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