I took a few minutes and made a couple card stock applications. You see how easily the entire mood and perception of a rifle design can change?

This Action - the OUTRIDER - will support many, many options. Ill make them as I can. I could design a ton of them right now - but - as you may have noted; I don't have a staff. I don't hold the position of chief designer at a factory. Thus; my ideas POUR out, and the manifestations of those ideas dribble at about 34 degrees F.

Anyone who'd care to step in and sell my Md. Property, maintain the I frastructure here, even occasionally take my truck to the shop - I'm open to discussions. But I'm full up with the effort. As we recently mentioned ... The time had passed where a craftsman was invited to work on a patrons estate - with strong back interns hired as help. Today - craftsmen just come up looking bad against the TV versions who always have a $100k budget for a tree house and finish it in a half an hour.

Now - as I work - ill apply various barrels to this action. I make integral welded shrouded barrels that just screw on in place of the 50. There can be billet trigger guards. Artistic panels for the action's side plates. Pebbled stock areas. Oh Yuk - no RELIEF CARVED areas ... Ohhhhh. Haha. But there are dozens of things which could flow from this base action. I'm very pleased with it. Hope you like the basic format and feel of the design I chose to begin with.

Funny - occasional friends desire to share something from the net, where I'm mentioned. They say they found something written in a nice manner -they are always shocked to see so, and they suggest they're sure I would be shocked too. Haha. Well, without fail - if I read any of the links, they all have to begin with the preamble disclaimer "now I'm not saying I like the LOOK of his wierd out there stuff .... ". They go on to say the guns are amazingly well made and shoot excellent ... But they always have to wash their hands first. Funny.

Consider some of the gun designs which have attracted large satisfied followings. They couldn't be more different from each other or historic designs. Yet ... What you read is either written by your friends or your detractors. The math decides what is seen or read more often.

The plan remains to get these five copies complete. It's taken quite a bit to assemble all of the parts to this series. I hope we get feedback from the field.

Seems I had other thoughts. Ill have to add them it they surface.

Best
Gary

Gary,

The 50 Outrider is sure looking to be a nice platform. Sounds as though you have a lot of creative ideas and avenues you can take the look of the rifle. Thanks for sharing the progress with us. Most of us know you are busy and have a lot on your plate.

Funny you mention other sites with your rifles. I checked in a Russian site, I have link that shows all the images from every post. I browse it time to time for ideas. I have seen pictures of you and your rifles in the site a few times. You are an international sensation haha

Thought I would post before bed. I need to catch up with yard work and some house repairs so my posting will be minimal this week.

Have a great week!

Pedro

Hi Pedro,

Utube thinks I speak Russian too. It suggests stuff all the time. I've found many interesting homemade contraptions on Russian videos. A lack of resources often spawn very unique solutions!

Gary

Gary,

I think you have done very well with this model. The prototype looks excellent. The flexibility will allow for a great variety of options. Even though it doesn't overwhelm us with your master carving, the wood grain shows itself beautifully. I would be happy to bang it around in the woods and take pictures of its successes!

On a related topic, have you ever considered using a model like this to provide some (relatively) simple to manufacture models to help pay the bills between making those custom beauties?

Scott

I'm sure that Gary considers using models all the time, but Kelly puts the kibosh on that. Don't want a bunch of bikini-clad model types running around getting stuck in the yaupon, after all.

Just like the 1911 design. Copying a design is a compliment in hidden form.

Gary,

Although I know a lot of people like mainstream designs, and a lot of your work is out of the ordinary, and I could certainly understand it serves a very narrow audience, and they won't appeal to everybody, it's been a pleasure to follow and participate in your work.

Oh, and you put on a good shoot too.

Lon

Bigbore Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Gary,
>
> Although I know a lot of people like mainstream
> designs, and a lot of your work is out of the
> ordinary, and I could certainly understand it
> serves a very narrow audience, and they won't
> appeal to everybody, it's been a pleasure to
> follow and participate in your work.
>
> Oh, and you put on a good shoot too.
>
> Lon

Hi Lon.

Ok - I got you! Haha.

Why all the disclaimers first?

What is a mainstream design. You mean like the Condor? The Rapid? The Crossman Rogue? Shin Sung Career? Seems to me that they all look pretty wildly different. None look like any antique. So I ask - what is mainstream?

Why are mine for a narrow audience too? Like people who like quality? Power? Accuracy?

Read me right. I'm not offended. Just, dumbfounded that every compliment of my work always has to be preceded by a string of disclaimers. "You're feet are huge, not everyone likes big ears, your hips could block a piano, but you sure don't sweat much!"

Gary

I think they are mainstream if you can buy them a dozen at a time and be assured someone else will have the exact same thing. Maybe a little fear of being different or appreciating something before it's a common sight...

I'll work on my satire.

Lon

These are truly functional artwork that I have never seen anywhere. I personally think that the main reason most will not buy is because it is not cheap mass produced.

You may have a point Don. Some are afraid I'm gonna die and let them stuck without being able to remind them of the fill pressure. Some might worry its gonna break. However; I just about Never have one come back broken. Well ... Scott managed to send his back in six or eight pcs. .... but that's another story ....

