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

(If this topic has been beat to death here or elsewhere, please direct me to that conversation and I'll go quietly....).

I wonder what constitutes a "custom rifle." Or is there just no really accepted definition?

Is a C. Sharps or Shiloh Sharps single shot rifle that I order from their extensive list of options--and which may well be "one-of-a-kind" given my odd tastes--truly "custom"? What about a similarly eccentric Model 7 or 700 ordered from Remington's "Custom Shop"?

Or is a truly custom rifle always made up from scratch or at least assembled from components by a small shop with the parts sourced and/or made to an individual's ('smith or customer) very personal specifications?

At times it seems the term is almost meaningless: a 722 with a shortened barrel and added recoil pad is "custom" as is the same rifle made into a work of art by a known master who threw away 85% of the Remington and substituted his own specially made components, a premium barrel, and "edible" walnut molded to the metal.

Maybe we should just describe the rifle's level of quality, once we've established that it is no longer "box stock"? Or is this just not a real problem?

You asked...
(This was first published in a one issue magazine called Custom Rifle Gazette about 1995�Steven Dodd Hughes)

The term "custom rifle" conjures up a vastly different meaning in each that uses or hears the term. I call myself a "custom gunmaker", another term with a surprising variety of definitions. The most relevant dictionary definitions for these terms are: "Made to the specifications of the individual purchaser" and "Specializing in making of made-to-order goods". I agree.

By contrast, "customized" is defined: "to alter to the tastes of the buyer". I also agree with this one although many magazine writers lump the "custom" definition in with that of "customized".

Unfortunately, the current usage of the term "custom rifle" allows almost unlimited boundaries. A recent magazine article describes a "custom rifle" that had a new barrel in a non-factory chambering, and new sights as the sum total of the modifications. Many of the custom bolt rifles made these days are a simple assemblage of "kit" parts bought from a supply house.

The metalwork amounts to a pre-contoured barrel fit to a M-70 action with specialty parts such as bottom metal, safety, a pre-checkered bolt-handle and sights or scope mounts bought from a catalog.

The stocks are run on a duplicating machine using a universal master pattern that allows for changes in barrel contour, length of pull and style of grip cap. Some stocks are machined so closely to dimension that little is left but to sand, finish and checker the wood.

Granted, all of the parts must be hand fit, the metal polished and (hopefully) the rifles are adjusted for proper function, live-fire tested and sighted in. The "custom" part of the project amounts to the customer selecting "options" from the "maker's" list. Little or nothing is "made" by the gunmaker.

Similarly, factory "custom shops" only offer variations of their own factory rifles, such as those listed above. These rifles are no more than customized.
Over the years, many barreled actions have been custom stocked. If the stock was individually made to fit the shooter, it is a custom stock, but does that make the rifle a "custom rifle"?

A rifle that has been individually created by someone "specializing in making goods-to-order" and "made to the specifications of an individual purchaser", is a good definition of a custom rifle. There are many possible interpretations and arguments as well, especially from those that do, or have had rifles customized. The words individually, specialized, specifications and individual purchaser are the measures of judgement.

I like to think of a custom rifle project as starting with a complete concept, often in the form of a full-scale drawing. All of the work is laid out on one piece of paper for the metalsmith, stockmaker and engraver to work from. It must be a collaboration of the client's and craftsman's ideas, dimensional considerations, intended purpose and design preferences.

Although a full-scale drawing is not necessary, it is a valuable and worthy form of expression and communication. If more clients were offered the option of paying for such a drawing, I believe they would welcome the opportunity.

To my mind a "custom" rifle is one where you work with the maker to get exactly what you want. This doesn't include picking from a list of options like the Sharps or Remington Custom Shop offers.

Recoil Rob,
I believe your statement to be a very very good explaination of the term, short and to the point. +1

I am an archery hunter and I use a modern bow, there are those who say you are not an archer because you are not using a wooden long bow, and there are those who take it another step and say you didn't make the bow, and finally there are the very smalll group of those who say "you didn't grow the tree" and very last to those I say you aren't God, give him some credit.

To custom guns I will stop by asking did you smelt the steel and plant the nut?

The question is very academic. Your opinion here is the correct one. IMHO

Actually I like Steve's distinction between "custom" and "customized". Works for me.

Guns ordered with special features from the factory, whether original manufacture or "aftermarket" factory work, I have always called "special order" guns. I think this would cover guns from the "custom shops" of manufacturers who have a standard retail line of guns. Think I picked that distinction up from Ken Waters, but it is common usage among gun collectors. I don't think we need to distinguish between those and the products of the small manufacturers in Big Timber, for example. An original 1885 with a 36" barrel and almost any Big Timber 'wall or Sharps are all "special order." NOT a big deal.

(I've never known where that "-ized" suffix came from, and generally don't like it much. In this particular case it seems to me that it functions perfectly, for once.).

The problem with terms in common usage is that meaning is determined by usage, not a dictionary or other "authority." Examine search results for "custom" at one of the gun auction sites and you will quickly realize that "custom" to at least 8 of 10 users refers to a firearm that most here might call "buggered." Given the expectations set by experience, imagine a personal ad which read "Custom SWF seeks SWM for LTR." I suspect only an optimist might imagine someone as attractive as a fat girl that does not sweat much!

"Bespoke" or "Best" (or the two words appearing in close descriptive proximity) might come closer to the mark that SDH wishes to delineate, but probably only because rare usage in America has yet to corrupt connotation. Salvation probably lies in Shakespeare's several well known comments about a rose.

As an alternative, we may appeal to fine art in the vernacular of Jeff Foxworthy. If the maker dies and this fact is sufficient to cause a rifle jump in value, it might be custom.

Penultimate,
Very good, I do like that last statement...LOL....so true, so true