You know the feeling. A Saturday with nothing much planned, so you drive to the Houston Safari Club Show to kick around and talk to like-minded folks about African hunting opportunities and fine firearms. Maybe buy a book or two...if I find a deal on a hunt, put down a deposit, but not spend too much money. Just a pleasant diversion on a Saturday afternoon. Then I run across Mim's and his collection of firearms and he has a STERLING DAVENPORT .375 on his table. After some horsetrading...watch him, he's good. I am going home with a fantastic gun and Mims is headed back to Dallas with a sale. Thanks, Mims, it was a business doing pleasure with you!
A photo of the gun at it's new home.

A full view shot of the gun. The wood on this rifle has to be seen to be believed...but the real reason to own a Davenport rifle is the way they function, feed and shoot. My .416 Rigby is a one-holer at 100 yards if you can do your part.
A photo of the Davenport .416 Rigby.

Congratulations. The both of them are very nice looking guns, and it sounds as if they shoot like a dream.

Very nice looking rifle!
Mims is a great fellow!

Very nice.







Regards,

Terry

Phew, thanks Terry. The original photos made me all dizzy

Nice rifle (actually: superb)! The moral of the story is: leave your credit card at home when heading to one of these shows!
- mike

Bwanamrm,

I am not familiar with STERLING DAVENPORT’s arms (to be honest I never heard of ) but, looking at these photos, I would say it looks like as if that is my Dakota 76!

B.Martins

GUNS MAGAZINE, Sept. 2000

Blessed with a name to match his avocation, Davenport is one of the most remarkable custom gunmakers ever.

Sterling Davenport has to be the perfect name for an Old School gunsmith. You can almost smell the linseed oil as you say it. "Sterling Davenport" -- it rings with the sound of file on steel, certainly more genteel than either James Purdey or John Rigby.

But Davenport resides in Tucson, Ariz., not London. The only thing English about Davenport is the exhibition grade walnut upon which he plies his considerable skill with a checkering file and a shaping chisel.

Blessed with a name to match his avocation, Davenport lived up to it. He is one of the most remarkable talents to ever meld wood and metal into a custom rifle.

Davenport began his "career" as a custom gunmaker in 1975 after retiring from his day job as a chief petty officer in the U.S. Navy. Having already learned much of the trade as an apprentice to master gunsmith Aaron Gates while he was stationed at the Miramar Naval Air Station ("Fighter Town") in San Diego, Calif., Davenport breezed through the famous gunsmithing program of the Colorado School Of Trades after his discharge from the Navy.

The Colorado program is a two-year course of study Davenport finished in 10 months. Such is the manner in which the cream rises to the top. Davenport had shown early promise even before he embarked on a formal program of instruction.

Building on his naval MOS as an aviation metalsmith, Davenport worked part-time for Otis Martini at the Accuracy Gun Shop in San Diego in the early '60s. But it was from his mentor, Gates, that Davenport learned to appreciate the aesthetic beauty of the American Classic style of rifle.

"Keep it simple and keep it as perfect as you can get it. All of the fancy curves don't help the rifle at all. That's the 'Gates Philosophy' of a custom rifle," Davenport said.

Davenport differs from many custom builders in that he is a complete gunmaker -- stockmaker, metalsmith and finisher. When you buy a Davenport custom rifle, you know that Davenport inletted the stock blank, machined the action and barrel, mated the wood and metal as only he can, blued the steel, oiled and checkered the stock and zeroed the whole shebang.

Davenport's rifles are not only remarkable for their clean lines, precise wood-to-metal fit and classic styling. but also for their affordability. A typical Davenport custom rifle, much like the one shown here except for the engraving, costs less than $3,000.

"I build a hunting rifle. I try to build a rifle with a nice piece of English walnut, a new Model 70 action, Blackburn bottom metal and a Douglas barrel for around $3,000.1 try to keep the price low enough so that guys can go and hunt with it and not feel like they have to put it in the gun safe," Davenport said.

While custom metalwork such as a quarter rib and an integral front sight push the price up, a basic Davenport custom rifle is a great bargain compared to many of the guns from other custom gunsmiths. As Davenport candidly admits, "I'm retired Navy and I don't have to make every penny on the rifles. I enjoy doing it. I never expected to get rich off of it. I made a living off of it."

Did I mention that every Davenport custom rifle is guaranteed to group 1" or less at 100 yards? Performance plus styling.

Carrying On The Tradition

Today is an even better bargain because you get two Davenports for the price of one. Sterling Davenport III, the son who goes by David only to avoid confusion with his dad, joined the old master as an apprentice and is now performing most of the stock work.

