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Bulldog,

On the trust issue, take a look at Champlin's site. JJ works out of their space. $20,000 is an also ran in the price department. Griffin & Howe recomended JJ and they work on some very expensive six figure guns. JJ aprenticed for Marcel Thys, the maker of my rifle, which factored into their recomendation. G & H has been overseeing the restoration of a pair of shotguns for me. They will do the work too but told me that the logistics of having to drive from their shop location to their range would be inefficient.

My rifles are insured but I'm not sure that it would cover a blown barrel or expanded chamber type of loss. In fact I doubt it. Loss or theft for sure and the rifles were shipped fully insured too.

Timing depends on their workload and on the OK wind. JJ's range is just out back I've been told, but they have to have little wind and that isn't everyday. It took almost three months for me to get my rifles back but they were doing other work which included twisting the triggers for me, a lefty, freeing up the safety which was a bit stiff from being a bit wood bound, a complete strip and clean of the sidelocks and other action parts and ejectors, lighten the front trigger pull... and they were also working on my 375H&H concurrently with some work too, as well as working up the solid load.

I think Superior has an indoor shooting tunnel so any delay is purely backlog. When I talked to him, his backlog would have meant three months, but I would still have needed to have the issues taken care of like the triggers and safety...

BTW, on cost I forgot to mention that you would be charged for ammo used in the process too. Superior is the same here, I'm just about sure. Wasn't too much as I recall.

Since you know what the regulation load is you can shoot to your heart's content by just ordering ammo to Butch's spec and having it waiting for the arrival of your rifle. This will get you over the "I need to shoot my new gun" itch. When you're ready you can send the rifle for the other loads you'd like.

I bought my rifle in Feb, went out of town for three weeks after shooting maybe 20 rounds through it. Came back and shot it plenty discovering no current factory load that shot well. I sent my rifles to JJ in May I think, got them back about the first of August or so and shot a whole lot before my safari in Oct. Did I miss my rifles? Yes! How much did it matter? Not much, I guess. Becuase of recoil, most practice, so far as the number of rounds fired, is best done with lesser rifles anyway. And they both shot a bunch better when they got back. I haven't fired a round out of my double since I got back and I figure I'm just shy of 300 rounds through it.

JPK