I guess I got lucky on my 1909 Argie. I bought the barreled action at a gun show. The mans was selling it for a widow (so he says) and was asking $600 OBO for the barreled action and a blank for the stock which looked like it has decent figure. I offered $300 on Saturday. As the gun show was closing I went past the guy who still had the pieces to make up a rifle so I once again offered $300. he hemmed and hawed a bit but when he saw three Benjamins in my hand he sold the the works.
I had to wait about six months before I had enough cash to take it to my gunsmith. He farmed the stock out to Sterling Davenport to shape and checker the stock and bed the barreled action. That kind of surprised me but as it turned out my GS has hurt his back and couldn't do any of the heavy work. I'm thinking it was Davenport who really put the whole package together. Came out quite nice. The wood in the stock was a lot prettier that I expected. One thing I noticed was there were little dimples in various places on the receiver and bolt. My gunsmith said that action had been tested for proper hardness and apparently passed. The rifle is in .280 Remington and slightly on the heavy side. I call it my plains rifle as I'd hate like hell to carry it on top of some high mountain. Accuracy is excellent with the old style Speer Grand Slams. I have some of the new type as well but haven't loaded them to try.
With all that said, if I were to do it all over again, I'd look for a J.C. Higgins M50 or 51, or a similar FN based from Montgomery-Wards, Cold, H&R or Husqvarna 640. Save a lot of time and money as the hard work is already done.
Paul B.
