Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Need Help Identifying the Maker of this Custom Rifle

I recently purchased this rifle at an auction and have been researching its background 1267063 NM 03 19 26 DCM RIFLE SALES 1922-42 H J RICHARDSON,MISSOULA MT

So its a National Match M1903 purchased by this gentleman in 1926 he was later in a Match at Camp Perry in 1938 I'm assuming the same gun was used. I would love to be able to identifiy the Smith that made it. Any ideas and all comments are welcome and appreciated

Receiver may be an 03 from the DCM, but I doubt that a custom hunting rifle was shot at Camp Perry. Looks like a nice old style hunting rifle.

Style is similar to Winslow Arms I think from Florida. Google them to compare.

That rifle looks definitely post WW II. It may have been customized then. It would not have been legal to shoot in the matches at Camp Perry in the condition shown in the photos. Or very effective either.

No doubt the "sporter" work was done after WWII, but that doesn't mean it wasn't shot at Camp Perry when in original condition.

I was only suggesting this rifle was shot at Camp Perry and later on in its life sporterized as Mule Deer stated

Yes thanks Tejano it looks like it!! Does anyone know if manufacturing data is available from these folks or what happened to them??

That is not a Winslow Arms product. More likely it was done by some obscure gunsmith. The stockwork is no different (or any more notable) than thousands of similar '03 sporters built back in the 50's and 60's.

If it were my gun, I'd be looking to restock the thing with something more appropriate to it's history, but that's just me.

I have seen and handled rifles by Winslow Arms, they were a much higher quality than your rifle. Besides the hundreds of obscure gunsmiths doing conversions of military rifles there were also many rifles like this produced as student projects by the various gunsmithing schools. For that matter gun owners could buy semi-inlet stocks from many manufacturers and create their own sporter. Most of the gunsmithing school guns were not checkered as this was a class apart from stockmaking, the lack of checkering would make me suspect the rifle was a student project. There not being any marking on the wood or metal, the origin is anyone's guess.

I would absolutely restore it if the first 2 inches of the barrel hadn't been cut off!!! Not sure what to do with it??

What were your thoughts when you bid and won?

Those old guns generally shoot pretty well.

Sorta heavy for today's tastes, but solid, good guns, made out of steel.

That looks like the OEM Springfield trigger. If so, a Timney would probably help.

See what it'll do at the range; give it a chance.

DF

Discus420 When first looked at it the name Al Besson (sp) one of his early jobs came to mind. Just a guess. Cheers NC

Too bad. I'd still restock it, in the classic style. There's little collector value at this point, although that NM shroud/safety/cocking piece assembly is fairly scarce, and worth a few $$. If you're thinking about installing a different safety (like a side-swing), I'd find some standard components to use.

Check out Al Biesen guns on line.

http://jamesdjulia.com/item/lot-1331-al-biesen-custom-model-70-featherweight-rifle-48842/

No way is this an Al Biesen piece. Not even close.

IMO.

DF

DF, in all fairness, Biesen did build some (very few) early stocks with inlays. But this isn't one of them.

The stock was made by some unknown Bubbasmith too ashamed to sign his name.

Discus420,

Was I right about it being an OEM trigger?

If true and if it's that good, what modifications were made, if you can tell.

Curious.

DF

its the Springfield National Match trigger what was done to it I don't know but it is smooth as silk and feather touch to fire . 1/2 MOA at 100 yards is not hard at all but I guess that's what you get with a National Match rifle I wrote to CMP to try to get the scores from the 1938 camp perry match and see if they list individual scores for the Montana team so Ill see what they dig up. As soon as I get the paperwork from CMP I will put it up for sale there has to be somebody that needs a National Match deer rifle!

Here are more pics with a few of the trigger http://s50.photobucket.com/user/billyandbrandon/library/M1903

Thanks PrimeBeef that was what first caught my eye as I had seen a couple of his with inlays. As I said that was the first thing that came to mind. Thanks for your support. Cheer NC