D'Arcy has been working on my .505Gibbs for some time. The action is a Hartmann & Weiss magnum Mauser. Although the Hartmann & Weiss assembly was well done, D'arcy felt my .505 could utilize a better designed and assembled magazine assembly and bolt stop. He has taken his 28 years of rifle making experience to apply this knowledge accordingly in regards to proper interior and exterior geometry for the cartridge chosen, material selection and lastly cosmetic styling.

His choice of steel comes from his experience gained in building his Classic and Legend rifles. He chose to build the assemblies from 4130 Chrome-Moly steel to prevent the front of the magazine from being beaten to death in recoil from the follower and the bullets nose. He felt strongly about using a stronger steel and as I know D'Arcy will refine every aspect of the technical details the stronger steel will serve my secondary need for a beautiful functional rifle. The 4130 will be perfect for blueing and engraving.

These .505/.416 assemblies are a drop box design allowing the THREE 505 Gibbs rounds in the magazine and FOUR 416 Rigby rounds in the same magazine. D'Arcy used his knowledge and the knowledge of many PH's to determine the appropriate magazine capacities. I personally don't think I will have an opportunity to get off more than 4 shots at a charging Buffalo or Elephant. If I do have that need maybe my epitaph should read "He lived life to the fullest, but wished he were a better shot" ;-)

The units are being made with a combination of water-jet, 5 axis CNC centers and wire EDM.
I asked D'Arcy if he will make the assemblies for Standard Mauser actions. His response is as follows. "I will also be making other Std Mauser magazines for the .300 & .375 H&H and .404 Jeffery as demand permits. As for Pre-64 and Current Model-70's . That's a no brainer as we use more of these than any other action. However these will not be a 1pc design like the 98 Assembly rather like the original Model -70, 3 Pc design which I have always preferred."

With D'arcy's reputation the assemblies could set a new standard in material choice machine application, fit and finish. He has an open order from at least one prestigious British gun maker already on the books and that speaks volumes to his capabilities. Am I biased?? Yes! This rifle will be my third Echols rifle. If you go to Reno stop by and take a look.

I have photo's but I do not belong to a hosting site. If you PM me I'll send you photo's or if someone wants to post the photo's I can send them for posting.

Bryan

Sounds interresting, I'll post them. My email is in my profile.
Don

quote:

Originally posted by Bryan W:
D'Arcy has been working on my .505Gibbs for some time. The action is a Hartmann & Weiss magnum Mauser.
Bryan

Bryan, I can't wait to see this one.

A steady supply of high quality bottom metal will cure a lot of production headaches for custom gunmakers and their customers. I'm not worried at all about Darcy's quality...only the price.

Don, thanks for posting Bryan's photos.

Bryan pics.

Beautiful pieces!
Butch

Very nice!

Between Duane Wiebe and Echols the custom rifle trade may, for once, be awash in fine bottom metal.

Though, the $100 question is will D'arcy make his M70 magazine boxes available with bottom the metal if he sells it gunmakers other than himself??

Beautiful, just beautiful. Notice how wide and low the squarebridges are? That's a detail most current production Mauser clones have a problem with.

Please indulge us with more photos as your project progresses. This really gives us something to aspire to.

quote:

Though, the $100 question is will D'arcy make his M70 magazine boxes available with bottom the metal if he sells it gunmakers other than himself??

More like the $64,000.00 question, eh?

Very nice pictures, BTW.

ForrestB,

The rifle will progress rather quickly in 2009. I'll post more photo's along the way.

Bryan

That is inspirational work. Thanks for sharing.

Always wondered.. Why accentuate the Large Ring.

If you're doing it from scratch why not continue the ring size back to the bolt release.

Rich

quote:

Originally posted by richj:
Always wondered.. Why accentuate the Large Ring.

If you're doing it from scratch why not continue the ring size back to the bolt release.

Rich

That would alot of extra weight.
Don

Bryan,

John Oosthuizen was in the shop today looking over your Gibbs barreled action. He is getting excited! Elephants beware!

Brian Bingham
D'Arcy Echols & Co.

Keep an eye on him, he may want to throw it into a stock and go hunting.

Bryan

I did some research on my own future 505 Gibbs project and found this thread. As I noticed that Mr. Echols is visiting this forum from time to time I would very much appreciate info on this action i.e. can I order it as a basis for a custom rifle? Also if someone could supply an emailadress that would be very helpful.

