Green River Rifle Works Collectors Association GRRW.CA Start Up | Page 3
“If you aren’t carrying a GRRW you aren’t shit ~ not correctly equipped to be a mountain
man” according to John Baird editor of Buckskin Report and seconded by his sidekick “Blue
Jacket” Sanders, others too wrote similar reports of what should be carried - these fine guns.
Even Hollywood got into the act, Robert Redford came to Roosevelt and ordered a Hawken
half-stock built by Carl Walker still at Sundance today.
Then came economy changes hurting so many business’ large and small, GRRW included
causing it to close its doors many decades ago. Fans jumped at anything stamped GRRW
trying to fulfill that old need for correctness to complete their outfits. We have all seen how
the prices have increased over the years bringing 3-4 times more than originally priced. This
has continued for decades with some guys taking advantage of friends and brothers of the
mountains.
In November 2015 you may have heard or read about a discussion on the Internet between a
former employee of Green River Rifle Works and a former GRRW dealer from northern
Colorado. Ron Paull [GRRW] and Barry ‘Buck’ Conner [GRRW dealer] ‘Buckhorn
Rendezvous LTD’ of Masonville CO. talked (dreamed) of the fun of getting the old group
back together again and start where the old firm stopped decades ago.
By January 2016 there had been a ‘Mission Statement’ and a ‘Disclaimer’ written and the
first order came in, a Leman Trade Rifle. Former and first employee of GRRW Carl Walker
was contacted to see if he would consider building the first GRRW Collectors Association gun
like he had done when GRRW opened their doors. He agreed, now how cool is that folks.
It wasn’t but a week or two and the word got out and a Bridger Hawken was being built by
Doc White. Yes, the one and only Dr. Gary White (former owner of GRRW) was building the
second model rifle that the old firm was famous for “The Hawken”.
Like any new/old startup you have the non-believers that tell you this idea of these old
custom muzzle-loading gunsmiths building guns “it won’t happen”. When mentioned there
was a new policy ‘No Deposit’ or ‘No Back Orders’ – again “it won’t happen”, this has never
been tried in the gun building business.
Once the
Process was explained, folks started asking questions - “how do they
get on the
Customer Waiting List”. The first couple months we had a half dozen
emails asking questions from interested parties every other day, busy times.
In my spare time we put up several websites with our information all coming back to the
same email address at [email protected] with yours truly as the contact person.
In the past year I can’t tell you how many times we have been asked to post pictures of guns
completed by this group of former employees of the old firm of GRRW. I kept holding off
3