Stewart Edward White,
The Metamorphosis Project,
&
Two Wundhammer Rifles
By
Michael Petrov
Theodore Roosevelt had no sooner returned from his 1909-10 safari in Africa when his good friend, Steward Edward White, was ready to follow in his footsteps. Roosevelt had carried with him on his African safari an armory-modified Springfield Model 1903 rifle in caliber 30-03 using a 220-grain bullet. Roosevelt had also carried a Winchester Model 95 in caliber .405 Winchester and a double rifle in caliber 500-.450 by Holland & Holland. White would follow him with the very first Springfield Model 1903 rifle that had been commercially customized by Ludwig Wundhammer of Los Angeles, California. The rifle was in caliber 30-06 using a 150-grain bullet. Like Roosevelt, White would also carry a Winchester Model 95 in caliber .405 Winchester and a double rifle in caliber .465 by Holland & Holland. To the student of the American custom rifle, White’s first custom Springfield Model 1903 rifle will always hold a special place in history.
Stewart Edward White, 1873–1946, American author and conservationist, was born on March 12, 1873 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His writing career spanned more than sixty years. He authored no less than 24 nonfiction and 34 fiction books and published numerous magazine articles. Mr. White was not only a prolific writer who had "been-there, done-that," but he was also one of the greatest riflemen of all time. I could easily use a few thousand words describing the life of Mr. White. But I recommend instead that you read the four nonfiction books from his three Africa safaris: The Land of Footprints (1912); African Campfires (1913); The Rediscovered Country (1915); and Lions in the Path (1926). In addition to being a great hunter, White was also a great conservationist. He worked tirelessly to preserve the brown bears in Alaska so they would not be wiped out as they had been in his home state of California.
I first learned about Stewart Edward White’s Wundhammer custom rifle from the Gun Digest, then edited by John T. Amber. Amber had acquired White’s Wundhammer Custom Springfield Model 1903 rifle and used pictures of the rifle in several articles. In the 1961 edition of “Days of the Springfield” by Townsend Whelen, the rifle was pictured with the following caption: “First commercial Springfield sporter, was this Louis Wundhammer stocked 30-06, made in 1912 and was used by Stewart Edward White in Africa. One of four such rifles ordered by Capt. E. C. Crossman, the rifle shown carries Rock Island Arsenal serial number 166,436 and barrel date of February, 1910.” I talked with John Amber twice asking about his Niedner Underhammer rifle barely touching on this rifle. When Amber died, his collection was sold at public auction in November of 1986. I’ll admit that my knowledge of both White and Wundhammer at that time was only rudimentary. I knew that White had gone for an extended safari to Africa with his Wundhammer rifle. Beyond that, I knew little. I have been unable to trace the Amber rifle backwards from Amber. But, I feel confident that Amber bought the rifle from White’s secretary after White died. I have no doubt that the rifle once belonged to White. It would be an understatement to say that I had been very shortsighted in my two phone conversions with John Amber by not asking more and better questions. Hindsight is always 20-20. In order to make this article less confusing, I will refer to the rifle that came from the Amber estate as the “Amber Rifle”.
The Richard A. Bourne Auction Company is located in Hyannis, Massachusetts. While I was working my way through the hundreds of rifles owned by Amber that had been consigned for auction, I picked up White's Wundhammer custom rifle. My first impression was that some kind of huge misunderstanding had been perpetrated about the rifle. Whoever the rifle belonged to had never taken it to Africa. This rifle was in the same pristine condition as when it first left Mr. Wundhammer’s hands. Unsure about the whole matter, I did not take another look at or bid on the rifle. Shortly thereafter, I realized the mistake I had made. At that time, I had tunnel vision with eyes only for Niedner items and things that I was sure about. The rifle was catalogued as just another custom sporter with no mention of White or Wundhammer; it sold for a modest amount. This rifle continued in my thoughts long after I had returned home. So, I wrote a letter to the auction company detailing what I knew about the rifle with the information from Gun Digest and asking that they forward this information to the new owner. The new owner, Alan Gaines, (a collector from Rhode Island) wrote me back and we started corresponding. As my collections of information about his rifle developed over the years, I shared it with him. I also advised him that I would be interested in his rifle if he ever decided to part with it. As time went on, I put together enough pieces of information to prove that this rifle was not the first Wundhammer rifle White had taken to Africa. The rifle was indeed a Wundhammer and it did indeed belong to White. But twenty years of off and on research had given me an understanding about the history of White’s rifle(s).
