I bought a dandy gun last week and I'd love to be able to find out who built it. Whomever it was definitely knew what they were doing.

It's a Brno vz24 action with a 23 1/2" barrel w/ a nice ramped, hooded front sight, 3 position Mod. 70 type safety, Ted Blackburn trigger, custom bottom metal (maybe Blackburn, not sure.) The barrel has .338 stamped on it and the bolt accepts a magnum cartridge, so I'm assuming 338 Win Mag until a chamber cast confirms it one way or the other. It has no rear sight installed.

Stocked with a nice piece of walnut, shadow line cheekpiece and great checkering, perfectly indexed screws and weighs 7 lbs. 4 ozs. This gun cost 30-40% of what it would cost to have built today, even though it looks like it was built yesterday. If someone recogizes some telltale style or technique that might give some clue to who the builder was, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

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That's the right way to buy them for sure, nice looking rifle.

Nice find!

Brian, it shows excellent workmanship. Did you get it around Seattle? Was the former owner of no help?

Don't have any idea who made it but it is very tasteful, for sure. Way to go.

Hi Chic,
It was my first foray into gunbroker.com... It came from San Francisco. The guy who sold it sold it as though it might be a Weibe (sp) but didn't know for sure. There is no bedding compound in the inletting. All hand cut with traces of blacking to check for high spots in the inletting. Only downside is it came with a one piece scope base... I'm not fond of one piece bases, but that's a personal problem

Brian, Duane is down in Tacoma now. Not a long trip for you. He might remember it.

Well that's good news. Might be worth a trip down there. Thanks.

Does anyone know if Duane Weibe has an email address and if so, what it is? Thanks.

You might PM "ForrestB" he had a couple rifles built by Duane I believe.

Brian,
That's a very nice looking rifle, but I don't think it's Duane's work. Email some pics to him and ask.

Duane Wiebe
1111 157th St Ct E
Tacoma, WA 98445
duane@directcon.net
(253) 535-0066

I guess I am just speculating, but don't most custom makers sign their work somewhere? I would think that if you took the thing apart and checked everywhere there might be a signature or a stamping or something to indicate who crafted the rifle. I have even heard of people that leave little slips of paper glued to the butt of the gun before putting the recoil pad on.

Thanks for your responses everyone. I removed the barreled action from the stock but did not find any signature or anything that would indicate the builder. I'll pull the recoil pad off and look there this evening. Thanks again.

There are unknown smiths and a few hobbyists out there whose work is second to none. Buy quality when you find it. Dave

Just through this out , Looks more like a pattern of Dennis Olsen's I have a pic of. kind of a generic style.

So you're the one who outbid me! I watched that auction for quite a while, but it eventually got out of my price range.

I saw that rifle as well, just couldn't come up with a reason I needed it, which is easy for me normally. Nice rifle and worth the money. I missed the end of the auction by accident or you wouldn't have it.

I confess, it was me. It looked like a sleeper and happily it was. I was wondering if/when someone was going to say something.

briando,

Congrats! That's a very nice looking rifle, no matter who built it...

a very nice mauser!!!

Beautuful rifle.. A great find!!!
Don

Brian,

I checked with Larry Heppler and the following is what he had to say "I can definately say this is not the work of my brother and I and not the work of Duane Wiebe, Al Biesen or any other custom maker belonging to the Custom Riflemaker's Guild. All of our rifles have the words "Heppler Brothers Classic" either engraved or stamped on the barrel, and I always stamped my initials and date on the bottom of the barrel by the index mark. Other indications that I didn't do the metalwork are: I always customize the button on the top of the bolt stop/ejector, always use my own lathe turned bolt handle and always put a 45 degree bevel around the front of the receiver ring. Every Mauser I did also had the clip slot "hump" taken off to resemble FN Mausers and I always filled the rear guard screw hole in the sear slot. Whenever I put front sights on, it had either a quarter rib or custom made rear sight base.

The safety is one manufactured by Jim Raybourn and the bottom metal is NOT Blackburn. His guard bows are egg shaped. This one is either a converted Argentine 1909 or one made by Jim Wisner or others.

From what I can see in the top photo of the rear tang area, the inletting of the rear tang is marginal at best (also in the last photo showing the left receiver wall inletting). My brother's inletting is like the wood grew around the metal with no gaps or differences in heights."

As I mentioned in your ad post, they are from the Frisco area, Larry is retired and Keith is still doing sock work IIRC. They were featured in a couple of issues of Rifle and Steven Dodd Hughes has a section on a 458 Lott they did in his book Custom Rifles in black and white.

quote:

From what I can see in the top photo of the rear tang area, the inletting of the rear tang is marginal at best (also in the last photo showing the left receiver wall inletting).

