doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Whitey-J.D. Steele Award

I've been a bit distracted this year, and remembered that it was about time to do this again. The Whitey-J.D. Steele is for the best thread on this Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles section of this forum started between
September 27, 2019 and September 27, 2020. With the winner to be announced on October 10th 2020, the seventh anniversary of Whitey's death.

The award will consist of a slide blank for a Lyman 48 sight.

Please use this thread to nominate other threads and please send me a PM if you wish to help judge.

Hey Doc, who gets the award, the thread starter, the best contributor to the thread or the guy who nominates the thread?

In the past, it has been who starts the thread, but "best contributor" sounds good to me as well. How does that sound?

Would vote for SKB for many useful and interesting posts.
Know he is a Pro, but helpful to many of us hackers.
Chuck

Thanks Chuck,

I was beginning to worry, that no one would submit a nomination. Yesterday, when I remembered that it was about the time of year to put out requests for nominations, it hit me, I thought what would the last 7 years been like for me if Whitey was still alive. He would have encouraged me as far as projects were concerned, probably sent me a bunch of stuff, punctuated his e-mails with "smile". I miss him, same with Joe. They were good honorable men.

Fred

I didn't know Whitey much. But Joe, I really miss him. He was a go-to guy for 1885 Winchesters (among other things) and a guy with whom one could have a polite disagreement, that's pretty rare around here today.

BTW, I'll second the SKB nomination.

Here it was flipped, I knew Whitey pretty well and Joe to a lesser extent, but I knew that both Joe and Whitey thought highly of each other and hence the award. Thanks for seconding the nomination.

Whitey Hanson was a great guy! We talked often, and did a lot of parts and gun swapping too. He went way too soon!
I loved that he bought an old John Deere dealership and lived in it! Always wondered what happened to that place in Joe's, Co. after Whitey passed?
Whitey was a real renaissance man, with many talents beyond gunsmithing and guns!

I'll go with SKB,too.

In looking over threads in this Custom and Classic Rifle forum for the past year, there are two that jump out as special in the same manner as winners from past years.

The first is Jim Westberg's "D. Fraser" thread

https://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=565091&page=1

The second is Aaron Little's "FROM A SOW�S EAR TO A SILK PURSE" thread:

https://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=578702#Post578702

There have been numerous other very nice rifles depicted and written about here, but when considering a nominee, I am thinking about the whole picture. Who brought us an interesting build, and more importantly, who did the most memorable and superb work? To me, the most special and talented gunsmiths are those who have mastered many or all aspects of gunmaking. I totally respect the really talented specialists here who concentrate upon engraving, stockmaking, checkering, or machining and metal work. But when one guy has the ability to master several or all of those crafts, then I am most impressed. That's what prompted me to nominate Dennis Daigger a couple years ago, and what made Bailey Bradshaw most outstanding last year.

There are other very skilled and deserving guys who have posted on DoubleGunShop such as C.J. Opacik (CJO), but he seems to specialize in shotguns, and I have not seen his work in this sub-forum. We had Dewey Vicknair post some of his incredible work earlier this year in the new Professional Gunsmith forum, but again, not here in this sub-forum. Every time I see an example of Dewey's work, I feel as if I am looking at a Michaelanglo sculpture. But he has left and has no threads in this forum.

It was real hard for me to choose between Aaron Little and Jim Westberg, because I am a sucker for a well executed single-shot. Mr. Westberg's D. Fraser rifle is a beauty, and deserves recognition.

But it seems as if Aaron Little did more of the total job in his custom rebuild of the BRNO ZZK-601 Bolt Action. I wish both men had included "Before" Photos, but we all know that the BRNO rifles are rough, utilitarian, and most have those butt-ugly Eastern European stocks. Aaron Little's finished product displays more pure fine gunsmithing skills than anything else that has been posted in this forum in the last year... hands down! When last years winner, Bailey Bradshaw decided to utilize the services of another gunsmith to stock one of his rifles, he chose Aaron Little, who did an outstanding and beautiful job. It was easy to see why Bailey chose Aaron Little, and that also is why I nominate Aaron Little. He is a very talented gunsmith that people will still be talking about 100 years from now.