man, I am ashamed to see you are from Texas....the US smiths are the equal or not the better of most continental gun makers and there is not a rifle made by Purdey or H&H worth 20 K.....Lots of US smiths besides Echols or David Miller make a great rifle...the late Frank Wells made some beautiful guns, Ed Shilen makes some great ones, just like David Butterworth at Hill Country Rifles...I could go on, but you obviously are prejudiced...

Just because the old school apprentice system in Europe trains smiths for 10+ years doesn't mean they are better...and believe it or not, hand work is not always better than great machine work..no matter who does it..
The reason most of the smiths at the big name houses and the houses themselves are going out of business is the fact that the shop ran at the speed of the SLOWEST worker....not very smart no matter how great it is...LOL