Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Good Canadian custom gunsmith

Anyone know a good gunsmith for my first custom build in Canada?

I would recommend Martin Hagn. One of the best IMO.

Depends on what you are having built. There are several that can LEGO build up a 700, but not so many that will do a full blown custom.

As mentioned, it depends on the build. For a "lock, stock, and barrel" custom, Martin Hagn is tops. Ralf Martini is another who can build a fine rifle from the ground up. Jan Kollenbrander rounds out the trio of custom 'smiths who are located in Cranbrook BC. Jan leans toward the more contemporary, synthetic stocked rifle.
If your interest is more along the lines of a stainless/ synthetic assembly, Corlanes is a popular source.
There are a lot of others and I can't begin to name them all.
During a recent visit to the Calgary show, I saw several tables showing work by 'smiths who were unknown to me and who certainly seemed competent. GD

Ain't no fleas on Greydog!

I either own or my close friends own work by about all the western Canadian gunsmiths currently working. There are a couple in Ontario, a place far,far to the east and full of poliitcians, that seem fine from photos, but, I have no direct experience with their work.

Right now, the finest rifles I have seen built in Canada, with one exception, have been done by Ralf Martini. He is a nice guy, fairly priced and actually HUNTS, so, he has some knowledge of what a good hunting rifle must be.

For a Martini on a 1909 Argy, re-hardened, etc, and scoped, I would budget $20K all in and this WILL be a FINE rifle.

Most of my latest as in the past 3 years work involving about a dozen big game rifles and good stuff, like Dakota 76, minty ZG-47s and so forth, has been done by Jan Kolenbrander and his work has been excellent...I am probably among the MOST "picky" guys about my guns you will meet and he made me happy with the rifles completed to date.

He works with "brno284"-Mitch Kendall, who posts here and has done over a dozen synthetic custom jobs for me and I simply won't go elsewhere, the rifles are flawless and SHOOT...BUT, these guys are SO busy that it takes, wellll, you know gunsmiths.


greydog, is a young fella, that has built some NICE pieces for friends of mine, who managed to talk me out of various actions I had stashed and he is particularly good with Mod. 70s, especially P-64s.

I will stay with these guys, there are others I hear good things about, but, I now have so many rifles and am an old geezer, so, am about done with building/buying rifles.

As to Hagn, he is at least 70 and while unquestionably a brilliant gunmaker, I would choose Ralf for several reasons. Actually, I would choose Ralf for any wooden stocked rifle I wanted and could afford as I like his work and he is close to where I live.

Mattm;
Welcome to the 'Fire from the sometimes sunny, south Okanagan.

If it's not too presumptuous of me to ask, what did you have in mind for a custom build and more or less which province are you situated in?

The reasons for asking are that as greydog, kutenay and others have already mentioned, there are a number of talented folks out there who specialize in different types of rifles.

At our house we've got rifles which have been barreled by Chris Wilcox out of Lumby and Mick McPhee out of Kamloops. I've heard that Mick might be taking some time off now, I can't say for sure. Last I heard Chris was still in business.

I've looked at work done by greydog and have had him help me on a number of occasions with rifle questions. He's yet to steer me wrong and I'd spend money with him in a heartbeat.

There is a chap in Naramata called Terry L'Heureux who does very fine machine work, as does Patrick Smith in Penticton, though I'm not sure if either one does much with wood stocks.

The folks up at Corlanes do good work as far as I've been able to tell, but as far as I know they tend towards synthetic stocks and modern coatings, not walnut and rust bluing.

If greydog and kutenay say good things about Jan Kolenbrander then that's a very good recommendation and of course the same can be said about Ralf Martini and Adolf Hagn too.

I've conversed with and bought parts from Dennis Sorensen on the Island, but again am not sure if he's still active or not.

Anyway as you can see there's a lot of BC smiths available for different types of rifle, but if you're in Manitoba or further east you might want to find someone closer to home.

Hopefully that was some use to you, good luck on your project and again welcome to the 'Fire.

Regards,
Dwayne

There are lots that claim they know, but less that have goods that prove it.
I have owned and own a few customs; some commissioned personally, others picked up after. I have also held some pieces owned by friends done by others.
The gentlemen I go to first are Mitch Kendall (brno284) and Bill Leeper (greydog). There is little that either can't do, or have done. That said I also recommend Henry Rempel and Ralph Martini.
I have no use for Corlanes services again, though they are nice enough folks.

Nowdays I wouldn't let anyone but Greydog build me a rifle. (typed by me!) Monashee

Weber & Markin in Kelowna are another good choice.

Two Thumbs Up! For both spirit and content...

I'm fortunate enough to own a couple of greydog's builds, they function flawlessly and are extremely accurate.

Chris Weber, whom I used to know fairly well, has built some nice guns which I have examined and can do fine work. I have not spoken to him in years as he returned to Germany to work for some time, or, so I was told and I lost touch with him.

I have been told by a guy who asked me to look over and evaluate several guns he had, including a Sako stocked by Chris, that the wait time with Chris can be VERY long and that is, to me, a major issue.

There are lots of opinions offered here, as one might expect on a site of this type and I see that perhaps not enough emphasis has been placed on two crucial aspects of this query.

The first is WHAT EXACTLY do YOU want?

The second is, HOW MUCH CAN YOU AFFORD for it?

When, I waa young and a totally "gone" gun nut, the Canadian economy was at it's post-WWII peak, good jobs were everywhere and living was comparatively cheap. I wanted a genuine Al Biesen P-64 fwt-270, like "Jacks" and I bought one, age 22, in 1968.

I later went bonkers over a fine Dakota 76-.338WM, that a company in the US had made for sale with special wood;I slaved and saved for four years and bought that and on and on and on.....I picked up five of the seven rifles that "brno284" had been doing for me during the past year just several weeks ago.

So, after 45 years of some pretty special custom rifles, my latest is a 7 lb. crf, Kreiger tubed at 23", .280Rem, built by Jan and Mitch with a little bit of Ralf in there plus chambered here in Vancouver, I find that the term "best" as applied to gunsmiths is very much dependent on what YOU reply to the two above queries.

Really, ONLY YOU can determine who/what is "good" and "best" for YOUR rifles.

So, what are you after?