In my post on the little rolling block, there were some custom Springfield rifles in the background of some of the pictures and several members asked if I could post more information on some of those rifles, so here we go.
This rifle is actually not in those pictures, but I thought I'd start with it because it is stocked by my favorite stockmaker, and secondly it is one of the few rifles that I have some decent pictures of.
This rifle it marked Hart Arms on the barrel is based on a national match barreled action purchased by Hart Arms from Springfield Armory. Yes, you could do that then, and I do have the Springfield Research letter on it. The rifle was then stocked by Hart Arms stockmaker Harvey Rodgers. Harvey grew up on a farm in PA and at some time went to work for Hoffman Arms in Cleveland. When Hoffman moved to OK Mr. Rodgers went back to the farm and set up to do gunsmithing in the barn of the family farm. I do not know if he learned stockmaking while at Hoffman or if he was already accomplished before he went to work for them. I do know that his early stocks are very hard to distinguish from a John Dubiel stock. We can only speculate as to who taught who or if someone else influenced both of them. At some time Arthur Hart, the owner of Hart Arms in Cleveland became aware of Rodgers work and convinced him to come to work for Hart. He stayed there until sometime after WW2 then moved to New Mexico.
Rodgers attention to detail, and artistic eye is what sets his work apart for me. So much custom work looks good from a distance, but does not stand up to close scrutiny. In my opinion his work just gets better the closer you look. It almost has to be held in your hand to fully appreciate. The inletting, the little subtle details in the stock shaping. Even his checkering is different, being a little more elegant looking than most due to his use of a longer diamond. Arthur Hart was a successful target shooter, so a lot of the Rodgers stocks you find will be on target rifles. While a little fuller than his sporting stocks, they are still elegant and well shaped, not the clubs that you so often find on a target rifle.
Rodgers had several unique features he worked into his stocks that make them easy to identify once you have handled a few. Of course the lower cheek piece line extending up into the checkering, but also the checkering itself, the layout of the checkering, the grip shape, and many other features.
Another unique feature of this particular rifle is the the Lyman 48 base has been relieved, the elevation screw on the slide has been shortened and repositioned, and the slide itself thinned down from the back side so that the stock did not need to be modified at all to accommodate the rear sight.
To give credit where credit is due, I have long admired custom rifles, but would likely have never know who Rodgers was if not for the research and writings of Michael Petrov. And likely Michael would never have known if not for the writing of Ellis Christian Lenz in the book Muzzle Flashes. I have searched far and wide, but have found very few references to Harvey Rodgers. Lenz mentions him in some of his other writings, I have seen him mentioned in a booklet published by the ACGG where one of the gunsmiths featured in the book mentioned that he was inspired to do top quality work by having seen a Rodgers built rifle, and I have found an old Guns magazine that had a series on favorite rifles of their editors and he is mentioned there. How someone this talented could remain so obscure is beyond me. I've been chasing Rodgers rifles for the last 15 years or so and have been fortunate to add a few to my collection, but they are few and far between. I'm still looking for the 1917 featured in Muzzle Flashes in case anyone might run across it.
Enjoy,
John
