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

Nice rifle, I'm of the opinion that the Stoeger mounts were made by the Jaegers of Suhl, Paul Jaeger's father and brother. If you folks ever run across one of the mounts that have teeth I need one for a rifle.

My somewhat worn but still accurate Sedgley '03. It has a barrel that is a bit worn in the throat and was what I thought was a so-so bore. It cleaned up well and after some shooting two things happened. First,,it didn't explode :o. Second, the bore cleaned up even better as some more old fouling was able to be scrubbed out. Some jacketed bullet shooting seemed to help loosen the old fouling up a bit for some reason.
It now shoots 1 inch, 5 shot groups at 75yrds for me with the Lyman 48 with my light cast bullet loads (Lyman 311291 & 10gr RedDot). That rear sight is cranked up a little to be able to launch them out at that range! So much for those accuracy killing forend barrel bands.
Great smooth working rifle. It gets mostly the lighter load stuff because of me and my recently broken bones,, not because of it's own reputation.
Top of the recv'r ring is matted. Sedgleys number is stamped into the sear channel at the rear of the receiver and on a few of the other parts inside IIRC. It's missing the front sight hood, but I can live with that. I'll probably find a replacement or make one. If I still hunted, this is one that would definetly go along.
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One of our B&B guests here, a Gentleman from California, doing research on the Indian wars, gave me a Sedgley He sent it and a Model 12 as gifts when he got back to California. The Sedgley was in awful shape, and I sold it, I wish now I kept it. Thanks for the interesting stuff, Michael.

Ryan, I spoke to Mike? Kokulis at an Allentown show a few months ago about pantographing a Sedgely Krag stock. My .25-35 has many extra holes for various sights and scope mounts in the action and barrel and the stock, altho the finish is still good, is similarly cut out here and there to accommodate them. I have been thinking about building a .25-35 ersatz Sedgely Krag as I have an unused Sedgely barrel. Kokulis warned me that any original finish on the original stock would be badly scratched up in the copying process. So I am holding back for now, maybe a good original will show up tho I have been looking without any luck for several years.

Mark, Maybe I can get someone on the trail of a the one I lost. About twenty some years ago the company I was working for sent me to a two-week school in Foxboro, Massachusetts. The first night there my wife and I got into our rental car for a drive to look over the area and find a place to eat. Just a few minuets later I saw a sign that said Machine & Gun Shop, the brakes on the car froze up so I had to stop. The shop was white, up some stairs and was built from an old Quonset hut. I looked around and there was nothing I wanted, when I turned around to leave there was a Sedgley Krag in .25-35, hanging over the door, the rifle was brand new. He wanted a couple hundred, told him I would be in the area for two weeks and wanted to see what else was around. Long story short, I never could find the shop again, never.

Per Ryan's and Mark' Posting:
Perhaps one of the stock makers will come in on this.

Could a stock be carefully taped prior to using it as a pattern and thus protect its finish? It would add the thickness of the tape to the final version, and would round some sharp contours, but those details would all likely get attention in the actual finishing of the copy stock.

I have several custom stocks that would be nice to have duplicated if it could be done without sacrificing the original's finish.

Just how well any tape would hold up in the copying process is a question you'd have to ask the guy doing the work. Also when removing the tape, (if it is a way to protect the finish), may do more damage by pulling finish off with the tape.
The follower stylus on the duplicator could be adjusted the few .000" to allow for the thickness that's been added to the outside surfaces by the tape. But it's the avoidance of scratches that's the main goal. The few extra .000" of wood will disappear in the finishing. I've had Mike do a few stocks for me and I always tell him to allow a bit extra on the outside anyway.
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http://www.gunstockduplicating.com/
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Give him a call and see what he says about the idea.

That's really interesting about stock damage from duplication. Hmmm. I have one gunmaker acquaintance who regularly takes pantographs from the originals in his collections, and he's never mentioned damage (original Mausers mostly, that no-one, absolutely no-one seems to be able to get right without pantographing an original.)

I'll get back to you.

Thanks.

Here's a couple of pics of a Lefever Nitro Special A grade stock that Mike Kokolus duplicated for me. I wouldn't call the marks on the wood of the repaired and copied original 'scratches, but more like very light compression or burnished marks. My tape ID lable was on the stock when it was duplicated and you can see that the stylus bumped over it in the closeup. Those very light rub marks are from the follower stylus. I'd guess it all depends on who is doing the work and his/her set up. I've been happy with his work so far. The new stock shown is as-received. I've not done any work on it yet. Nice clean inletting and outside surfaces. I think I told him I wanted approx .010" extra on the outside on this one. If I was having a mint original copied, I wouldn't want those marks on mine either though. I would have to find a way of avoiding it or another duplicator guy to do the work on that one if it is possible to do w/o damaging it.
Hope this helps..
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I asked the late Don Allen this exact question some years ago, and his response was that the marks in the finish were unavoidable if you wanted the stylus to track accurately. I thought I would go right to the source, since he made the pantograph tool, and I appreciated the honesty of his answer. So for me the answer is don't duplicate an original if you value the finish on it. In my case it ruled out renting or borrowing a Ballard stock I particularly liked to copy.