The history of the first five custom sporting rifles made by Wundhammer using the Springfield Model 1903 rifle is well documented in a three-part article by E.C. Crossman entitled “The Metamorphosis of the New Springfield”. This article was published in Outer’s Book, Nov, 1910; Dec, 1910; and Jan, 1911. The five rifles were made for White, Crossman, Colby, Weld, and Rogers. The original idea was to have two custom rifles made for White and Crossman, respectively. But White then asked if three more custom sporters for his friends could be included in the project making the total five rifles. Three of the five elected to leave the rear sight bases on the rifles as the rifles came from Rock-Island Arsenal. The three were White, Weld, and Rogers. Colby and Crossman had the rear sight bases removed from their rifles. To the best of my knowledge, the White’s, Weld’s, and Rogers’ rifles were the only rifles made by Wundhammer with the rear sight bases on them. As well as the sight bases, the three had their rifles made with an identical length-of-pull, 13 ¾”. The Amber Rifle has the original Springfield Armory rear sight base still on it. And, as expected, the Amber Rifle has a 13 ¾” length-of-pull. If the Amber Rifle had not been made for White, then it must have been made for either Weld or Rogers.
Combing through both articles and books written by E.C. Crossman and Stewart Edward White, I’ve been able to put together many pieces of the history pertaining to their respective rifles. White received the first rifle in time to leave in the fall of 1910 for his first safari in Africa. The safari lasted fourteen months. White made it abundantly clear in his writings that he carried his rifle everywhere he went both on horseback and on foot. In The Land of Footprints, Doubleday, Page & Company, 1913, White wrote:
“Now the habit in Africa is to let your gunbearers carry all your guns. You yourself stride along hand free. It is an English idea, and is pretty generally adopted out there by every one, of whatever nationality. It stands to reason that the man with the rifle in his hands reacts instinctively, in one motion, to get his weapon into play. If the gunbearer has the gun, he must first react to pass it up, the master must receive it properly, and then, and not until then, may go on from where the other man began. As for physical labour in the tropics: if a grown man cannot without discomfort or evil effects carry an eight-pound rifle, he is too feeble to go out at all. In the long Western experience I have learned never to be separated from my weapon; and I believe the continuance of this habit in Africa saved me a good number of chances.”
White's description rules out any possibility that his rifle was carefully stored away and only taken out when it was to be used for shooting. White also made reference in his writings to his insistence that his rifle have a trapdoor in the buttplate. And White even goes so far as to describe what he carried in his. The Amber Rifle does not have a trapdoor in the buttplate.
During his first safari, White used his Springfield sporter to kill 185 head of game. During this same period, ammunition companies were busily developing many different types of hunting bullets. Unfortunately, many of these bullets proved to be big failures on game. White found through experience that the full metal jacket military bullet of the day worked well in Africa. Many articles were written at that time about and by White on the different types of bullets. The articles make great reading for the student interested in the early development of hunting ammunition for a high-speed cartridge.
The normal care for cleaning the rifle while on safari was boiling water along with cleaning solvent and oil. White wrote “On my return I tested the rifle very thoroughly for accuracy. In spite of careful cleaning the barrel was in several places slightly corroded. For this the climate was responsible. The few small pitting, however, did not seem in any way to have affected the accuracy, as the rifle shot the following groups: 3 ½ inches at 200 yards; 7 ¼ inches at 300 yards; and 11 ½ inches at 500 yards.”
White's first safari to Africa took a very heavy toll on his rifle. Crossman mentioned this in an article in Outer’s Recreation for February, 1922, entitled “A New Stock for the Service Rifle”. “The barrel had been nearly worn out on the return of the rifle. Possibly this had something to do with the statement written by Cuninghame, the African guide and the inspiration of the characters in some of White’s novels, to President Roosevelt—that White was the best game shot that ever came to Africa.
