I've spent much of this afternoon watching Mr Kibler on his Youtube channel working on his Colonial Rifle kit - what he calls a pre-finished kit. It is apparent that while there certainly is a shed-load of finer hand work needed to get rifle to be proud of, a very large proportion of the real work - the making and shaping of the long and slender stock, the assembly of the lock so that it sparks rather than clicks pointlessly, and more, has been done with great accuracy, necessitating handwork that anybody, or instance, who has average to slightly above average skills with hand-tools could manage. And that includes me. I build and run live-steam engines and the cars that go with them, as anybody who has seen some of my videos on Youtube would advise you, and I'm dead certain that I'm pretty much able to finish one of Mr Kibler's kits to a more than acceptable standard.
Sure, they seem to cost a lot of money, especially when you look at a ready-made from one of the European makers, like Pedersoli, whose products are just fine, but not true replication of an American long rifle. They are, of course, made in Italy, a place that is obviously NOT the natural home of the American long rifle.
So, to the point - a very telling point for those of us for whom the origin of the rifle they put up to their face counts.
Every part of Mr Kibler's guns is made in the USA, from wood grown in the USA to metal cast and fettled in the USA. Just like an American long rifle ought to be.
And that, Friends, is worth paying for.