Starman,
Well with reference to Mr Echols...he designed his synthetic stock and has it manufactured to his quality standards. I know him pretty well and he will not accept second best on anything. He makes his own scope mounts that are fit to each action and scope. He rebuilds each M70 action to standards that are unmatched by anybody. He designed the bottom metal used on his Legend rifles. Oh and he rarely uses pre64’s. Within the community of bespoke builders there is talk of perfect and then there is “Echols perfect”, meaning no way to make anything better.
Joe Smithson actually builds his own synthetic stocks, and his own mounts, but uses GMA actions. When he takes delivery of a GMA he works on it until feeding and function are just right. He has designed and built special purpose triggers. He has similar ideas of perfection as Echols. He routinely fabricates one of a kind iron sights, and any other part he needs. He just finished a 458 on which he built a special floor plate to accommodate extra cartridges. That rifle has a one of a kind rear sight base for a red dot sight.
Either of those gentlemen can fabricate just about any part from scratch. In Echols shop there is tooling for an action or two that he fiddled with but was smart enough to decide not to build. Joe has built single shot actions from a block of steel and has designed a bolt action.
Those two have capabilities that are a world apart from machinists who screw barrels into custom actions and then bed them into stock made by various outfits.
Last edited by RinB; 05/25/18.
