By David Sefton 2017 Copyright
On a dreary cold day in the mid 1800’s, a hard-bitten Texan was a long way away from home. He paid his hard earned money to make the long trip to New York. The meeting was important to this Texan. Long had his friends been butchered across the Texas country side by Comanche. This fateful meeting was with an eccentric flamboyant industrialist – Samuel Colt. The Texan, a Ranger, Captain Walker worked with Colt to re-define firearms: their design still impacting guns one hundred and fifty years since. The Walker Colt is one of the most collectible guns to this day (and one of the most expensive).
Texas has long been on the front of fine firearms. Ever since the fateful meeting of Colt and Walker, Texas was on the forefront of firearm innovation. The Walker Colt changed warfare and self defense across the world.
In our own backyard, in Austin Texas, another innovator, a Texan, is looking beyond how things have been done in the past – to what’s possible in the future and is making a huge impact on custom guns. The Shurley Brothers Custom Rifles are changing the playing field for fine firearms.
Tommy Shurley learned fine gun stock crafting from one of America’s most famous and respected stock makers based in Missouri. To further his craft he did his advanced apprenticeship under a nationally recognized Virginian gun maker. Tommy advanced so far he eventually took over the business. Many of these Virginia clients still use him. Finally he migrated back home to Texas. Here, where Ranger Captain Walker once fought Comanche’s across the hill country, Tommy has now built his business.
What makes the Shurley Brothers stock so magical? His obsessive attention to exquisite detail and love of fine woods. He has pioneered a extra fine traditional woodstock with stunning grains on the outside of the gun, then adhered to a center of dense exotic wood cross grained to the outer fine figured wood shell. Sounds familiar? Look to the construction of the famed Toledo sword blades with the shell (using the old Spanish term) escalloped over the inner core.
Not surprisingly in the last five years his custom stocked rifles have won more national and international championships than any other stock. The center tightly grained exotic wood adds immeasurable strength to the stock, resulting in the wood never heat warping away from true.
His custom chosen wood and design is superior to even high end synthetic stocks – the outside long grain figured wood sided to the dense exotic core, never bends, swells or warp. The consistency of the shot patterns from these strong stocks are scary tight groups.
Shurley Brothers in their high tech, state of the art shop, also fine tunes high end receivers and barrels – bringing the gun to pitch perfect competition tuning. The combination of stock, barrel and receiver tuned to each person’s individual rifle demonstrates the pure mastery of Tommy’s craft. The top shotgun shooters of the world use Tommy’s stocks where fractions of inches matter in International Clay Competition.
Tommy starts by taking three dimensional scans of a shooter favorite stock and then begins tweaking from there. If you always shot best with a Remington 1100 stock and now want to purchase a fine double. Shurley can merge drop, cast and pitch of your favorite gun to the extremely tight tolerance of the new guns inletting and furniture, such as the metal fit of a high end Krieghoff. This combination of fitting favorite field guns dimensions with high end doubles has been virtually impossible when done by hand. Thanks to extremely sophisticated computer modeling and Shurley Brother’s vast experience and knowledge this is now possible for reasonable prices.
The impact today on the casual shooter or high end competitive shooter can’t be underestimated. When you get down to it, your stock fit – both to you as a shooter and the fit to the barrel and receiver is the 98% of what impacts the accuracy of a gun.
Working with Tommy Shurley on a several gun project has been an absolute delight. The project has beenunusually enjoyable, and surrounded by all the beautiful wood choices, it was almost more than I could to design my path going forward.