The Best "First Gun" was won by Walt Sprenkle of Selinsgrove, Pa. He built it back around 1981, and after seeing the gun I recalled the events around it. Walt showed up at our barrel shop with a blank of wood and a straight Douglas barrel, said he wanted to build a gun, would we show him what to do. Then he saw the swamped barrels that we were
doing and wondered if we could swamp his barrel. We agreed to do it, and, when finished we explained to him how to
inlet it. He came back about a week later with a perfect inlet. Said, what's next. We explained how to inlet the lock and where to put it, etc. About a week later, same thing, perfect inlet. And so it went for the whole gun. He did some
things wrong, which you would expect, but overall it was a nice gun. He finally got around to entereing it at Dixon's and
he told me, accoding to the judges, it was one of the best first guns they had ever judged. Needless to say he was pretty happy with the ribbons....................Don