Alan, good to see you getting active on the boards again.
All of them look very good but I would say that Fred at Bullberry probably does the nicest work.
Totally agree. In fact, Fred is so paranoid about safety that he himself does the barrel welds at Bullberry.
During the years I lived in Utah's Dixie and hung out with Fred, I spent a lot of time in his shop and had free run of it. We discussed everything under the sun about TC's and hunting and always had a great time. But when he had barrels to weld, I either visited with the machinists, stock maker or ended that visit because Fred does not want to be distracted by anything or anybody while he is welding barrels. He also does all of the sawmill work himself when he gets a semi load or two of huge root butts in and prefers to process them when the shop is closed so there was no business distractions. I helped him run loads through his sawmill and fill the drying sheds a few times, and let me tell you, the man really has an eye for getting the most highly figured high grade stock wood possible from a root butt. We stay in touch via phone calls now, but I miss the great days spent with Fred.
The VVCG (now MGM) boys was Freds crew until they started VVCG. They surely learned how to do the barrel welding at Bullberry, but probably didn't get much practice at it until they went out on their own.
