Because big is better! Finding a niche market in big bore guns, Big Horn Armory offers custom gunsmith services. Here’s how they built the big guns that built their business.

by Ashley Burgess Gall

Big Horn Armory was started with the idea to build premium, high-performance lever guns chambered in powerful, big bore cartridges. This was done to fill an obvious gap in the firearms market for a quick-handling, rapid-firing rifle in powerful cartridges. And it all started with a conversation in 2007.
Shortly after Greg Buchel moved to Wyoming, he spoke with a neighbor of his, Frank Ehrenford. Frank was intrigued by Smith & Wesson’s recent introduction of the 500 S&W revolver cartridge. It was a great revolver cartridge and helped Smith & Wesson reclaim the most powerful handgun in the world title, but it was a gun that few people cared to shoot. The cartridge had too much power for a revolver, regardless of how heavy they made the gun. It begged for chambering in a long gun.
Several companies had been working on this problem. Since the 500 S&W is a rimmed cartridge, the obvious choice for a long gun platform was a lever gun. Lever guns are uniquely suited to rimmed cartridges because of their tube magazines where a rimmed cartridge is an advantage, rather than the hindrance the rim causes in a box magazine. Frank and Greg thought the market was ripe for such a gun.

They started by playing around with the different lever gun actions and found out what many before them had already discovered, that it just wouldn’t work with a …

Read more in the March 2022 issue.

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