You asked for an opinion, and I'll give one to you, though most folks won't like it. I've visited their shop now twice. And as I'm a very opinionated person, and feel that my opinion is as valuable as the next guys, I was far from impressed with the person that worked the counter. A gunsmith friend of mine also independantly came away with a negative opinion.
I went in asking for a specific barrel design for a .444 Marlin, using the rate of twist they had in the 70's which was 1 in 38 as I remember. The barrel maker came out and talked with me, and their barrels and barrel maker I actually liked. BUT, the person at the front desk, presumably one of the gunsmiths, told me that Marlin never used that particular twist. I told him that would be what I wanted and he said basically that I had no idea what I was talking about and they wouldn't do it. After talking with the barrel maker he told me that it wasn't a fact they wouldn't do it, but that for that caliber his machines couldn't do it as they were tooled for faster twists. Much difference between I WON'T do it and I CAN'T do it.
As upset as I was at them, I decided to give them a second chance. (As I say, everybody gets ONE). So I go back. I wanted to rebarrel a Remington 700 ADL from .30-06 to .338-06, (I preferred the bullet selection to those available in .358 re: your question in another post). I wanted to have a factory contour barrel to make use of the same stock, have a parkerized finish or a stainless barrel that was bead blasted on my blued action, and sights installed. The same gunsmith/customer service guy ran a few figures and said that it would be around $450. (A little steep, but reasonable I suppose). But what he said afterwards was what made me vow never to step foot in the buisness again. He goes on to say, "But I have no idea why you would want to ruin a perfectly good .30-06, it'll do everything you want to do." I go on to tell him that I am a heavy for caliber kind of guy, prefer bigger holes and bigger bullets, and that based on what I liked, the .35 Whelen or .338-06 were my options. I opted for the .338-06 because of the slight edge in Ballistic Coefficient, Sectional Density, and excluding handgun bullets, bullet selection. And again he says, "Well it seems pretty pointless to me."
I laughed, told him that it wasn't pointless if that's what I wanted and was willing to pay for it and that there were other gunsmiths in the area who would be happy to help me complete the project, spun around and walked out. Had he offered something in the way of qualifying that another cartridge or load combination would take elk and moose in the manner I feel the .338-06 would I would have listened. But never, ever, have I had a gunsmith tell me that such a simple conversion would be pointless. They've suggested alterations to original designs, or other things to consider, but essentially telling a customer that what they want is pointless is bad buisness for one. For two, if they don't WANT to make the product I want them to, what kind of effort would they take to make it a quality product when I recieve it?
So reference the actions, I'm not familiar with them. The barrel making outfit is pretty quality deal, the gunsmithing services, in my humble opinion leave much to be desired. But then again, this is my opinion only.
