Idared, I love to be quoted as an authority !!! Wish it happened more often in my family .... Two comments: first since WWII there has been an immense proliferation of good riflenmaking. Before the war there were only a handful of really good makers, today they are legion. Second, unless one is a dealer in fine arms, most of us have not examined work by most of the new men. We depend on photos and the opinions of others whose taste we respect. For example, although I have been admiring custom rifles for decades at gun stores and gun shows, I do not think I have ever handled, in the wood and metal, rifles by Echols, Goudy or Ottmar. Yet these men are acknowledged at the top. So when we loudly prounounce our opinions we can be skating on pretty thin ice.
