I know it can be hard to nail down an exact "first". But something that pretty much anyone could order; not an owner built one-off or something built for a buddy.

When was the first barrel block gun built?

It is hard to nail down a first. In addition, I'll assume you are speaking of bolt actions and ignore the custom and semi-custom falling blocks which were made in the early days.
The first commonly available single shot bolt action was, of course, the Remington 40X which, like much of Remington accuracy stuff, was developed by Mike Walker. Rifles were produced in the Remington custom shop and could be described as a "standardized custom". The 40X, along with 700's and 722's, became the basis for most BR rifles in the mid to late sixties. As far as true custom actions were concerned, among the first would have to have been the Weber action. I think it was sometime in th mid-sixties that R W Hart began producing a line of actions which used Remington bolts in receivers of various weights and lengths. By now, Remington triggers were the standard and most custom actions were designed to use these triggers (just like today). The Harts were probably the first readily available custom actions and this continued to be the case until the mid to late-seventies when we saw actions from Allen Hall, Ed shilen (the DGA action), Wichita Engineering, and Ralph Stolle. There were certainly others which were becoming available by 1980 but I have owned actions from all of the sources I mentioned.
In the late sixties through the seventies, it was also common practice to fit Remington actions with aluminum sleeves to increase bedding surface and stiffness. Sleeves were produced by Davidson and Shilen. I still have a Shilen on an XP100 and a Leeper sleeve on a 40X.
Barrel block rifles were common on heavy bench or unlimited rifles starting in the late-fifties. Blocks are still used on rail guns and on long range BR rifles.
Get a copy of "The Accurate Rifle" by Warren Page for an interesting read on what was state-of-the-art in the early seventies. I must have read that book a hundred times or more when I began shooting BR and it's still pretty informative.
For myself, I found BR shooting to be much more interesting and entertaining back in the seventies. Most of us who competed were gunsmiths, either professionals or hobbyists. Fiberglass stocks were just becoming commonplace as were high powered, internally adjustable scopes. The standard starting place for most shooters (myself included) was a Remington 40X-BR in either 222 or 6x47. This rifle was fitted with a Lyman 20x scope or one of these boosted to 30x by Wally Seibert. A couple of years later, Leupold made available 20x and 24x BR scopes.
A guy would shoot this 40X for a year, then he would replace the barrel with a Shilen or Hart and replace the stock with a glass one from Brown Precision. By the late-seventies, this action was likely to be glued into the stock with the barrel floating.
Butch Lambert was shooting in this venue long before I was and undoubtedly knows a lot more. Regards, Bill.

Didn't FN sell single shot Mauser actions before the 40x?

1877 Sharps action was designed specifically for target shooting.

Bill- that was some fascinating reading. I had no idea that the barrel block idea went back to the 1950s. I ordered a copy of "The Accurate Rifle".

James- I don't know when FN first offered their single shot. I have another thread asking for info on it. DPCD let me know I don't need to hunt one down. He can machine an insert to weld into the magazine cutout, so I'm going to do that and build a 264 Win Mag.

quote:

Originally posted by dpcd:
1877 Sharps action was designed specifically for target shooting.

Mind. Blown. I had no idea. I do love those Sharps rifles. I was thinking the first purpose built target action was maybe the 1960s. I saw a Wolff (IIRC...?) action at Williamsport nearly 20 years ago. I was told it was a custom from the 1960s.

Fascinating.

likely pre 1800 .. perhaps pre-1700, for specific "pieces" as they were called .. might call for better definition, as rifled barrels WERE available for the best of the best pieces

For sure target rifles were being made in Germany in the 1700s, but they didn't have actions.
I nominated the 77 Sharps because, although there certainly were target rifles being made before that, like the Rolling Block and the 74 Sharps, that was the first one I can think of that was designed just for the purpose. The action was made lighter than the 74 in order to allow heavier barrels to be used as there was a weight limit of ten pounds at Creedmoor.

As I said, I deliberately ignored the falling block actions. I was remiss in not mentioning the FN which did precede the 40X. Like the Remington, it really was not a custom action. The Sako single shot was readily available as well but didn't work as well as the Remington. Winchester made a limited number of single-shot Model 70's but I've only seen one of these.
I knew many shooters who made their own actions just because they wanted to. Some made a few to sell but not many. I don't know who might have done this first. I don't think many were inclined to do this prior to the advent of modern benchrest shooting, just prior to 1950. Regards, Bill

Mauser made m98's in single shot target versions also.