If that is marginal, I pray to be marginal some day! The only thing I noticed was that the checkering diamonds were not perfectly cast vertically, thus creating the need for the separate piece of checkering at the grip cross over.

All-in-all, that is an EXCELLENT rifle and great buy, congrats.

Larrys, I agree. The pictures aren't that good and don't show how tight the wood to metal fit is (it is slightly proud around the tang) but I'm hard pressed to understand how someone can come to the conclusions he did and be so negative in the process... maybe "I" and "me" are the only pronouns he knows.

I know this is probably of no relevance here, and the gun is likely an American custom-built rifle.

But at first glance, that rifle appears almost identical to a .308 Mauser which was built for me by Trevor Musgrave's shop (South Africa) in the late 1970's and imported by the late Dick Hampton of Woodlawn, Ontario. (He was Musgrave's NA representative.) Same colour stock (actually almost looks like the same tree!), same profile, same cheekpiece same checkering style,same colour of red pad.

Only thing is, I'm pretty sure all Musgraves have their maker's name stamped on the barrels, whether one-off guns, or standard models. I know all seven I got from them do.......

I didn't notice on your gun, but one of the peculiarities of the Musgraves I have looked at fairly closely is that the serial number was stamped either on the barrel or the bottom of the action, but NOT where it could be seen by casual inspection. Perhaps later Musgraves had them where they would more easily meet the requirements of BATF vis-a-vis GCA of'68.

Nice looking piece, whoever made it.

Brian, I agree with you regarding the inletting at the rear tang. It is something you can not determine unless you have it in your hands and at first glance, I saw it as a shadow from wood that is raised above the metal which is not a flaw, it allows for some future refinishing without going below the wood.

Larrys, having the lines of checkering stack vertically is not any criteria for perfection. He did an over the top pattern and they do come out like that and you could not have fixed that by adding that panel unless you were a checkering genius. The master lines were the outsides of the top panel starting at the point at th rear and then they were developed down each side. They are a difficult pattern to do unless you really know what you are doing.

I would also be surprise if Keith or Larry, could recognize the work of all the different stockmakers in the guild. I certainly could not but I have also not been in near as long as they have.

It is a beautifully made gun, no matter who built it. This is one of those times that it would be beneficial to be able to track the history of the gun through FFL transactions but they are not treated that way or even given the ability to do so which in the end is a good thing.

quote:

Originally posted by Thaine:
Brian,

The safety is one manufactured by Jim Raybourn.

I've never seen a Raybourn safety, but from the pics above it looks like the one Pete Grisel designed and Dakota now sells.

Floorplate looks like an 09 Arg. that has had an extension welded on to make it straddle the bow. Any weld marks underneath???

Nice rifle!

gunmaker

Hey Guys don't shoot the messenger I only asked Larry if it was one of theirs, I saw similarity to pictures of one that I had access to. It isn't and he offered his opinion. If that opinion sheds light on who made it, then great, remember all any of us have to go on are a set of photos. I would suspect he believes it is a Raybourn safety because he has seen them.

Hey Thaine,

I didn't mean to shoot the messenger and apologize if my tone implied as much. I was a bit surprised at the tone of Larry's comments. I appreciate your efforts.

Jasper Raybourn was one of the first to develop the 3 position style safety for Mausers. But to add to the speculation, that does not look like Jasper's metalwork. He was also known to do very clean and crisp grinding and shaping on Mauser actions, and as previously noted, most custom metalsmiths will grind the front ring and rear bridge so that there are no markings left.

Another curious thing is that barrel. It would be nice to know what brand it is, but it definitely does not look like a Douglas or Krieger or PacNor or one of those barrels. Its shape actually makes it look more like a Shaw barrel.

Nevertheless, a very very nice Rifle indeed.

quote:

Originally posted by 22WRF:
Another curious thing is that barrel. It would be nice to know what brand it is, but it definitely does not look like a Douglas or Krieger or PacNor or one of those barrels. Its shape actually makes it look more like a Shaw barrel.

If it is an older Shaw, it should be so-stamped on the underside of the barrel about mid-forend. The newest Shaws are stamped rigth next to the caliber...

It could be any of those makers, all will make a barrel in nearly any contour for an extra few $. In fact, they will even duplicate reach other's contours if teh customer wants...

Chic, I think you took my observation as being much harsher than it was. It was a miniscule point to an outstanding piece of work. And I would certainly not correct a master, you have helped me way too much in the past for me to do that. (Which I appreciate, by the way)

Larry, I think my response to you came off more severe than I wanted it to also. My error.