mail order was big once upon a time.

Evnin Reg, yes Rob has officially retired according to him. I think if ya realllly needed something he'd still help ya out. Just the nature of Rob. Years ago, still at Epps he cut a bbl to 20" & turned it as light as he saw fit. He also drilled what would be the mag tube to lighten it. It was a Remington pump & came out at 6lbs even. I changed it to a straight grip to match my 870 & checkered it. Was very quick to the shoulder & I put a lot of venison in the freezer with it. As light as the bbl was it still put 3 into 1-1/4 at 100 with handloads. Ah the good old days, A. I can remember Dad said that quite a bit & wondered why, well I know now. Have a good weekend. GWP 🐾👣🐾👣🇨🇦

Lots of memories, ...... last talk with Elwood was shortly before he passed and he was quite teed off with the new owners' bs that was damaging his reputation.
But the younger generation don't know any of the great names we grew up with, ....... just mention JC or Elmer to any 30 year old, ..... you'll get a "deer in the headlights" look!

Cool picture and story! I miss those places, old school service without the boutique look.
Just good solid service. Was a place like that outside Brandon when I was posted to CFB Shilo.
I used to swap trout flies I tied for work if I couldn't repair the gun myself. Fly-fishing gunsmith!
Last time I was there would have been early 90's before we were posted to Edmonton. Likely long gone now though.
There is a place in Bashaw that is pretty old school still but, yep, a dying breed. Darn shame.
Jeff

Ellwood Epps was the Canuck version of PO Ackley.

That’s progress. In some ways, going to Rob’s shop or Epps, before things got moved around, was like visiting a pioneer village.

WRT Ellwood and Ackley, they spoke and corresponded over the years. I would like to have heard some of the conversations. Ackley’s improved cartridges originally had 35 degree shoulders as did Ellwood’s, but Ackley changed to 40. Ellwood kept his Epps line at 35.

I like to imagine those two in a heated discussion about which was better, but there is no record of that. . Still, the idea of the two of them arguing over 5 extra degrees makes me smile.

Ellwood was very opinionated about a lot of things.

Rob did some great work rebarrelling my brothers Rem 600 a few years ago. I was under the impression he wasn’t doing work anymore, back open? Who else does work like that in S Ontario anymore?

I grew up outside Orilia, lots of memories from visiting the old Epps store, bought a few nice guns there over the years.