Indeed.
Funny that you should mention Lenard Brownell Joel.

IN MEMORIUM: LEN BROWNELL, 1922-1982

Len Brownell was an artist, craftsman and a perfectionist. But more importantly, he was a good-hearted man who wanted to see things go better for everyone. The following piece I wrote about him several years ago.

Len Brownell was a Wyoming man. He grew up on the fringe of modern civilization in a half-wild, sparsely populated region where life was hard, but living as an adventure. From boyhood he lived where game was thick, guns were commonplace, and everyone there lived close to the land.
Maybe you're familiar with this bit of firearms folklore; about some supposedly famous custom gunstock-maker who made his first gunstock with nothing but a jackknife? A lonely, homesick, young soldier, so the story goes, sitting around the barracks who wiles away the hours -doing the whole job with only that one tool? Well, it might sound like some fanciful story, but it really happened, and Len Brownell is the one who did it. It was a buttstock for a single barrel shotgun, and he didn't even have any sandpaper--he used the H.L.P. blade as a scraper to smooth the surface of the stockwood.
Len Brownell went home to Wyoming and he continued to build gunstocks. Only a very few, and only part-time at first, but little by little, his reputation grew. He got better and better. Things really began to change for Len when prominent members of the shooting press--men like Pete Brown and Jack O'Connor--heard about him and began to bring custom gun projects of their own for him to complete. Soon they were touting him in their writing and Len's reputation spread nationwide among shooters everywhere.
It is my honest belief that no custom gunstockmaker who ever lived has turned down more offers of stocking jobs than Len Brownell. It was unbelievable. really. But the notoriety affected him not at all. Len just continued to work in his shop. He built them one at a time, and over the years he helped to move the state of the art ahead in this country so that custom guns in America could compare--both quality-wise and aesthetically--with the finest that were built anywhere in the world.
Please believe me when I tell you that whoever you are and whatever might be your station in life, if you sought out Len Brownell at his home and knocked on his door he would invite you in, he would offer you a cold drink or cup of coffee, and he would converse until it seemed like you were old friends. He was a likeable and personable man. He was highly opinionated about all kinds of things, but he was someone you could disagree with without getting angry. He was a plain spoken man who lived by a simple code. Tell the truth. Keep your word. Do your best. Be someone others can depend on.
Len's career took a turn when he was invited by Bill Ruger himself to come and work for Ruger Firearms in Connecticut and New Hampshire. He is widely credited with having made important contributions to the development of the Ruger No. 1, and changes made in the Model 77. Len was proud of his effort there, but his feelings were mixed. He was somewhat uncomfortable in a corporate environment where everyone has to compromise. He also missed the West. So, again he went back home to Wyoming. His departure from Ruger was an amicable one. He stayed on friendly terms with the Ruger family, and he always spoke most highly of them.
The experience he gained back east had its impact on his work. Len installed a large state-of-the-art milling machine in his shop and he started doing more sophisticated metalwork. If a custom gun is a marriage of wood to metal then Len Brownell raised it to an entirely new level of intimacy, because he built some guns that were truly extraordinary. Like bolt-action rifles with rear-tang safety, finger-lever release scope mounts, flip-up open sights--you name it--he could build it--and he was fast. I mean he could really turn out quality work and make it look easy.
Now the story takes another turn. Because when Len Brownell reached this plateau he encountered tremendous misfortune. It was discovered that he had cancer, and it was terminal. I regret to tell you that Len Brownell's life came to a very sad end. Life left his body only a drop a day, and he died a painful lingering death. Friends and relatives were all relieved when he finally passed away on February 23, 1982. No one should have to suffer so much. So...Len Brownell's pain has ended. He sleeps beneath a vast wind-blown prairie where deer and antelope still roam. Coyotes howl in the moonlight, and the smell of sagebrush is always in the air.