Brad Bachelder, Del Whitman (trained at Rigby) 231-275-0140 or Kirk Merington would be the only smiths that I would trust. Briley is very far down the list of smiths that I would have do the work. Eric

I have heard so many negative stories about Briley's work that I would get my gun out of there now.

I would contact Brad for this:

Kenny,

I now send everything to Brad. He does what I ask to perfection, and he tells you what it will cost in advance, and that's always been the cost I paid. He has lots of work, so I don't bother him with when it will be done.

Some years back I sent a nice A grade 16 gauge Fox to Griffin and Howe. I wanted the chambers lengthened and forcing cones extended. After receiving the barrels they called and said they would lengthen the chambers the 1/4 inch I requested, but they would NOT lengthen the forcing cones because it would take out too much metal where it needed it. This was in the early days of our knowledge of chamber length, forcing cones, barrel thickness, etc. I am so glad they refused my naive request. I also sent them my Dickson 28 gauge to repair some stock finish issues (I dropped it while grouse hunting in the mountains of Kentucky!). They did the work in record time and it came back better than the original work (done by Jack Rowe some years earlier).

Good luck on your project.