doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Brileys in Houston

I've lived in TX most of my life and I don't mind telling you there is very little high level craftsmanship here.

If you want someone who can barbecue or throw a rope around a cow's neck, come to Texas. If you want machine work, masonry, carpentry, or just about any other discipline that requires craftsmanship, stay up North.

They took over a year to do a simple color casr job for me.
Never again.

Unless of course you live in the Amarillo area and need air conditioning or plumbing and you contact my company.

I heartily cast a third vote for Kirk. He's perhaps one of the best double gun gunsmiths in this hemisphere. Right up there with Turnbull. Be prepared to wait and to pay a premium though.

As an alternative, I had a Bonehill worked on by a guy out in Waller named Bobby Pitchford. He worked under Kirk Merrington while they were both at Briley. He spun off and opened his own shop in Waller. He's primarily a riflesmith, but he's a fantastic gunsmith and I'd recommend him staunchly to anyone.

His site...

http://www.pcgguns.com/

Larry Feland is the go to guy for Doubles in the Houston area.
He has worked on Mdl 21s, LC Smiths and Merkels for me.
First class.
281-373-0335

I know the folks at Briley very well and have know Jess Briley for many years. In fact when he and Clyde Lang built the first set of gauge tubes. Not even a company then. They do pretty good bbls work. I have been able to tour the back shop area as a friend of mind was the shop manager for many years. they have so much work its unbelieveable. The did do work for S & W, made choke tubes for Remington and a host of parts for other companies too. They have gotten super large and super busy. Its like the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant. (If you have ever been in on you know what I mean!) They are high volume. At onetime the gunsmiths were payed by the piece, not a salary. So their incentive was to crank out the work. So do not expect hand holding, calls before the work in being done, or strong personal contact every step of the way. If you want that you need to go to a small shop with less volume. Briley is a high volume, production shop.


John Boyd

Here in LA we deal with them a lot. The word is that you must be a dumb A, rude and crude to work in Briley sales. They do have high skill people in the shop.
bill

Thank you all for your candid replies, you all answered several questions like:
- Turn around time, I'd rather not wait a 6 months to get my gun back.
- Customer service, I'd rather not be treated like crap where I spend a lot of money.
- Value, I'd like to spend a fair amount to have a competent job done.
I think the responses I received answered all these questions.
Thank you.
Steve

I will not use Briley again for choke tubes or sub guage tubes.I get mad all over again when I think of what they did.

Dan Crowley aka danc
Florida

Briley will never do any work for me again, since they permanently marred the barrels of a new Perazzi MX8-20 28 gauge some years ago. Appeared they clamped the barrels crudely in doing the work, marring the bluing. The shop I had do the shipping sent them back and got no response, other than sending the barrels back. The chokes were bored true, and were otherwise fine. I more recently inquired about some other work, and got similar treatment. Maybe they are so big and have so much work that service doesn't matter to them. There are enough other good guys around to be aggravated by Briley.