Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Dale Goens Rifle

For several weeks I have been admiring a Dale Goens custom rifle on a Mauser action. I took the time to Google Mr. Goens and it sounds like he was a very respected, prolific stock maker and custom rifle maker. Other than the fact that this is a beautiful and seemingly well put together gun, would this be considered a fairly collectable piece?

Yes!

Dale Goens is one of the legends of stockmaking.

Thanks MD. I was hoping you would chime in, as I figured you were familiar with him. This really is a beautiful gun. Not my normal cup of tea with a Neidner sp? buttplate and non floated barrel. Think it will shoot reasonably well?

Probably!

Dale Goens is one of the outstanding stock designers of the 20th Century. I recall that I once had a book of such designs and used his fleur-de-lis pattern to rough out a checkering design for a custom I had made by Harry McGowen. It is still one of the most beautiful designs in my view.

At that time (early 80s) Remington 700 actions were about all you could get for LH, at prices within reason, so that's what we used. I rather butchered the checkering job, but it was fun to do. Later I had Butch Searcy install a Model 70 CRF extractor, ejector and safety for reasons I won't get into here but thought compelling.

Norm Solberg

I've owned two Goens rifles and shot some others;friends have had a number of them built.Calibers have been 270's, 30/06,and one 375H&H and of course they all shot great despite the "handicaps" of wood stocks and fully bedded barrels .

Dale Goens was an old school stockmaker in the American Classic tradition, fully on a par with the likes of Al Biesen,Len Brownell,and Monte Kennedy.I think these guys defined and molded the term "custom rifle" for a previous generation.

His rifles were of course beautiful,but not built just for show,and he intended them to be used and hunted.I talked to him one time about when synthetic stocks were coming into use,and he related that a sheep hunting client was horseback up in Canada,when his Goens rifle was snatched from the scabbard at night by willow branches,and dropped into a creek...in the dark, this was not discovered until they got back to camp;next morning, when they retraced steps,they found it lying submerged in the stream.....the hunter dried it off,checked POI (which had not changed),and went on to kill a fine ram.

I soaked mine to the bone on a couple of trips....they never changed POI on me.

From what I knew of Dale,and the numerous conversations I had with him, I suspect he would flip over in his grave if he knew his rifles were being collected...an avid hunter himself, he expected them to be hunted and used.

A Goens rifle is a treasure....I suggest the OP buy it ASAP.he won't regret it

I think that anyone who wants to know where Goens stands in the pantheon of American Classic stockmakers needs to get a copy of Monte Kenndey's book "Checkering and carving of Gunstocks".

It really is a valuable historical document for anyone interested in the history of post war American stockmaking. And it's a great snapshot of where Dale Goens was positioned in his craft at that time.

I believe the book was written in the early1950s. By that time, Tom Burgress, Earl Milliron, Leonard Mews and Al Bieson were established stockers and gunmakers.

Jerry Fisher and Leonard Brownell were still just pups not long out of gunsmithing school. Guys like Gary Goudy,Duane Weibe, and Don Allen were a good decade away from building their first custom stocks yet.

Dale Geons was of the Jerry Fisher and Leonard Brownell generation of stockmakers, yet at that time, I believe his work was more advanced in overall styling and craftsmanship..

You can tell by the statements he makes within the book that Goens was a very observant and intelligent craftsman who did not blindly follow long established "rules". He found out what worked on his own and the excellence of his work reflected that..

His stocks are still beautiful to this day and they pretty much define the American Classic stock style as we know it.

Jim I have seen that book but never read it....I recall that Goens, Milliron, Fisher, Biesen,Mews,were active when I was paying attention....not sure of timeline but Brownell may have been working for Ruger by then.I am talking the late 60's early 70's.

I do recall at some point(might have been the early 70's?)when the owner of the gunstore (where I picked up all these bad habits)got a beatifully done rifle in by a "new" guy....his name was Duane Wiebe.But the bulk of rifles built by folks I knew were either Biesen or Goens.

Lots of these guys I recall still being active and building,into the 80's;when like you say, Goudy, Al Lind,Kevin Campbell,Bill Dowtin, came on the scene.About then is when I became aware of Clayton Nelson and Maurice Ottmar as well....think they were both Champlin guys....

It became really hard picking a maker at that point....there were so many who were turning out great work,and none of it was cheap!But all made fabulous rifles.

Yes, by the 1970s the qualified talent pool exploded and then again in the 1980s. By 1990 or so there were so many really good stockmakers it was hard to pick one.

And I guess that is what I am trying to get at about Goens. If you look at the pictures of his wok in Kennedy's book both in terms of the stock styling an detailing as well as his checkering, his work in the mid 1950s could be accepted into the guild nearly 40 years later.

As a matter of fact, Goens stocks in the 1950s did a better job of carrying on the Classic styling of pre-war Griffen and Howes stocks than did Griffen and Howe themselves at that time.

As a guy who's built stocks out of a wide variety of woods over the last 30 years, I also appreciated Goen's honesty in the book about some of the excellence of domestically grown walnut- which at that time were still thought of a somehow inferior to French and Circassian grown wood. His Fleur de lis checkering patterns have not really been surpassed ,either.

Dale Goens was certainly one of the great one's.He was a very nice man,too....put up with a lot of my stupid questions, the times I spoke with him.

For goodness sake somebody buy this rifle and post some pictures already.

Billbilly: I think I know where it is....if its' the same one.

Well then turn loose of some of them crusty old Yankee dollars and go buy it.

Haha! Just checked and it isn't the same rifle....the one I saw is a M70.....how tragic!

Yep, having to "settle' for a Model 70 is such a letdown

I will buy it if someone will tell me where to find it.

I saw a pre 64 stocked by Dale Goens this week at a local gun show. I think that he was asking $7,500. The stock work was amazing to say the least.

WELL did you buy it..

As I recall, I bought my first Goens rifle in 1975 after salivating over John Amber's photo spreads in Gun Digest for several years. It cost $1,500 and I sold it (unfired) about 8 years later for $2,500 to pay off my student loans and get them off my books. I bought my second in 1992 or 1993 (a .30-06) and my third in 2000 (a .270). I bought both of these from a stock maker friend who learned most of his craft from Dale. I was fortunate to finally meet Dale about 1991 and visited with him in his shop a couple of times. He was a very fine gentleman.

I think this gun is just a Goens stock. There is a tiny mark of HD on the barrel near the recoil lug. I trust the guy who told me he thinks it is at least a Goens stock. Really beautiful rifle. Would Goens have signed the stock that would be visible with the action removed? Whomever did this gun did a hell of a job. Small Mauser action with a beautiful stock and checkering. Niedner buttplate and inletted swivels.