doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Sedgley?

I know VERY little about the 1903 and its variants, other than I like the look of them. I found this rifle listed as a Sedgley. It is a .22 hornet, and I can't find much about them online. I am a little put off by the huge relief in the stock for the bolt handle, that looks a little back alley to me?

Thank you for any information.
CHAZ

I like it...

Don't be thrown off by the bolt handle and the stock work done to accommodate it. They are definitely not Sedgley, done to accommodate the addition of the scope and mount. All the Sedgleys I have seen had the serial numbers obliterated and replaced with a Sedgley serical number, which can be hard to locate. As I recall, Sedgley built .22 Hornets on M1922 .22 rimfire barreled actions.

So the rifle might be a Sedgley, but the bolt handle was bent and the relief cut done later on by Bubba?

I have found reference to Sedgley cutting and shortening actions to make .22 hornets, but I can't see that the action on this rifle looks altered?

CHAZ

I saw that gun when first listed. I thought it sold, but see that it is available again. I would ask for more information, specifically for photos of Sedgely markings. The seller is knowledgeable and should be able to provide definite proof it is a Sedgely.

The safety is interesting.

Sedgley may have built some Hornets on the rim fire action, but I doubt it . G&H did, but all the Sedgley Hornets I've seen or owned were built on center fire actions.

The one Sedgley Hornet I worked on (was more than a couple years ago) was on a regular full length 30cal '03 action.
The magazine was a rather crude looking thing made of separate sheet metal pieces to form a box. Seems like it had a separate ejector attached to the magazine assembly but I may be wrong on that.
Bolt face was reduced in size and re-machined for the hornet and the extractor hook lengthened IIRC.
The bolt throw was shortened to about what the pic posted shows.

Dispite the kind of crude appearence of the internal part of the conversion, it worked very smoothly.

I don't remember how it was ser#'d. The couple of Sedgleys I've had and the one I now own have a 'new' ser# in the sear channel in the rear tang. The front recv;r ring having been ground off,,,. I think the Sedgley proof mark is a S in a circle but I haven't had a look at it in a while.
Bbls are usually marked with the Sedgely name.

Sedgley built a number of fine Springfield- based rifles in the first half of the last century. The finest ones I have seen are 'take down' rifles. Some of these take down rifles were also cased for traveling. You don't see many anymore.

I was told by a member I needed to make some comments about Sedgleys.
1. The Hornet in the photo does not appear to have a Sedgley made stock. Since I haven't seen any additional photos of the gun it's hard to tell how much of it is Sedgley. Sedgley did make a number of Hornets on the full sized '03 action. They did shorten actions but not just for the Hornet, most shortened actions I have seen are in 250-3000 but there aren't very many of the shortened actions around. The catalogs did not list a hornet on the 1922 action but Sedgley would do a lot of custom work and it was listed in their custom work to convert a 1922 M1 to hornet for $22.50. The cost to convert the 1903 action to hornet was $32.50 with a new Winchester barrel, using their patented process.
2. As for all Sedgleys having the serial number and US markings removed and a new Sedgely serial number added, I would say from numbers on rifles seen, there are about as many Sedgleys (all calibers) with the original markings and numbers as there are those with new numbers. Michael Petrov and I talked a lot about this and neither of us had ever seen a Hornet with the markings removed. I'm not saying there aren't any hornets out there with markings removed and a new number added but so far I have not seen one.
3. Not all Sedgleys ended up with the barrel marked with their name but I assume most without the barrel markings were custom builds and not regular production items, but this is just a theory at this point.
4.I would dearly love to see a Sedgley '03 take-down rifle, I have never heard of one. I have nearly all of the Sedgley catalogs and they never listed a take-down model nor did they offer to do a take-down in their list of custom work.

Dan

Thanks for the info Dan, you sound like the Sedgley voice of experience. I also appreciate your acknowledging opinions and your actual experience.
I'd like to do a story for Sports Afield on Sedgley and am in need of a rifle to photograph. It sounds like a you would be a good fellow to interview??? Please PM me if you are interested?
SDH

Dan -- I have seen two Sedgley take down rifles. These were in Gary Goudy's shop some years ago, when he lived near me. IIRC, one of them was a 30-'06. The other was another popular big game caliber, but I can't recall which caliber now. They were pretty special rifles.

Mike

PS: both of these rifles were built on Springfield actions. In fact, I have a left handed Springfield actioned rifle (originally chambered for 7X61 S&H) built by Mathieu in Northern California. It has served me well for a long time.

Mike,

Thanks for the reply on the TDs. I do have a LH Sedgley conversion along with a Hoffman LH with the gear. I also have another 3 LH conversions which were done similar to the Sedgley.

Dan

SDH,

I have sent you a PM.

