doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com .35 Newton

While I was here, I thought I would post pictures of the .35 Newton that I lucked into a few months ago. I have shot it a little, with .35 Rem equivalent loads, and cast bullets, but I am not going to shoot any full power loads until I get a new stock.
I would be grateful, if anyone knows of a bolt peep for this gun, to let me know.

Bret,
I'm confused(not unusual), I couldn't see any obvious need to restock the rifle.If you do,please keep the original stock and resist any inclination to have it reblued.
Mike

Brett,
Nice find. I too miss the reason for restocking, although maybe a careful pad replacement is called for. I'm guessing you don't have the missing bolt peep bits, that would be an added bonus.
Thaine

Not my rifle, but I have a Newton in .30-06 and have read a bit about them. The stocks have a reputation for cracking. IIRC, one of the major writers of things Newton wrote "you almost never see a Newton stock that is not cracked". That one is not cracked. If it were mine and I intended to shoot it with powerful loads, I too would replace the stock.

Waterman is right, I don't want to damage the original stock with such a hard kicking cartridge. Great American will make a semi inletted stock, and I need to get one ordered, for a "shooter stock".

While looking at pictures of Thaine's Newton, I noticed the long two piece tang on both rifles. Was the idea to give the rifle a shoulder for recoil? Is that the place that the stock typically splits? I don't see a need for the extra piece of tang otherwise so I must be missing something??

That is actually a piece that the rear of the receiver hooks under. These are a take down. The silver button on the floor plate allows the floor plate to drop and it is then turned to unscrew the front trigger guard "bolt". Barreled receiver then lifts up and out of the stock. If you look at the rear of my receiver picture, you can see the hook.
Thaine

I had a 35 Newton ( First Model) that had a crack/busted stock that was epoxied back together. I fired it with a limited number of full-house loads and it held. Looking back, that was probably a foolish thing to do. If your rifle were mine, I might load cartridges duplicating 35 Remington ballistics to lessen the liklihood that you'll crack a valuable stock. There are probably less than fifty First Model Newtons ( Model 1916 nowadays) 35 Newtons out there. Bruce Jennings ( he's been gone ten years this month) once wrote me that he could account for only eighteen in all his years of keeping track.

Krag, that is all I have done so far, is shoot cast bullet .35Rem eq. loads.
I showed the gun to Larry Wales at the OGCA display show, and he also thinks the previous estimates for .35 production was high.

Of the 641 Newton Model 1916 serial numbers I have on record, 6.7% are caliber .35 Newton. If about 4000 Model 9116s were produced, that calculates to about 268 made in .35 Newton.
Larry Wales