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| 20 ga. Ansley H. Fox (top) 16 ga. Ansley H. Fox (bottom) |
In a past post, I discussed getting my older guns' stocks repaired. After long discussions with others in my same predicament, on the Bird Dog and Fly Fishing Facebook group and others, I settled on a long established gunstock maker in Warsaw, MO. Macon Gunstocks was only a little out of my way on my trip to South Dakota and points West last October. So, I dropped in and had a tour of the facility and met some of the people. I was impressed, not only with the quality of the work, but with the knowledge of the owner and his employees. The amazing inventory of stock blanks, the gorgeous wood blocks from England, Europe and California, the highly technical machines and just the over all attitude of the place- I liked it all.
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| Perfect fit. |
I left my two oldest and most expensive guns with them, after taking about 3 hours of their time as they explained everything anyone would want to know about gunstocks, etc. The conversation was only limited by my ability to ask the question. The finished product came yesterday. It was like Christmas! You can see by the pictures, they did an outstanding job. They measured me for the stock size and now I have, for the first time in my life, a stock that fits ME. My shooting will probably fall apart now!
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| Checkering on the Fore-end |
To be completely transparent, the wood used on both guns is upgraded. The Walnut blanks that come with the quote on the website is beautiful enough. But, when he mentioned that these guns may deserve some special wood, my ears perked up (and my wallet opened up!). I may have this backwards, but the darker wood is English Walnut and the lighter one on the 16 ga. is European Walnut. He brought the blocks out and rubbed some oil on them and the wood just came alive- almost a 3D effect on the lighter one! I thought, "I don't golf, drink a whole lot, chase women or gamble. Why not spend a little extra and get exactly what I want? Besides, the kids don't need spoiling anymore and the Ball and Chain can start driving my sharp-looking, bondo-colored 1989 F-150." "Sure," I said, "let's put some nice wood on these old things!" I think the price of the wood may have been an extra $500/gun. (I know one of the blocks had $650 written on it, but I didn't pay that. Perhaps because I was doing both guns, etc.)
They told me six months. They beat that by a month and I'm tickled to death with the result. These are oil finishes- not the high gloss finish you normally see. I asked for that, along with the extra checkering and different butt plate. I encourage you to give them a look at: https://www.macongunstocks.com/.