So White turned the old barrel and receiver over to me and had Wundhammer fit a new receiver with a Poldi steel barrel. I blew up the old barrel in some mud-in-the-barrel experiment and wrote them up in 'Arms and the Man'”.
I located Crossman's article entitled “Executing a Rifle.” The article appeared February 12, 1912, issue of Arms and the Man. When I started the search for information on White’s rifle, I had not expected to find that it had been blown up! Crossman did just what the article's title said: first, jamming the barrel in the dirt, then firing it until the barrel split, and, finally, using a maximum overload to blow up the action. The only piece of good news was that Crossman listed the rifle maker and serial number.
White’s Rifle:
Rock Island Arsenal serial No. 164,985 barrel date of February, 1910.
Amber Rifle:
Rock Island Arsenal serial No. 166,436 barrel date of February, 1910.
Both rifles originally came fitted with a Lyman Model 34 sight. Crossman did not care for the Model 34 sight as it came from the Lyman factory, so, he had some Model 34 sights made up with special fine-line adjustments and with the pointer positioned on the side. I believe he had five of these special sights made for the “Metamorphosis” project. But, once the sights arrived, Crossman found that he did not care for the sights. So he had yet another special sight made up which was a lot like the later Lyman Model 48. Like Crossman, White did not care for the Lyman Model 34 sight either. He reported that, with every shot, the sight automatically rose a notch. White added that this feature could be helpful when game was running away, but was quite dangerous when something like a lion was charging.
As I mentioned previously, White had Wundhammer install a new receiver and barrel into his stock following his return from Africa. Wundhammer also mounted the then-new Lyman Model 48 sight on his rifle. The sight can be clearly seen in a picture showing both Cuninghame and White on their second safari.
White left again for safari in Africa on May 15, 1913. White's guide on this second safari was Richard John Cuninghame who was also Theodore Roosevelt’s guide on his 1909-10 safari and on White’s first safari. This 1913 safari is covered in White’s excellent book, “The Rediscovered County,” published in 1915 by Doubleday, Page & Company. Using his old Wundhammer with a new barrel, receiver, and sights, White killed 135 animals, 98 with one shot each. After returning to the States, he hunted with the rifle in both the USA and Canada until about 1923 when the rifle was stolen from his car in San Francisco. The rifle was, subsequently, traced to a Sacramento, California, gun store. But it disappeared again before the police could investigate. I’ve read where White took out notices and even hired a private detective to locate his rifle. I was also informed that one of the notices was published in a sporting magazine of the time and the serial number was listed therein. But I have been unable to locate the notice. White carried a Springfield sporter again on his third safari in 1925. However, I have no idea which rifle this was. As far as I have been able to learn, the stolen rifle was never recovered.
Fortunately for us, the Amber Rifle is meticulously described in the “Metamorphosis” articles. Except for having no butt trap, the Amber rifle is identical in every way to the White rifle. The Amber Rifle even matches the picture of White with his new rifle and, if the description of White's original rifle was not known, it would be hard to prove that the Amber Rifle was not White's original rifle. Since the Amber Rifle was not White’s original rifle, then it must have been made either for Weld or Rogers. Unfortunately, the "Metamorphosis" article only listed the men by their last names and told nothing else about them. Over the years as I collected information from both books and articles, I tried to make some order of it all and to follow up on anything that looked promising. Crossman made it plain that, as the five rifles were being made, the last rifle (which was being made for him) incorporated features which were not found in the first rifle which was made for White. Crossman wrote, “The last rifles had points of value, not to be found in the first.”
Crossman described the rifles as all having a ½” circle of checkering on the bottom of the bolt knob. The rear corners of the followers were cut off so that the bolts would slide forward even when no cartridge was in the magazine. The bolt stops were also removed. The bolt stop is a small pin that projects through the bottom of the locking lug channel and engages notches in the locking lug as it crosses the pin. The bolt stop prevents the bolt from sliding forward in case the rifle is pointed downwards when being loaded. The Amber Rifle has NONE of these improvements; not a single one. At times like this, speculation could run wild. Could this have been the first rifle made? Could White have had two rifles made? I could go on forever, but we need to stick with what has been published and try to work with those facts.
