doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com What ever happened to these stock makers?

I was thumbing through Monte Kennedy's checkering and carving book to get ideas for the checkering on a stock I'm working on. I noticed 3 featured stock makers that I have never heard of or seen pictures of their work, other than in Kennedy's book. Their pictured work showed they all had considerable talent, which prompted me to wonder what happened to them. Their names were John Hearn, Keith Stegall, and Edgar Warner (a student of Bob Owen according to the book). Google didn't provide much, other than their obits. Anybody here have photos or own any of their work?

Keith Stegall was well represented in the custom maker's section of early Gun Digests.

I was talking to an older dealer at the CADA show several years ago. He had a Shelhamer Model 70 on his table and the discussion turned to stockmakers and checkering. He said John Hearn did the best checkering he had ever seen. And this while he was trying to sell me a Shelhamer rifle.

John

And was he successful?

Pictures?

LOL, actually my dad ended up buying that one. It is a very late Shelhamer rifle. As I recall he had Shelhamers invoice with the rifle which was dated 1962. Model 70 30-06.

John

Several years ago I responded to an ad on Gun Broker (I think) about a Roy Dunlap Model 70 Winchester in caliber .300 H&H Improved. There were no photos included in the ad and the seller had none to send me. I finally decided to take a chance and placed a bid. It turned out to be a winner (I was the only bidder), but to give myself a little cover, I got the seller to agree to meet me to make the delivery face to face.

There is a good bit more to the story, but suffice it to say that I was pleased with my purchase. The Model 70 has a nice custom stock and the barrel was marked not only with Dunlap's name, but also the name of the maker, Bliss Titus.

The stock maker was not identified in any way, but the fact that John Hearn is featured prominently in Dunlap's book on Gunsmithing and the resemblance of the checkering patterns to Hearn's work as shown in Kennedy's book, led me to ascribe it to him. One particularly characteristic feature of Hearn's checkering was on the pistol grip, where the wraparound pattern extended from the very bottom all the way around to the other side, so that only a thin line separated one side from the other.






An additional element in the transaction was my discovery that in the late 1940's the Wimbleton 1000 yard rifle match at Camp Perry was won by a shooter using a .300 H&H Improved caliber rifle with a Bliss Titus barrel.