Ron Otto and Duke Pursley, owners of "Little Sharps"
According to Vance Butler there was some excitement at the gun show. There were a number of high quality of guns at the Big Sandy Gun Show. Vance Butler and Brian Harwood from Thompson Falls, Hardwood Bullets, spend the night on the premises guarding the guns. Brian who was instrumental in encouraging Vance to have a gun show in Big Sandy woke up to a large loud bang. He looked over to Vance's cot and Vance wasn't there. He was afraid Vance had woken up and had to use his gun. He went looking for Vance and found him and the Sheriff Deputy, Dennis Hall, talking outside city hall. He was sure then that Vance had to fire his gun. Only all it was snow coming off The Grocery Store's roof and hitting the side of the city hall. Laughter filled city hall with the telling of it. The gun show was a little smaller than normal, because of a couple deaths and health concerns of some of the long-time vendors. Vance did say the threat is insurance rates which have been rumored to triple in the next year and although he doesn't mind just breaking even on the gun show, as he is doing now, he couldn't continue to have a gun show next year if he went in the hole.
Leroy Walker of Walker Grips from Great Falls makes gun handles from elk horns. He is interested in buy elk horns. If you are interested in selling horns to him he will be at the Great Falls Gun Show in March. His wife Rita sells antiques.
Norm Schertenleib makes his living by making and selling gun holsters and shoulder straps for pistols. He's been making them for 25 years. He had a custom-made saddle shop for eight years, but it never paid the bills. He has lived completely off the sales of his gun holsters and shoulder straps. He also does leather stamping as well, but has found most customers don't want to pay for the many hours it takes to make a quality design.
Talking to Ron Otto and Duke Pursley of the Little Sharps Rifle Mfg. is always a great experience. They jumped from one subject to the other, of course, they were visiting with everyone at once. They're proud of the guns they made as it has taken down large animals from Canada to Africa.
Whose idea was Little Sharps. "Ours! We both thought about it. Who said it first doesn't matter. It was Us." They really can't remember, but they really don't care. It started in 1995. Ron said, "We have two more guns to make and then they will be retiring and making the decision on what to do with the business."
When they started they had a good support system. They mentioned Schwarzbach, Charlie Danreuther, Russell Dixon, and Solberg before they were interrupted again. They've sold mostly 50% of
their guns within a 100 miles radius of Big Sandy. They didn't really know how many they've sold. "We should know." Each gun sells for $5,000.
Duke started engraving when his father made him some hand-made tools. That's because he wanted a gun engraved and travelled to Missoula to have it done. When he picked it up it cost him $50. A lot of money at the time. He thought he needed to learn how to engrave. There was no one to help teach him, so he taught himself as a teenager.
I enjoyed listening to them telling about the story behind the picture made by Don Greytack. The pencil drawn picture has Ron is knelling on the ground with his hand around the horn of a little antelope, and Duke is asking him, while he was pointing to a big buck, "What the hell are you going to do with that baby while the big guy is out there." They still laughed at telling of the story once again.