In Crossman’s book, Military & Sporting Rifle Shooting, published in 1932, White wrote about the first five rifles made by Wundhammer. “The late Robert Cameron Rogers, John Colby, Crossman and myself each got one. Forgot who the fifth man was.” As I read this, I was excited to learn the first name of Rogers. Later it sank in that, if White had gotten one of the other four rifles, he would have at least remembered his benefactor's name. I believe the fifth man, Weld, may have been the Reverend George F. Weld, Rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Montecito, Santa Barbara County, California. The Reverend Weld died in 1933 and, other than that, I’ve learned little about him. I was fortunate enough, however, to find some information on Robert Cameron Rogers.
Robert Cameron Rogers
(1862-1912)
New York & California
"ROGERS, Robert Cameron, editor and poet, was born in Buffalo, N.Y., Jan. 7, 1862, son of Sherman Skinner and Christina (Davenport) Rogers. His first American ancestor was Thomas Rogers, one of the passengers of the Mayflower in 1620. . . . Sherman Skinner Rogers . . . was one of the most prominent lawyers in Buffalo, of the firm of Rogers, Bowen & Rogers, and for many years played an important part in New York public life. The son was graduated at Yale in 1883. He spent about a year in his father's law office, but his distaste for the legal profession was strong, and he finally turned from law to literature . . . . In 1898 he settled at Santa Barbara, Cal., and in 1901 purchased control of 'The Morning Press,' which, under his direction, grew to be one of the most influential and best edited newspapers in the State of California. . . . Above all things, however, Robert C. Rogers was a poet . . . . Mr. Rogers traveled very widely, both in America and Europe, went twice around the world, and crossed the Atlantic more than twenty times. . . . He died at Santa Barbara, April 20, 1912." [The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. 15, pp. 281-82 (New York: James T. White & Company, 1916)]”
Further research has revealed that Rogers died from complications following an appendicitis operation. If Rogers’ Wundhammer had been delivered to him in the fall of 1910 and he died some eighteen months later, then Rogers' Wundhammer undoubtedly survived in wonderful condition. I believe that the Amber Rifle was made for White’s friend, Robert Cameron Rogers, and that White bought the rifle from the family after Rogers died. Of the five rifles made, the Amber Rifle is the only one known today. It would be wonderful if some of the other rifles could be located. Unfortunately, that hasn’t occurred. After twenty years of talks, I am now the caretaker of the Amber Rifle. Except for a chip out of the buttstock caused by an air gun accident in Amber’s gun room, the rifle is unchanged from the way it left Wundhammer's shop.
One of my favorite movies is The Red Violin (1998, Lion's Gate Films starring Samuel L. Jackson, Greta Scacchi, Colm Feore, Don McKellar, Jason Flemyng, and Sylvia Chang). “The Red Violin" tells the story of Charles Morritz (Samuel L. Jackson), an appraiser of rare musical instruments. Morritz discovers a one-of-a-kind, blood-red violin at a prestigious Montreal auction house. Convinced that he’s found an authentic, long-lost masterpiece, Morritz uncovers the spectacular journey of the priceless violin, how it changed hands, and the lives of all who touched it. Stewart Edward White’s Wundhammer has become my personal “Red Violin” and, although I don’t have the serial number, I’ll recognize it within moments after it hits my hands. Wundhammer made hundreds of sporters. However, no more than ten rifles had the raised portion of wood along the receiver. So that feature narrows the candidates down a lot. White’s rifle may have the checkering worn smooth, the stock may be cracked and dry, the blueing may be gone, but I’ll know it. White’s rifle has one thing no other Wundhammer rifle has: when Wundhammer replaced the receiver and sporter barrel, he would have had to fill in the inletting where the Armory rear sight sleeve had been. It may take a few more years or even decades before White's first Wundhammer rifle finally surfaces. When it does, I hope this article may be used as a tool to identify it.
Once Mark got started he would have a lot to offer us in the form of eye candy.