Many thanks!

quote:

Although the Hartmann & Weiss assembly was well done, D'arcy felt my .505 could utilize a better designed and assembled magazine assembly

I believe an H&W magnum mauser action will generally be supplied with a Blackburn bottom unit.
But yeh, the really fastideous top end smiths prefer something better.
BB units can leave a little to be desired in terms internal geometry and draft angles. Instead of spending time/money reworking it, It makes sense to begin by building from scratch to ideal geometry,out of better material.
I doubt that someone who can afford to pop elephants with an H&W based 505 by Echols, is goin to cry about an extra $1100-1500 for premium bottom metal. Its a befitting improvement indicative of the overall quality & refinement of DArcys rifles.

Another fine steel for premium custom bottom metal is the ultrasound tested Bohler M238.

Are the bottom assemblies talked about above being made yet?

Bryan, is your rifle finished? Do you have a few more pictures please?

Merci Beau-coups

..A Magnum-mauser action from Hartmann Und Weiss..does it become any finer..drool.

Please post pictures as the project advances..

It would seem, from all of the equipment being used, that Mr. Echols might just as well make the whole action.

Nevertheless, I don't see how anyone can determine the "quality" of the bottom metal without actually having it in their hands and working the various parts and running some cartridges through it.

Very nicely finished. What was the reason for using 4130?

Too eat up end mills

I would suspect it's a bit of over engineering and a bit of marketing thrown in.
I know D'Archy reads and posts here So I'm not trying to flame or put words in someone's mouth.

But the buying public gets so caught up in gizmos that they fail to understand if the feature that is advertised is really useful or not. Like the whole Milspec thing. Milspec this milspec that. well milspec just means it was built by the lowest bidder which is not exactly a great selling point. The AR-15 is made of Milspec 7075 T-7 aluminum Big deal that's an off the shelf material. 4130 is a chromolly steel and carries a lot of weight with the public.
Is it needed? Maybe not I don't know. could something else be used in it place? Sure 1045, 8620, 416 stainless could be used. But there is one property that the 4000 series of steels have that the others don't or to a lesser degree. They are very stable even after being cut. 4130/4140 doesn't move nearly as bad as mild steel does. and that may be the reason right there all by itself

Fellas,

I am not certain, but I think Bryan W and the 505 may be in Moz. currently.

HBH

If it's done and he's hunting with it. Hot damn!! I hope he finds something to take

Duane
I use the 4130 so the front of the magazine box will not become dented to hell over time by the follower or the nose of a Mono or Typical FMJ Bullet. One Gibbs we built has about 275 rounds through it and Bryan's 505 has had about 80 rounds and the front of each magazine is as new. The ID of the box is cut with a wire so we don't have to broach out and then file the rear corners. To each his own I guess ?

Good reason! We use 1018 and make the front wall on the heavies (i.e. 500 Jeff) fully 1/4" thick. We could case harden the front wall,I guess, but have had no problem with denting.

We looked into EDM, but found the folks around here prety proud of their process.

You have a very nice product.

On a standard military contract 98 you've got a few more cubic yards of wood between the recoil lug and the front of the mag box. The thick mag front poses little problems.
I know Duane knows this.
However, many of the readers here might not.

quote:

Originally posted by DArcy_Echols_Co:
Duane
I use the 4130 so the front of the magazine box will not become dented to hell over time by the follower or the nose of a Mono or Typical FMJ Bullet. One Gibbs we built has about 275 rounds through it and Bryan's 505 has had about 80 rounds and the front of each magazine is as new. The ID of the box is cut with a wire so we don't have to broach out and then file the rear corners. To each his own I guess ?

Hi DArcy
Havn't you concidered to use a standard keyway broaching cycle (simple incrementel subprogramming) to clean the rear corners. I guess it would take less than 30sec to clean the 2 corners from a .3" milled pocket
If you are interested i can email you pictures of how it can be done fairly easy.
We use a tecknique where we mill out complete 1 pcs buttommetal in steel or alu.
4 at a time fully finished in 2 setups, basically unmanned. Productiontime in alu apx 13min each, and apx 24min each in mild steel apx 33 min each in 4140.
On the mild steel version we gasnitrade and QPQ them to add wearresistance.
On the 4140 we only QPQ