Gunsmith of the Month: Danie Joubert

Danie works and lives in Pretoria. Around 1985 he started doing gunsmith work for extra money while he was an apprentice instrument maker. As a gunsmith, he specialises in high quality classic English-style hunting rifles. Danie enjoys making hunting and precision rifles but, if he had to choose, he would pick hunting rifles as they allow him to be creative in their design and construction.

Various well-known people have contracted Danie to build rifles for them – mostly large calibre hunting rifles. One of these clients is currently a king in his country.

Danie does not have a favourite make of barrel for building hunting rifles, as long as the barrels are locally available and straight. While he does not make the stocks for his rifles, all his hunting rifle stocks are of Turkish Walnut.

He believes that for a precision rifle, a single-shot, solid bottom, bolt-action with a good trigger cannot be beaten. Regarding a favourite dangerous game calibre, he has a soft spot for the .404 Jeffery and on his bucket list is a .577 Nitro Express on a Gibbs-type falling block action. Danie is a hunter, mostly pursuing plains game for meat, in the Alldays area.