I have Wayne at AHR to thank for pointing me to the Accurate Reloading forum. However, due to miscommunication, I thought he was going to post pictures of my (then) new .550 Magnum here, and I suspect he was hoping that I would post a few pictures of his work. Well, better late than never. Sorry Wayne!

My .550 started life as a CZ 550 Magnum in .416 Rigby...



However, as a favor to a family friend heading to gunsmithing school in Pennsylvania, I handed him this as his first major project. Big mistake. The nice walnut blank shown above (which came from the nice folks at Dressel's) was destroyed in the process. My Pac-nor barrel had the headspacing set incorrectly, and the rifle got no farther towards completion in one year than a barreled action in the white. They did test fire it... strapped to an old tire.

After it came home in pieces and I was reimbursed for the murdered walnut blank, I was lucky enough to find American Hunting Rifles, and Wayne agreed to take on my project and make everything right. I think the .550 has since become a personal favorite of his.

Wayne gave me a choice of three blanks he had just picked up and off the project went. He was great to deal with the entire time, sent me pictures periodically through the process, and answered all of my many questions. An amazingly short time later, my rifle was on its way home again, but this time it looked like this...





And here's the finished .550 Magnum (top) in good company...





The middle rifle is a .510-505 Gibbs built by Sterling Davenport on a Ruger M77 RSM. The bottom rifle is a .375 H&H CZ built by... Wayne, who until now probably didn't know that I'd ended up with another of his rifles.





As most of you probably already know, Wayne's work is impeccable. He also re-assembled another CZ .416 Rigby for me (yes, I was dumb enough to send TWO .416s off with the would-be gunsmith) which had the barrel shortened and the rear site milled off. I opted for a combination of Wayne's CZ Upgrade #1 and #2 packages so it's still wearing the factory stock (not up to this company), but now I want to it to match the .550 and .375, so I'll be contacting him soon to see if he has time to complete my set.

Very nice! Well done custom work.

Nice looking rifles!!!

Engraving never did much for me but wood gets me excited. Your rifles are the Pam Anderson in the wood department (yes, you can take that two ways).
Absolutely beautiful.
Cal

Great looking rifles, with class.

Thanks for posting the photos and story.

quote:

Your rifles are the Pam Anderson in the wood department

That must be why it takes so long to do a "hand rubbed" finish.

Have you been shooting that 550 Jim? It is turning out to be a favorite caliber to build and shoot. That 375 sure has a long LOP. I remember the rifle but not who I built it for.

WOW!! Exremely nice rifles, I really like Waynes' work, impeccable is the correct description.

Cheers.

Thanks for the compliments everyone.

Wayne - I've shot the .550 with open sites (it has a pretty stout punch off the bench... LOL), but not with a scope yet. I have the Leupold 1.5-5 x 20mm and mounts but I just haven't gotten around to putting it on the rifle yet, obviously. I meant to get around to it this summer, but things always seem to come up.

In fact, all three of these rifles have scopes waiting... as do another four or five. I think mounting scopes is my least favorite thing about shooting. You'd have to have level crosshair OCD to understand.

You're right about the length of pull on the .375, but I couldn't pass it up at the price. Even though I have two other .375s, and a .378 Weatherby, you can always use one more, right?

I'll send you an email about the .375 and .416 Rigby. I have scopes waiting for both for when we get done messing with them. LOL

The "range" at my friend's dad's place... 66 acres, 100 and 200 yard bullet traps, and the tame deer only occasionally wander across the firing lane calling a halt to activities.



And here's what the .550 does to the bullet traps... AFTER passing through the pressure treated 2x6s and 1.5 feet of compacted sand.

I bet him they'd go through and he swore they wouldn't. I'm not allowed to shoot the bullet traps with my big guns any more.

congrats on beautiful rifles !
I would love that .375. And that 550 would come in handy if the state game people would take the T rex of the protected status ! ...tj3006

is that the original barrel on the 375? the stock looks like wayne has thinned it down substantially. i assume not so blocky as the factory stock?

Wayne sure does a great job

tjroberts - Thanks!

bluefish - I'm not sure, you'd have to ask Wayne. Not having owned it as a factory rifle, I can't give you an opinion on the barrel contour, but it's definitely not as bulky as the factory CZ stock, and he's going to shorten it to my preferred LOP.

RNS - He sure does. Thank you Mr. Shirley for developing such an amazing cartridge, and providing such excellent customer service.

Always, and I mean ALWAYS, NO EXCEPTIONS, every
time you hear of Wayne's work ( AHR ) the report
is Five Stars. Now this has been going on since the
fellow took over the company - AHR, some years ago.
There are many gun makers that participate here, but
I tell you NONE has a superior feedback record from
their customers to WAYNE. That is a straight FACT. I
have never been one of Wayne's customers, and that
is strictly a matter of having too much money tied up
in a certain D/R right now. I have recommended him
to numerous people and showed off his work!

My .375 and .416 Rigby just shipped out to Wayne. He's going to shorten the LOP on the .375 to something more manageable (15" currently) and make my .416 (which already had the upgrade #1 package) match the .375. Now all I need is another CZ in the .470-.500 range to bridge the gap to my .550. Maybe I'll have Wayne build me a .470 "Chapstick" (LOL) next year.

I have a .458 Win, a .458 Lott, and a .460 Weatherby, so I'm leaning more towards .500. I have a .500 A-Square Hannibal and the .510-505 Gibbs above, so if I went .500, I'd consider the .500 AHR. Seems fitting for one of Wayne's rifles.

And just to make Cal happy, I had a Merkel .500 NE, but I'm "between" double rifles right now.