That's about the prettiest wood I've seen on a Sedgley.
This rifle is #2309 which is the highest Sedgley serial # I have seen. With the large Sedgley marking on the barrel I'm sure it was produced during WW2 when they were making two models, Deluxe and Special which was marked on the barrel by the caliber. None of the pre-war rifles have any model marked on the barrel. Rifles in the 2200 numbers were acquired by stores as new rifles in 1945 from data furnished to me by Griffin & Howe.
Now might be a good time to again ask if anyone out there may have a booklet titled "The Story of Sedgley Guns" that was shown in the Nov 1943 AR (I'll scan the ad and have Fred post it). I ask about this a few years ago and got no response. I would sure like to at least get a copy of what they printed in the booklet.
The rifle came without the Lyman 48 slide and I had what was left of a 48 Mauser slide that I had robbed parts from so I put it in the 48 to fill the space.
Dan
When did Sedgley go out of the high-end rifle business?
A small note in the Jan 1946 AR says "Paul jaeger of Jenkintown, PA has acquired all the replacement parts for Sedgley Sporters." Thus Sedgley must have been done making sporters.
The cheek piece on that rifle certainly looks like a Jaeger cheek piece.
Compare my .275 H&H Jaeger rifle:
Here is the ad Dan asked me to post.
Not sure what the influence for that style of cheekpiece was, but you see it on a lot of post war rifles. the prewar Sedgley deluxe guns usually used the pancake style and english walnut.
The pre-war Deluxe guns always had a cheekpiece according to the catalogs but many of them were the type shown above. I'm sending Fred 3 photos to post with 6 guns and both types of cheekpieces. I also thought the Mannlicher style always had a cheekpiece as I have never seen one with out but the catalogs don't say it has a cheekpiece. But you could also order a gun with a cheekpiece so there are standard models with cheekpieces.
Dan sent me pictures of Sedgley rifles with various styles of cheekpieces
Here is a link to Jaeger rifles from the late 40's
late 40's Jaeger's
Did most deluxe models come engraved? Seems like I’ve seen some with engraved floor plates but not all.
Any confirmation that booklet existed or could it be a sales gimmick for the ad that was never actually produced?
The cataloged Deluxe is fully engraved but there was an early DeLuxe without engraving and it had a 3" long horn forend cap vs the regular 2" cap and had all the other Deluxe features. Then there was the WW2 produced Deluxe with the Deluxe marking on the barrel that had no engraving nor the other prewar Deluxe features. If a Sedgley only has the floor plate engraved I doubt that it was done by Sedgley.
I know Sedgley made a left hand conversion of the Springfield, but have never seen one "in the flesh". How does it work?
Don't know. One sold locally a decade ago. I know the previous owner and I will try to remember to ask him who he sold it to. I had no idea at the time how scarce they were. I probably could have bought it for $300.
The second one up from the bottom of the cheekpiece photos is an engraved LH Sedgley that was made from an NRA Sporter. I will take some photos of the action. Sedgley basically cut down the safety lug so that the bolt can turn the other direction and moved the handle to the left side. There is more work than that to make it work.
Is the diamond in the stock something sedgley did?
I'm sure the diamonds in the stock were not done by Sedgley, they are the only thing wrong with the rifle and they are not very well done.
As you can see when comparing the LH and RH bolts that they had to make the LH bolt body a bit longer since the bolt handle is a little farther back to clear the cut-off. They also thinned the handle down a bit. They also had to extend the receiver on the right side to add the camming slope. Hope this helps understand how the conversion was done.
Very interesting, and proves that if you can pay for it almost all things are possible. I know I am assuming a high price tag when originally built but I do not believe that to be much of a stretch.
I also noticed there appears to be some broken gear teeth on the body of the bolt. Are they causing much increased difficulty with operating the bolt? Are there any plans to restore those teeth?
Not only are there broken teeth on the bolt body, the gear enclosed in the round shroud also has broken teeth. And yes, they cause bolt operation problems and when I first got it and took the gear out of it's shroud, I had an awful time getting it back together. I also have another one of these in much better shape but have to wait for travel to allowed from TX. But even with it being in much better shape, it still has gear teeth problems. Gary Bush said he can post some photos of the better condition one.
As Petrov explained to me when I bought this one in 2011, if it has broken teeth, it was made by Hoffman. He said all of them he knew about had broken teeth and he also said that some other company did make the same patented LH alteration to '03s but I have never seen one.
As shown in the photo of the grip cap, it appears the description of a large chip in the horn grip cap is really a large mouse chewed area.
Petrov also established the stock maker of this rifle as Seymour Griffin with Kornbrath engraving.
Thanks Dan, I hope Gary Bush shares pics of his rifle.
As Petrov explained to me when I bought this one in 2011, if it has broken teeth, it was made by Hoffman. He said all of them he knew about had broken teeth and he also said that some other company did make the same patented LH alteration to '03s but I have never seen one.
Do you have any information on the patent? I'd like to look up the original patent application. I enjoy looking at those.
I believe the gear-driven LH conversions were done in the late 40s and early 50s by a man named Roy Gradle. If you have access to American Rifleman from that era, you should see his ads.
Fred
1545045 Hoffman patent,
Fred
1545045 Hoffman patent,
Thanks Lynn, with that information, it took about 10 seconds to find it on google patents, here is the link if anyone else is interested.
patent
I hope people are enjoying this thread, I've been posting pictures that people have sent me to put on here, and am glad to do it.
For those of you that might have looked at that system of gears and thought, "how well will that work if I have an empty cartridge that is hard to extract? how well will that work if I have an empty cartridge that is hard to extract and there is a grizzly bear charging me?" Well, Gary Bush sent me pictures of another left-handed conversion, this one keeps the extra locking lug, this one has as much camming action to extract a cartridge as the original. Here it is.
This is a unique solution if I have ever seen one.
Bill, I had one of Roy Gradle's left-hand conversions in the shop many years ago. Although it looked sort of Rube Goldberg, it did operate very well. The gears would be susceptible to dirt and twigs, however.
I would be pretty interesting to watch someone try to aim with that gadget in the way of the scope. The long eye relief of the Lyman Alaskan is a must for that arrangement.
That's a definite BIC, Because I Can....
Years ago I had a G&H Springfield that had been converted to LH. At present I have a Segley that I acquired as a barreled action. Both are the type Dan shows without the gear system. All three seem to have identical modifications. I believe there must have been one shop that did this work for both Sedgley and G&H. If anyone here has information about which firm did this work, it would be interesting understand this collaboration. It doesn't seem like a procedure that woul d have been practical for each to do independently.
The wheels fell off the miscarriage.
