Libhart, Craig

I’ve had a love of guns for as long as I can remember. After graduating from high school, I headed west for Trinidad State Junior College in Trinidad, Colorado and their two year gunsmithing program. Finishing in ’73, I moved back to Pennsylvania and took a job as a machinist where I remained for the next 35 years. I started back into stock work part-time in the mid 1990s, and am now pretty much a full-time gunmaker, working with both metal and wood to create fine custom firearms. I will accept general gunsmithing work within the scope of a commissioned custom project.

In 2004 I was honored to be accepted into the American Custom Gunmakers’ Guild as a Professional Member in the stockmaker category. The majority of my work is shotgun and two-piece rifle stocks, but inevitably a bolt gun or two will find its way onto my schedule. I usually have a dozen or so two-piece stock blanks on hand for a client to examine and choose from for his particular project. English walnut (juglans regia) is superior in almost every respect as a gunstock wood, and for this reason I’ll use it almost exclusively with a few rare exceptions.