doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Best Barrel Browner in the States?

For English best guns, who do you recommend for browning fine Damascus? I heard there was someone very good in Ohio?

I also heard Keith Kearcher in Oregon. (who is often on vacation)

Any suggestions and some photos of their work you can post?

I hesitate to use the word "BEST" as I'm unsure how one properly determines that rating.

Nevertheless, I have had several damascus shotguns reworked by BUCK HAMLIN of Pevely, Missouri and been very pleased with all of his work, including the barrel browning. He is at very least "Among The Best."

Since he does such good work, he is usually very booked-up in advance. You may have to wait 6 to 12 months; I have found his work worth waiting for. He delivers when promised.

Jerry Goldstein

I would get ahold of Glenn Fewless and see if he'll do it. There are many that can do it. It's just a matter of the care in the prep, IMO. Glenn's work is top drawer from what I've seen.

Hi, I had Keith Kearcher brown two bbls for me. Wonderful job and no complaints. The plus side with him, he's fast. I'm always amazed by his turn around time. Always less than what he tells you.

Best of luck to ou.

Greg

What part of the country are you in??

I have damascus guns by Keith Kearcher and Buck Hamlin. Both do great work and are a pleasure to work with. That said I recommend Keith. If you are willing to spend some energy prepping the gun using the correct emery cloth (sand paper for metal) to remove the old finish and get most of the time consuming nug work done prior to sending the gun you can get a good price from Kearcher and he will get it back to you even faster than if he had to do the prep work. I did the prep work on a nice damacus gun the first time and tried to do the finish job myself (not good results). I stripped it a second time and sent it to Kearcher. After doing it twice my conclusion is stripping it down with emery cloth is not that hard.

LOTS of fellas doing gorgeous work today; some specialize in 'browning', some 'black & white'
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfg2hmx7_192fcpp4khn

I'd have to second Buck Hamlin.

Kim Aylworth does superb work as well, in Michigan's UP. See his ad in DGJ.

I have three guns to do:

A Scott Premier from 1891

A boss hammer from 1870

A Lancaster best single trigger of 1886

Will any of these people know what to do for color with all of these or will they ignorantly finish them simultaneously to the same color scheme? I'd hope an expert would know which should be, black, plum, rust, chocolate and honey?

I'm really scared to have these done as you can imagine. I dread the idea of getting back three sets of Orange barrels or "belgian's best" grey barrels. :-0