If things happen to my rifles ... It's gonna more then likely be the sorts of things that would happen if you bought a brand new Mercedes ... then set it in a garage and ignored it for ten or twelve years. You pull it out and all sorts of things are dry rot, tires are shot, brakes are stuck, gas has jelled inside the injector lines, vacuum valves don't work. What a piece of junk!! Well - the thing wasn't designed to just sit in the dust, mold, and mildew. The rifles are supposed to have a drop of oil here and there, a bit of wax, some range time to keep O rings lubed and seated. I design them so that owners who bother to learn the simplest basics of PCP function can service most things.

No matter. People will do what they want. It's herding cats to try otherwise. But this topic is a round Robin. There isn't a Barnes owner's forum because they don't care to form one. You don't see hunt stories cause the owners don't hunt - or don't talk about it. People don't know how well they perform in the field because those stories aren't posted. So; each time I go to sell a new Barnes PCP ... It's 1996 all over again. Hey guys - I made this. You can hunt with it. You can shoot targets. Here's my test target - let's see yours. . Sometimes I wonder if its a conspiracy to keep the talk and interest subdued. Hummmmm -

Ok - late again. Every night it's a late one. Thanks for reading.

Gary

I think you've hit upon the point Gary, since every one of your rifles is unique, there really isn't a way to compare them like you could if you were shooting, say, a modded Marauder, or a stock Condor, one one of the Korean models where they makes thousands of them all the same. I suspect that if you ever did a run of fifty or a hundred or a thousand essentially identical airguns, THEN you'd get an "owners forum". As I read it, the "typical" airgun blogger/owner seems content to run them mostly stock, or at most fiddle around the edges with cosmetic upgrades or some minor performance tweaks. The basement air-gunsmith types who represent most of the square footage on the other airgun forums generally don't gut and hotrod their rifles, unless they're either super-cheap (essentially free) examples or they happen to be the few percent that are REALLY into mods. In fact, I suspect that the average airgun owner / forum reader is very hesitant to make too extreme a change even to a sub-$500 airgun, it's a hobby for the average guy, finance-wise.

Like it or not, the Barnes experience is in a whole other league. It takes a much higher commitment both financially AND time-wise even to get your foot into the door, one that "the average guy" generally isn't up to. Once you're there, it takes an even greater set of cojones to start fiddling with this part and changing that bit just for the sake of fiddling. More to the point, there typically isn't any point to doing so since your guns work like they're supposed to, right out of the box, so to speak. And it's not like you can just go to the Barnes(insert model here) page of "BillyBobs airgun upgrade store" since there isn't one and I highly doubt there ever will be. Each of your units is, literally for the most part, one-of-a-kind. BillyBob can't make a handful or a dozen or a hundred "hammer upgrade widgits", since all the hammer assemblies are different. BillyBob can't even get a hold of one to design or 'engineer' an "upgrade", even if he COULD find two that were more or less the same. There's none of the "playing legos" aspect of changing and swapping and comparing and contrasting that seems to drive endless amounts of chatter on other airgun forums. In fact, opening a Barnes Airgun Parts Upgrade Store would be like trying to sell kayak roof-racks or bolt-on trailer hitches for Birdcage Maseratis. Every one would have to be essentially custom built, would make the cars perform noticeably worse, and your target audience would for the most part be horrified that you even suggested the idea in the first place. Not a recipe for volume sales, I suspect. You're never going to get anywhere near the volume and frequency of posts that even the "couple hundred units-per-year" maker types will, let alone the Crossman or AirForce forums. But yes, the current owners COULD start shooting and posting more often, that's pretty much always a given, mea culpa, etc.

Hi Sean,
Interesting that 90% of your instinct reasoning that airgun forums/owner's clubs exist is for the few who alter/customize them and the herd who then read about same. Mine don't need rebuilding so - that's a bust. There are no upgrades because they were built to a task which they perform. Bummer. I haven't left room for a cottage industry of custom parts. Shortsighted.
Now - oddly - I saw people actually "shooting" them. Posting pics of outings with buds. "Hunting" with them. Where legal, varmint, or game ranch situations. Posting stories.
Then there's that thought pattern that if only there were a thousand alike - people might like that. That's the old saying that goes, "Individualists of the world - UNITE!" The idea of owning something unique and rate and special ... Is the story of countless legends. But it's been suggested to me - many times - that it won't do for me. I'm too confusing with all this ... Creativity ... and fussing about innovating. .
Once again - this one fits too .... My stuff is soooo exotic and soooo expensive .... That you could buy a .... Private Plane? no. Prized Race Horse? No. In-ground Swimming Pool? nah. Hey ... how about a medium grade garden tractor from Lowes. Whoooh!!!! Now ... NOT a fancy zero turn ...
Well ... I don't think we've still hit upon why most people who get around to saying they like my work feel the need for 3 or 4 disclaimers first. But ... Always been the case. Guess I'm just trouble. A rebel. Don't look at his eyes!!!! ........ Booo!!!

I'm not worried about your eyes but I am somewhat intimidated by your supernatural teeth...

I've posted on other sites about the Woodsman and the Prairie and found just what Gary mentions; every comment has a disclaimer... And then the haters start yapping.

Must be "a southern thing"; start with disclaimers, finish with "bless his heart" or similar. All the outright insults, uninformed speculation, baseless insinuations and malicious prevarication go in the middle somewhere.

Bless 'yer heart ...