Dan

Well it was a cold Tuesday night in Michigan and I'm searching the interwebs for more information on a rifle I purchased, and low and behold, there is a picture of the rifle in some forum thread I found! Howdy everyone! Interesting to stumble upon this forum and this thread


I'm the guy who purchased this rifle at the end of last week. I have always loved the 22 Hornet, I have always loved the 1903, and I have always loved the Weaver K4, especially with a post reticle. I have a 1903a4 with a K4 on top. Super fun rifle, but I cringe when I take it out in the woods. I am(was) in the market for a varmint and range shooting rifle. I have always had my eye on the Winchester 70 featherweight, but a pre 64 is too spendy for me. So for a modern rifle, I was looking at the Tikka T3 Hunter (has to be a wood stock). I have a Tikka in 308 and it's one light and smooth rifle. So I narrowed it down to the cheap to shoot .223 cartridge and then I check the web one day and see this Sedgley listed.

"WHAT?!? A 1903 based 22 hornet rifle!! I must have it!"

But it sold in minutes. So I started to do some lite research on Sedgley. I see Michael's article that he wrote a decade ago, and realize that Sedgley is something I should look out for in the future. Then, I think it was Jan 1 or Jan 2, I see that the rifle has been re-listed. Someone must have bought it back before Christmas and returned it. So I think on it, but forget about it after a while. Unfortunately(or not), I remembered again last week while talking to a friend about 22 hornet. I broke down and purchased it. In talking to the sales guy, the person who originally bought it returned it with only the comment:

"He did not like the wood"

That makes more sense after reading this thread as the wood may/probably not be Sedgley wood. But this rifle is priced no where near Sedgley collectors value, so it's all the same to me.

Onto the rifle.

Hopefully this can help with some questions and or observations that were made using just the one picture in this thread. I'll add pics in future posts. The following are observations from a guy who is going to use this rifle in the woods and use it alot (as long as it turns out to be accurate). This most likely will be my January to August rifle. Afterwards I switch to a combo gun for the fall, and then a Savage 1899 in 303 Savage for rifle season.

Brief observations:

• The barrel is marked with a one line Sedgley stamp and there is the proof mark that looks like (S).
• The receiver has the markings from the military on it. I will be removing the scope mount this weekend and see exactly what it says, but I'm pretty sure it says Rock Island Arsenal 1903. The Serial number is 18xx or something around there.
• The front site is just like any other Sedgley I have seen in my brief research
• The action is very smooth and delightful to cycle
• Cartridges feed and eject smoothly
• Nice crisp two stage 1903 trigger
• Interesting quasi detachable magazine. Kind of a cross between a hinged floorplate and a detachable magazine

At little more in-depth on the scope mount, bolt alterations, and stock.

The mounting of the scope, either having been done by Sedgley or not, is very well thought out. The scope is very low on the rifle and I can center my eye with a good cheek weld without needing a comb riser. How this was done was by some interesting bolt handle modifications and modifications to the standard 1903 safety. I'll get into pics on this later. The stock is also very well done. I have seen some "Bubba" jobs in my time, but this is not one of them. The stock removal for conversion to a scope was done also with thought. As far as I can tell the stock removal for the bolt was done at the same time as the removal for the magazine ON/OFF selector tab. The whole job seems to be well thought out and done by someone who has done this type of thing before. Based on brief research of other Sedgley rifles and my observations of the actual rifle, my overall impression is that the stock and scope alterations were done at a later time after this rifle's original conversion to 22 Hornet. I cannot say if this is an altered Sedgley stock, or a stock that was included as a part of the addition of the scope.

Indicators that the stock is new since the scope mount:

• forend cap. Shouldn't all Sedgley's have a Schanble forend? (Man I would have loved it if it had one).
• Magazine On/Off wood relief seems the same age and tooling process as the bolt handle relief

Indicator that the stock is a Sedgley

• Very similar if not identical checkering and stock profile
• Retained receiver aperture site base. It would not be possible and/or would skin the shooter's knuckles if the receiver sight was still in place while cycling the bolt. Using a receiver sight with the scope rail in place would

So there you have it... long winded, but hopefully helpful. I'm going to do a strip down and cleaning this weekend and I will take more pics as I see anything interesting.

Initial pics to follow this post.

Here are a few pictures of the bolt, bolt relief and safety






This one shows the safety engaged.
At first I thought this was a silly design. It would be eaisly bumped in the woods. After I re-installed the scope, I saw how well everything fits together. The scope shields the safety from any bumps. It's all nice and compact under the scope and allows for the scope to ride very low.

Here's a photo of a Sedgley I formerly owned, still in the original .30-'06. No Schnabel, but a fore end tip.

Very interesting! That's a very beautiful rifle.

So perhaps mine is a Sedgley stock. Do you remember anything about the buttplate on yours? Mine is plastic and has a Colt logo of all things.

I have 3 Sedgley rifles, 1 deluxe model in 30/06, 1 standard model in 30/06 and a standard model in 22 Hornet, the standard models have schnabel forends and no cheekpiece. The deluxe model has a horn forend tip and a cheekpiece, all 3 have the same gripcap and front sight as xusas gun. All 3 have the checkered triangle behind the rear tang and the abrupt comb nose. All 3 still have the Springfield logo and serial # on the receiver ring, both standard models are low serials the deluxe is in the 900,000 range, the 30/06 standard gun has a steel Winchester buttplate which I understand was normally used. Some where I read that Sedgley left the original serial # on guns that were converted for a customer and used their serial on actions they furnished.

The rifle has a Winchester steel butt plate, like that used on an early Model 70.