Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters To Ken Howell: Ivar Henriksen

Dr. Howell,

Elmer Keith wrote very favorably of Iver in many letters. I seem to recall that Mr. Henriksen was missing a limb, but that did not lessen his mastery of his craft.

Welcome back to the Campfire.

Cordially,

Gregor

Iver was a great gunsmith. Knew him many years ago. He was not missing any limbs when I last saw him.

JK

One of Elmer's other favorites, rebore and general 'smithing genius Ward Koozer, worked from a wheel chair. I don't know who was missing a limb (never met Koozer). Iver wasn't missing anything.

It was said of Koozer that he could equip a shop for five bucks � such was his genius for improvising tools. His bore drill, for example, was a masterpiece of simplicity and ingenuity, and it worked perfectly.

In 1956, I gave Elmer a newish Winchester .44-40 Model 92 that Ward Koozer then rebarreled to .44 Magnum with a rebored Model 94 nickel-steel barrel. Elmer loved it, but Lorraine adopted it as hers. It was undoubtedly one of the first .44 Magnum carbines. I wonder whether it's one of the guns in the Elmer Keith display at Cabela's in Boise. Wherever it is, I'd sure love to know its past!

An old fellow who regularly attended Dad's church in Versailles, Kentucky, was a one-armed watch-maker! Now doesn't that titillate the imagination?

That certainly does - but not as much as a one-armed paper hanger! That would be worth watching.

How 'bout a one-legged man stomping snakes?

Now, that I can visualize!

I am so pleased to see Ken posting as much as he used to when I first joined The Fire. It is absolutely GREAT.

'Tis a rare treat, isn't it?

I tend to take notes when I read articles and books to save in specific folders. Magazines I don't intend to save frequently get cut up some. I may save a whole article, a page, or just a paragraph. Whether a note or a paragraph, I always include the source's name. I have been doing this for forty years so I have built up quite a library of articles and tidbits and notes.

Looking through my folders, a name that shows up extremely often going back many years is KEN HOWELL. May I take this opportunity to publicly thank you, Mr. Howell, for adding so much to my knowledge and enjoyment of my hobby over so many years?

Thank You & Bless You, Sir.

aka mkbenenson. In the early 1960s I acquired a paneled action Sharps Borchardt custom varmint rifle without a barrel. Stocks supposedly by Arthur Hubalek. Had the long range sights with spirit level in front. I wanted a long range rifle and wrote Elmer Keith, he advised going to Luft Brothers in Spokane which I did and the rifle got a 45-120 Hobaugh barrel. For a proper rust blue on the barrel Keith said to have Iver Henriksen do it. Lufts concurred. Still have it but embarassingly in all the decades of ownership of this remarkable rifle I have never fired it.

I have heard of a church that used a one armed man to
make the collections.
Take Care!

In a church that I heard about, one usher always dropped a ten-dollat bill into the collection plate before left the altar. Then, while he stood at the rear pf the sanctuary as the pastor prayed, he took it out and dropped a half-dollar into the collection plate.

Sunday after Sunday, little Wille, who didn't keep his head bowed during the prayer, sat in the rear-most pew and watched the exchange. Then one Sunday, he advised the usher � loud enough for the whole congregation to hear �

"If you put more in, you can take more out!"

=====================

Investigating a possible tax cheat, an IRS investigator asked a pastor, "Is John Johnson a member of your church?"

"Yes, he is."

"Did he give five thousand dollars to your church last year?"

"No. But he will. He will."

So Ken, have you ever seen the knife that Iver Henricksen made for Elmer Keith out of an old swiss rasp?? If you did, would you mind describing it? Thanks and thanks for all the great trips down memory lane.

Years ago, Guns & Ammo had a Japanese outfit make replicas of it and gave 'em as bonuses to new subscribers. Guns & Ammo magazines from (IIRC) the 1960s had photographs of 'em. Except for being butter-soft, those relicas were so faithful to Iver's original that they even had "vestiges" of the file furrows on the spine. They were no good as knives, but I wish that I still had mine anyway. It's long gone, and I don't remember how, when, or where it went.

Iver's sheath was a work of art, with his unique way of holding the knife in place. It held the knife in place well enough to keep it from falling out even if you held the sheath upside-down and shook it, but one hand was all that it took to pull the knife out of the sheath easily. The sheath encompassed all but enough of the hilt to grab hold of. I've made a bunch of sheaths with the same feature but don't have one now. The Japanese didn't even try to copy Iver's sheath.

I've drawn many sketches of Iver's retainer for other knife-makers and would post one here if I could. The concept is simple enough but labor-intensive if, like Iver and me, you stitch 'em by hand with an awl and two needles � a method well shown in an old Tandy Leather booklet on how to make holsters.

Didn't that knife have a rather broad blade about 4" long, blood groove, and a guard and hilt that fitted around the hand to hold the knife in position? A buddy of mine had one. The tang was welded to the blade and soon broke. Other than that, it wasn't a bad knife.

Your buddy's knife, remember, was a cheap Japanese copy of Elmer's. I wouldn't expect it to be as rugged as the original.

I don't remember yea or nay about the blood groove, but I distinctly remember that there was no guard around the hand (on my Japanese copy).

I certainly remember seeing the ads in Guns and Ammo mag for the Japanese copy, I just wish some enterprising writer could/would do an article with some good photographs and accurate measurements.

Excellent idea!

The original knife that Iver made for Elmer may be in the Keith display in Cabela's in Boise � maybe an opportunity there for an enterprising Idaho gun writer who can take good photographs.

I have no idea where one might find one of the Japanese copies.

I still have my replica and there is a small guard but it's not a wraparound type. As Ken said, the blade is SOFT!!! and it does have a shallow blood groove.