Kelbly
In 1969, Ralph Stolle, an active benchrest competitor, designed and built an unlimited steel action that he called the Stolle Grizzly. It was a round action, over 14 inches in length, 1.700" in diameter, with a blued finish. He built somewhere between 25 and 30 of them, mostly for unlimited bag guns. In 1970-71, Stolle manufactured the first aluminum Panda action, which was 11.5" inches in length with a long barrel thread area. Stolle suffered a heart attack in 1979, and moved to North Lawrence a year later. In 1981 he produced his first actions at Kelbly's facility with George E. Kelbly Sr. Ralph Stolle passed away in September 1982. In November 1982 Jim Kelbly was hired in with George E. Kelbly Jr. coming aboard in 1986 and Mike Kelbly in 1991. In 2012 George Sr. retired and sold company to his three sons and Kelbly's Inc. now has 13 employees including Ian and Ryan Kelbly, both Jim's sons.
Production has come along way since. Today, Kelbly's is averaging over 1200 actions yearly with 30% sold to overseas customers. And complete rifles are now over 200 a year. Kelbly's Inc. is always updating and advancing our product line with new rifle actions and rifles.
