Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Womack Custom Rifle

I saw a custom Remington Model 722 in a pawnshop today,
at first I thought it was a 40X until I handled it. The
heavy barrel was stamped WOMACK 244 and had a fairly
decent custom stock on it. All I can find on Womack
is that he was a rifle builder from Louisiana and lived
to be almost a hundred years old, and did most of his
work on Winchester M52s. Any input? Regards, Jericho.

Lester Womack wrote a book, The Commercial Mauser '98 sporting rifle, published in 1980 by "Womack Associates" of Prescott AZ. The book sells for $170-225 on Amazon, ABE, etc.

Lester Womack is listed as a custom gunsmith in Gun Digest beginning about 1960 through 1991, first in Utah and then in a couple of places in Arizona, ending in Tuscon.

He had about four articles published in Rifle magazine in the mid-1980s. If Ken Howell were posting, I suspect he could tell you an awful lot about Womack.

--Bob

Womack was a gunsmith and writer. He wrote a number of books on firearms, several of which are "Encyclopedia of American Gun Design and Performance" (1983), "America Rifle Design and Performance" (1977) and, books on shotguns and pistols.

In the "about the author" writeup on the jacket, it says:
"L.R. Womack has been involved with firearms all his life. During World War II, he trained Ordinance personnel in small arms repair and maintenance, later commanding a Small Arms shop in Hawaii. After the war, he was a custom gunsmith in New Yrok State before moving to New England and entering the advertising busness. He has written several books and numerous magazine articles on firearms."

djs-

Double-check the spelling of the author of your books. I think they were written by L. R. "Bob" Wallack, a different guy than Lester Womack.

Wallack's American Rifle Design and Performance was published by Winchester Press in 1977, and has an ISBN of 0876911947.

Wallack's Encyclopedia of American Gun Design and Performance was also published by Winchester, with a second edition appearing in 1987. These Wallack books are also available on Amazon, and sell for about a tenth of Womack's book.

As you note, Wallack was both an author and a gunsmith; he worked a lot with early benchrest rifles. Wallack lived in NY state; I think within the last year an article appeared in Precision Shooting magazine, describing a trip a couple of rifle loonies made to find his house and old shop. Wallack's first book from 1951, Modern Accuracy is a wonderful look at riflemen at the start of organized bench rest shooting.

--Bob