doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Custom Winchester 1885 22 Hornet - Insight Needed

I haven’t posted in years…been awhile since I bought anything worthy of posting here, but as luck would have it, I stumbled across a neat rifle an had to have it.

I’m pretty clueless on it, so would love any insight.

It started life as a Winchester 1885 low wall, 99,xxx serial from 1905 and was redone at some point with a 25” bull barrel chambered in 22 Hornet and marked “C. Moulthrop”, custom engraved in the manner of some Winchester patterns, and restocked with fancy walnut with rosewood. It has an early 50s Unertl 10x scope. It has an interesting Buffalo mark on the receiver and 17.

I removed the fore end and butt plate and there aren’t any signatures and looped the engraving and don’t see any initials.

My research hasn’t yielded anything on Moulthrop and I don’t know enough about engraving or custom guns to make any meaningful gains on learning more.

Appreciate the insight!











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Don't know Moulthrop but if you get tired of holding it up with one hand you can definitely send it to me;-)

Wonderful find. Very classy. Enjoy it

Charles J. Moulthrop
Eden Gunsmith

Services are being held this
afternoon (Thursday) at 1 in the
David C. Laing Funeral Home,
Eden for Charles J. Moulthrop of
Hammond Dr., gun smith and
retired business executive, who died
Jan.9 in his 63rd year. The Rev.
Walter G. Connor, pastor of Eden
United Methodist Church, is
officiating with burial in Eden
Evergreen Cemetery.

A licensed gunsmith and retired
purchasing director for the Indust-
rial Welding Co. of Niagara Falls,
Mr. Moulthrop was a vice-president
of the Eden Methodist Men's Club,
vice-president of the Bog-Trotters
Rifle and Pistol Club, life member
of the National Rifle Association
and a member of the International
Bench Rest Shooters Association.

He was also an exempt member of
the Eden Volunteer Fire Co., Dept.
1; a retired corporal of the Eden
Constabulary and past Noble
Grand of Eden Lodge No. 346,
Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
Surviving are his wife, the former
Harriet Hill, a daughter, Mrs. Erich
S. Kranz of Massachusetts and a
brother, Daniel C. Moulthrop of
Eden.

... from the Sun and the Erie County Independent (New York), January 1, 1978

Amazing! I’ll didn’t use AI, but dug pretty deep on the interwebs and came up with nothing!

Excited to research more and thanks for the info.

Bill Mains (of Buffalo, NY) often used a small caricature of a Buffalo to mark his work.
Others are just signed 'Mains' or Bill Mains.

Eden NY is just south of Buffalo, NY on Rt62. Buffalo and Eden are in Erie County.
Niagara Falls, NY, is about the same distance but north of Buffalo. NF is in Niagara County, southern part bordering Erie Cty.

Bill engraved for a sport shop named R&R Sports (maybe it was L&R Sports, it's been a long time!) for quite a while. That was located in W.Seneca, NY ,,a suburb just South of the City.
He had some sort of contract with them to do engraving they brought in.
He also engraved for Ithaca and Winchester as an outworker. Colt as well I believe.
He used to appear 'live' on IIRC Thursday evenings @ R&R and engrave while you watch!
Had an engraving bench,etc set up in one corner of the shop.

Thanks for that info Kutter! I looked into more, and found on another forum, that when Bill Mains engraved, he used Bill Gillette from Big Ridge Guns in Parma, NY to do the blueing - he was able to get the deep black/blue. Not sure if this was the case with my gun, but a possibility. I looked into C&R Sports, and what a cool story - that place was legendary and closed down in 2020.

Seems like most people who may have some knowledge have passed away, but I did find a gentleman who used to work for Bill Gillette back in the 70's and he said to reach out to Turnbull - I'll do that in the new year.

Slowly but surely, getting more info!

Yup, it's Bill Gillette. I have never heard of his passing. Does anyone know? His wife was a very nice person. I enjoyed her company.

He passed away in 2018.

I used to do engraving for Bill Gillette. Big Ridge Gun Shop on Parma Ctr Rd, Hilton. His orig shop was on Big Ridge Rd in Spencerport.
Most of the engraving was recutting work,,w/the occasional custom job.
Recutting lettering on pieces to be reblued. Sharpen up the polished over lettering or replace what was missing.
Small jobs but at the time I was happy to get the work. This was 70's and 80's. I just started engraving in the early 70's.

I had him do the hot blue work for me as well on other engraving work I was doing.

He used to mix his own bluing salts,,not liking the results with DuLite or Brownells salts.
I don't know if he had a background in chemistry or not.

He started using the 'trick' of adding Cyanide (Potassium Cyanide) to the hot blue salts to render them harmless to SxS and O/U bbl sets with soft soldered ribs.
I did my own rust bluing so I never had a set hotblued. I was always skeptical of the process, but he said it worked.
With the addition of the cyanide to, I kept clear of the BluingRoom at the shop!
He did tell me he lost a couple of the BarnCats that used to hang around the shop.
They would walk around in the Bluing Room and along the edges of the tanks in normal cat behavior. Then do their normal thing of cleaning their paws.

I hope it was quick.

He closed the shop in the 90's. He and his wife (Martha) went 'on the road' following SC, Skeet and other shooting activities. Setting up a mobile shop out of their RV at the locations.
Head down South & SW in the winter and gradually work their way north as the weather and the activities moved around as well.
I went to the auction held at the old shop. I remember buying the second item put up for bidding,,a Parker 12ga for $35.00.

Just some thoughts for you.