I've struggled with posting in this thread. Obviously, I've been away for a while and for various reasons. Mostly, to step away and get back to what I truly enjoy. I've spent a lot of years working on what became Vudoo Gun Works and I've met all types of people along the way. Fortunately, the greater percentage of them have been incredible. To name a few; Jesse Bell, Hoser, Victor, Dennis S, Ivan, Jaime, Rob, Tony G, and the list goes on....its vast. And the most honoring part of these relationships is many of these guys stuck with me through thick and thin. But of course, not everyone can be incredible and that's where this "balance" thing in life has to come in and screw everything up.
As I've put thought into what I might say here after being gone so long, my first area of wonderment has been, "why did Tony Harper feel the need to fuel something that had the propensity to be so vile?" Not only did he do it here, he did it elsewhere. Maybe a true indication of character (the very bottom of the character barrel being Turboshooter, Sam Wells)? But then I thought about feeding the right wolf....the important side of "balance." The truly important part of this is recognizing the opportunity.
As far as how I feel about the videos, I'll save a little time and paste a post here that I offered up on Rimfire Central on March 22nd:
"I've been hearing for a while about this infamous "series" of videos on YouTube and I had a few extra minutes this morning, so I watched about six minutes of the first one. I've chosen not to respond, to anything, here or elsewhere for quite a long while for various reasons but, I'll offer a single response to what I'm reading in this thread. I'll not run back and forth from forum to forum to get involved in the typical rimfire/benchrest bs or engage in the off-context comments (Lee) where my name has been brought into it.
While I do have reason to be concerned about a few things this guy says, largely, after a long time in this game, he's another Johnny-Come-Lately working to earn his stripes on the back of someone else. There's always another "Johnny" and this guy won't be the last. It's likely I've been regarded as a Johnny, but I've actually designed pistols, rifles, shotguns, etc., with my name on them over the course of many years. Having said that, I'm quite certain I could gather any number of the rifles "Johnny" has "built," lay in the dirt out in the desert with an iPhone and find any number of issues, especially if I were looking to earn my stripes. It's interesting that, of all the internet product designers in the world, many of whom are posting in this thread, there are so few new products in the community....amazing.
Bottom line is, very few, as in, I can count them on one hand, have been successful in properly re-barreling a Vudoo (Ivan, Dennis). All others have consistently done an incredibly laughable and inferior job with very few exceptions. There are a collection of "Johnny" barrels in the shop that prove it and they're kept around as a source of humor. Anyone claiming to "fix" anything has consistently advertised it in a self serving, self aggrandizing way that should be blatantly obvious to anyone with a reasonable IQ. I'm not saying that what ships from St. George is always perfect, because it hasn't been, but the Vudoo track record speaks for itself and it's amazing that this community has been so incredibly prone to eat its young, which has been a source of my months of silence.
This response is likely to strike a number of you as "sharp," but I've been seeing something from a community that's supposed to be different. The ego-filled, arm chair designers and "rifle builders" are in full swing and it's an enormous source of disinterest where I'm concerned. I've been damn near 100% available to you guys seven days a week on my personal cell, email, text, etc., for years, but realized the cost to me has been incredibly high and one-sided. For the time being, and for the first time in forever, I have a new, private number and have peacefully faded-to-black and the prime examples of why are in this thread."
After I posted this, I learned that there may have been some interaction between "Johnny" and Vudoo....don't know, can't confirm it. If so, great, whatever. And if so, it's a prime illustration of what I said above. Another "Johnny" using platforms to provide (mostly) disinformation and out-of-context-conjecture to get what he wants and doing it the easy way, on my back. The sad part is, he was able to lead a lot of you around by the nose, and that's truly disappointing.
MB