doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Post-War Custom Gunmakers

I am interested�
The above Brownell signed rifle is marked "Taylor& Robbins, Rixford, PA"

We all want to know more about our guns!
Thanks~~

Great first post, welcome to the forum. That is just the kind of first hand knowledge that I find interesting. I remember reading about Taylor and Robbins in old bench rest shooting publications.

John

If you check my post directly above yours you will get the explanation for your rifle. Now that I think about it, I believe that Crawf did say that is was stocked by Roy Pullen. I will check in my records. I used to have a polaroid photo of it which I got from Crawf which had the information on the rifle on the back. I will be glad to pass it on to you, if I can find it. I have no idea who Roy Pullen might be.

According to an old post from a few years ago Roy Pullen worked for Westley Richards then Shanandoa gun shop in virginia. The rifle pictured on that post is the one I have now.

A name not previously mentioned is that of HAL HARTLEY from Lenoir, North Carolina. Hal was a stockmaker specializing in hard maple -- both birdseye and fiddleback; usually with a sharply contrasting "SUIGI" blowtorch finish. His checkering almost always included ribbons. I don't think he did much/any metalwork, but his fancy maple stocks were featured every year in Gun Digest during the 1950's and 1960's.

Jerry Goldstein

I wonder if Pullen worked for Hutton before he worked at Shenandoah Gun Shop or whether they worked together there. Hutton came to "The Mountain" from Parker Whelen. I wonder if Pullen took the same route? I think Hutton was up on the mountain behind the gun shop. I'm not sure he ever came down to work at Shenandoah.

Hal Hartley had a symbiotic relationship with my friend the late gundsmith Harry Creighton of Nashville, TN. Harry did no stock work other than for himself, and Hal did no metal work, so they referred customers back and forth.

I have what may be the largest collection of Creighton-Hartley rifles in existance, mostly single shots done in maple, but some bolt actions as well, done in walnut. Hal was a fine person and great to work with.

This is a typical Creighton Hartley project, a 6mm-.225 on a Winchester High Wall:

My buddy had a M2 Springfield done by Hartley who he knew personally as he went to school with Hal's daughter. Nice gun but kinda heavy.

xausa, that 'wall is gorgeous. And maple makes sense in a varminter where you can sit in a good spot and "reach out and touch" the prey. Not for a "walking varminter," tho.

Aron Gates from San Diego was an exceptional craftsman. I have all of his hand tools and most of his fixtures and his north star carving machine is happily working away at Wenigs in MO.