What about bolt actions not made by an arms manufacturer?

I have a couple of bolt actions made by Homer Culver. One is a round steel action with a "flat faced" bolt. The other is a proto-type aluminum that was made by Homer and Ralph Stolle before Ralph went to Ohio. It also has a flat face bolt.

Homer told that they used to cut Mausers in half and shorten them, weld them back together and have a shorter stiffer action.

Homer also had one of three Husqvarna single shot actions that were made for him. He sold or, gave away the other 2.

The FN actions were used in the early '60's to make target bench rest rifles. I made one and altered the bolt face to use the Weatherby 224 case. These actions sold for about $60. These actions were solid bottom. The early Sako single shots had a filler plate fitted into the magazine hole. If anyone finds the FN I made it will have a laminated stock shaped on the Guyman style.


Just a few from the passed


Les

Ah, of course, Mauser made the Wehrmanns Gewehr target rifle in the 30s, in both single shot solid bottom, and box feed, in 8.15x46r. There is a couple of variations of these.
Many of those were butchered up for the action.
Forgot I have 4 of them....

I can recall a few shooters who were still using FN-actioned rifles in 1975. Most were stocked with laminated walnut/maple from Fajen. My dad used a single shot Sako on his .308 unlimited gun. Alex Bulman used the same action on his 308. Bulmans rifle used barrel blocks while Dad's was glued in. The big drawback to these was the trigger limitations. The single set Canjar was a popular choice. One guy used a remote trigger on his FN. This consisted of a remote shutter button cable for a camera which was installed in the guard. I milled out the P14 to accept a Remington trigger housing and sear then made the trigger lever and third lever to make a two ounce trigger.
Alex made his own action for his HV rifle. The Forslund brothers, from Cherryville B.C.,made their own actions as well. They like flat bottomed actions with an angled front guard screw; similar to the Ruger 77.
Vic Swindlehurst, of Ontario, made quite a few very nice actions. I saw one made by Pat MacMillan. I don't know when Gary Geske started making actions but he made a lot of very nice actions; one at a time.
Some here may recall an article in Rifle magazine which described one mans attempt to get a rolling block to work well enough for modern BR shooting (modern being around 1978). He did pretty well too and was getting pretty close to 1/4 minute performance with his, much modified, 222 rolling block.
Experimentation was flourishing through the first three decades or so of modern BR shooting and shooters tried some fairly creative techniques for rifle building. Some of them even worked! Regards, Bill.

We should mention the Hauck. Single shot falling blocks dominated the target world for many years and the Hauck falling block was built by Wilber Hauck in the fifties in an attempt to maintain that supremacy against the bolt actions. He sold a hundred or so.

I think I still have drawings of the Hauck somewhere and would have liked to have owned one. At the time, my wants seriously outstripped my earning capability so it never happened. One early BR rifle I shot a bit was a 219 Improved Zipper on a Sharps-Borshcardt action. I don't recall who the maker was but it was an attractive, well built, rifle. The scope was a Lyman targetspot 12x I think. It shot about 1/2 minute which wasn't bad for the time (late sixties). Regards, Bill

quote:

Originally posted by dpcd:
Ah, of course, Mauser made the Wehrmanns Gewehr target rifle in the 30s, in both single shot solid bottom, and box feed, in 8.15x46r. There is a couple of variations of these.
Many of those were butchered up for the action.
Forgot I have 4 of them....

When is an action not an action? When it's a lock?

I should have specified single shot bolt actions for benchrest, but the falling block info was interesting.

The Warren Page book arrived. It has some information on early custom actions. There is also a lot of history from the early days of benchrest. Really interesting to read.

Of course we knew you meant bolt actions but they were not invented when the first target action was invented and I couldn't resist.
When is an action an action and not a lock?
When the barrel screws into it and it contains the mechanism to ignite the primer. A lock is a stand alone piece of machinery that only ignites the primer (cap, or open powder in the case of a flintlock).

True dpcd, but if there ain't no lock where one is needed, there may not be much action

Half a point for you.
Remember the first "guns" were fired with a hot wire or match held in the hand and touched to the priming, much like the earliest artillery was fired before friction primers were invented. Later, using a time fuse.
No lock involved. But lots of action.

True again, and that's why I qualified the statement.