doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com 1903 Sporter stock won on ebay

I won the following stock on ebay the other day. It arrived yesterday and has really high quality inletting, much better
than my pictures show. There are no markings under the buttplate. The grip cap is ebony and the grip has a very pronounced Wundhammer swell. I was wondering if anyone has a clue as to who did the work on this stock. As you can see in the last picture, the tang area of the receiver must have been altered. Here is also the link to the auction as well. sporter stock

Don't recall ever seeing a forend with that configuration.

I remember that Ed Shulin did a 1903 Springfield varminter with that shape forearm, at least the groove on the sides was similar. Ed's varminter forearm was wider of course and had a rounded tip with the groove carried across the front of the forend end, no contrasting tip material. Ed also shortened the mag capacity by one round which made for a slimmer magazine belly line. This was in 1966 and was a known current style. Your stock doesn't look exactly like Ed's work although it appears to be very well done.
Regards, Joe

Am I missing something, I don't see any groove in the forend?
It does looks like the forend tip has gone missing? but the stock appears to have good layout and grain flow through the grip. Attractive wood too.

For a remodel you could add an ebony tip, remove the white lines, create some loading port details, install a (st)real grip cap, lessen the swell and checker.
Simply suggestions...

Fred,

Could you post a good picture of the raised wood in the area of where you would normally find a Lyman 48.

Steve, click on the link and then click on 'more details' or similar and then look at the last photo on the bottom row.
Regards, Joe

I think it started life as either a semi inlet Bishop or Reinhardt Fajen of Warsaw Missouri, Varminter/Target style from the early 60's.

Gee wiz Joe... you're WAY ahead of me, very weird downhill grooves, eh?

The stock looks to have enough wood everywhere that you should be able to work it into a decent looking stock.

AL#1, a Fajen or Bishop semi-inlet would not be inlet for the reshaped tang as this stock is.

John

Here is a picture of the area of the stock that Michael requested, there is a bit of tape residue on the stock.

The tang inletting appears to be opened up from a standard 03 therefore it would be possible to use a standard semi inlet as a basis for this stock.

Here is a more detailed picture of the tang area along with two semi-inletted 1903 stocks for comparison, from bottom to top,
a Bishop, the one purchased from e-bay, and one from gunstocks.com,
you can see on the semi-inletted stocks that they've removed a lot of wood.

The 2 semi-inletted stocks top and bottom, are of a much later manufacture date and are routed out to accomodate adjustable trigger mechanisms, such as a Timney by the factory. This had become the norm after the 60's. The earler, middle one is made to accomodate a military style trigger only, as was the norm in the 50's. Also stocks were sold in varying degrees(%'s) of inletting. As I recall, from approx. 50% to 95%. The "RAILROAD TIE" detail in the forearm is very hard to cut by hand and only an experienced stockmaker can do it right. Quite frankly the rest of the stock does not show that level of expertise, therefore my money is on a factory stock with some degree of inletting, finished by a capable gunsmith.

Things have been slow here, it is hard to believe that I've had
this stock for 6 years now and am finally updating this thread.
But, in the last six years, my wife had twins, so we've been busy
and I am not going to be too hard on myself for a change.

I hope that by now, everyone has installed the patches that enable
them to view images on the older threads.

I did eventually find an action with a modified tang that with minor
inletting worked nicely with this stock. Here is a picture of the tang region.


and a picture of the entire rifle



There is a fair bit of work to go, I'd like to someday add a forend
tip and replace the recoil pad and sling swivels, but it feels good
to have an action back in this beautifully inletted stock.

Congrats on the twins. Next two projects, first a BB gun, then a .22.

Thanks, about a month after they were born, I won an auction for
some nice stocks, I've been assembling a collection of parts for rifles
that I want to build for them and with them as they get older. I hope
that both my daughter and son will enjoy shooting, the pleasure of working with a good hunting dog and many other good things.

btw, did anyone wonder about the rear sight?

Yes, I did.

Well, the story behind the sight is this. The slide is from
a Redfield Model 100 sight, I got the slide in a parts grouping.
I machined the base, copying it from a Marble-Goss sight
with appropriate modifications to accommodate the different slide.
The base replaces the magazine cutoff, and there is a small lever
that serves as a bolt release. Here is a picture of the sight
on the action, before the bolt release was made.



The sight did not require any removal of wood from the stock. I liked the inletting, the Wundhammer swell and the cast-off so much
that I wanted to do as little to the stock as possible to honor
the person who made it.

Nicely done.