"I put a work bench next to mine and David works right along with me. Some people just want to get the job done and get paid for it. His consideration is getting the job done right," Davenport said. Like a chip off the old stock, the younger Davenport believes in perfection for the sake of perfection.

Making a custom rifle like Davenport does requires a great deal of handwork. "Each rifle still has to be shaped and each rifle has to be inletted. The [stock] pattern just makes a basic stock. Then every barrel and every bottom metal has to be individually fitted," Davenport explained about his process of using a stock duplicator of his own design and manufacture to "rough out" the English walnut stock blanks.

Davenport's meticulous wood-to-metal fit is accomplished with traditional scrapers. The metal is coated with inletting black to show where it is contacting the wood, and then the scrapers are used to carefully remove wood until the stock is a perfect mirror image of the metal.

Checkering is a Davenport forte. He prefers the classic multi-point pattern, referring to it as "the most classic pattern. It's been popular since the 1800s. The 24 Ipi checkering is standard. I've done 27, but some people say fine checkering like that doesn't give as good a grip on a hunting rifle. But 22 lines is too coarse.

Fleur de lis patterns and other decorative motifs are also available when you order a Davenport custom rifle. He likes to use an ebony forend tip to accent his custom stocks. A shadow cheekpiece is standard along with a nicely fit recoil pad.

For metal work, Davenport likes to work with Mauser or Winchester actions. He favors the "new" Model 70 with a claw extractor over the venerable pre-64 original Model 70, for a variety of reasons.

Davenport also likes to use Ted Blackburn bottom metal, the distinctive steel floorplate and trigger guard that is synonymous with a fine custom rifle. He will employ a skeleton grip cap on occasion.

A Davenport trademark of sorts is his tasteful and practical treatment of a rear express sight. A longtime big game hunter, Davenport appreciates the need for a rear sight to be highly visible. Consequently he fits an inverted triangle of elephant ivory onto the V-notch express sight. It is not only very useful, but also adds a dash of flair to the rifle.

Davenport uses button rifled match grade chrome-moly barrels from Douglas Barrels of West Virginia. On special request, and at extra cost, he will use a Krieger barrel. Krieger uses the time-consuming single-point cut method to rifle his record-setting barrels. However, Davenport says that most hunters will never be able to shoot up to a Krieger barrel's potential so he steers his customers to the Douglas brand.

In terms of styling, a Davenport rifle traces its lineage through the musty corridors of time to the beginning of the American Classic school of custom guns, which stems from Griffin & Howe of New York. Strongly influenced by Gates, his mentor, Davenport also cites modern day gunmakers Jerry Fisher and Dale Goens as inspiring his work.

Of course the subtleties of a custom rifle are hard to discern. Despite a slightly more open grip than his early guns, Davenport says his style has evolved very little since the early '60s. "My rifles are pretty much the same style today as they were then," he said.

And that is precisely what makes a custom rifle so enduring. The styling and elegance of a Davenport rifle is truly a legacy of steel of wood. It is a legacy passed down from gunmaker to gunmaker and now the file and scraper are passing to Davenport's son. The elder Davenport has no regrets as his career winds to a close for a second time.

[There is also and article in RIFLE magazine (July-August 2001) about Mr. Davenport].

Terry: Is he still building rifles? If so, can you furnish his email or contact info? thanks, jorge

Jorge,

Sterling Davenport Custom Rifles had a booth at the Dallas Safari Show this year, but I didn't go by the booth.

Here's another of his rifles:

Davenport

I sent you a PM with his phone number.

Regards,

Terry

griffin & Howe have several rifles listed as Davenport as well, G&H Davenport

OK, educate me, please. To me it looks as if this magazine has been built for higher capacity than the regular 3x magnum (correct me if I'm wrong). Would the correct term for this be a "drop-box" magazine, or is that something else (like one of those magazine like extensions on the floorplate one sometimes sees on Westey Richards - if memory serves)??

If this is not a "drop-box", how does that look, and what would be the proper way to describe this??



- mike

Drop box it is

Well that Davenport guy failed didn't he??? That rifle is almost too pretty to hunt with but I'm sure you'll manage since I think you got a good deal.

Very beautiful rifle. Congratulations.

Regards
JohnT

The pleasure was all mine and I know the rifle went to a good home. I was tempted to keep it myself. Not many of Sterling's guns come up for re-sale. A major health problem caused the owner to sell this one.
To me the best way to describe a Davenport rifle is:
A black, after 5 cocktail dress with a single strand of white pearls.
It will always be a classic thing of beauty,form and function today and 50 years from now.
It was nice to meet new and old fellow AR members at the convention. It was my first time to exhibit at Houston.
See all of you in Reno at the end of the month. I will be in the Tuffpak booth (202)...where else?