American Custom Gunmakers Guild project No. 17

Guns Magazine, June, 2002 by Tom Turpin

Each year at the combined American Custom Gunmakers Guild (ACGG) and Firearms Engravers Guild of America (FEGA) Exhibition, the winning ticket for a very special firearms project is drawn. As the No. 17 signifies, the 2002 version is the seventeeth such project for the ACGG. For this project, 4,000 raffle tickets at $20 each will be sold. The lucky winner of the raffle need not be present at the Reno exhibition to win.

Genesis Of An Idea

The project for 2002 was hatched, as so many good projects are, during a bull session among four shooters and hunters. The late Harold Randall, Ron Harter, Mike Kelly and Steve Nelson were all gathered in Randy's shop in Monmouth, Ore. Randy was a custom stockmaker and machinist who did great work but was scarcely known outside his local area. Ron is a professional welder and machinist and an amateur gunmaker from Independence, Ore. He is also an avid elk hunter. Mike is a serious afficionado of custom gun work and a former competitive pistol shooter,

It was only natural that when this quartet got together, the subject always turned to custom rifles. On one such gathering, even though none of the group had any personal experience with dangerous game hunting in Africa, they each speculated about the choice of a dangerous game rifle. After their discussion - which lasted several hours - they arrived at a consensus. They decided that they would choose a rifle with a Mauser action chambered for the .404 Jeffrey Nitro Express cartridge, and fitted with iron sights only. They further decided that the rifle would be similar to the style turned out by Jeffery and other London makers around the turn of the twentieth century. That was a time when many young British military personnel and civil servants of limited means were being posted to British colonies in Africa and India and ordered rifles to take with them.

These rifles were usually rather simple in design with absolutely nothing to interfere with fast handling in tight situations. The group decided that no scope was necessary but, unlike most British express rifles, they also ruled out a series of folding leaf-open sights. Rather, they decided on a single fixed-leaf rear sight with a gold bead front sight. They did agree that a large ivory bead might be useful for low light conditions. The stock would be crafted from walnut of course, but one selected for ideal grain flow instead of flashy figure. Any embellishments would have to be tasteful but not pretentious.

After ending the discussion, the group regarded the events as speculation and went on to something else. However, Steve Nelson couldn't quite get the idea out of his mind. In fact, in his spare time, he started tinkering a bit with some metalwork for just such a rifle. A few months later, he learned that the originally scheduled project for the 2002 ACGG raffle had run into some difficulties. Steve suggested the .404 project as a replacement and after a series of discussions with the Board of Directors, it was accepted.

Steve did all the metalwork on the rifle. He started with a 1947 FN Mauser action with no thumb cut. He altered the action to a single square bridge configuration and added an original Oberndorf bent bolt handle. He likewise added a trap grip cap and drop box magazine with straddle floor plate. He installed a 25-inch Kreiger barrel and chambered it for the .404 NE. Nelson then added an island rear sight ramp with a single standing leaf, a barrel band sling stud, and a barrel band front sight ramp featuring both a gold bead and a flip-up ivory night sight.

He also installed an auxiliary recoil lug. The trigger is a single stage Oberndorf honed to a crisp 3-pound release. Nelson then turned the metalwork over to stock-maker Charles Worthing to whittle the stick of English walnut into a stock.

Worthing shaped the blank into a traditional British style and finished the wood with a hand-rubbed oil finish. He also checkered the stock with a 24 lpi pattern, added a leather covered recoil pad, a gold nameplate, an ebony forend tip and a steel crossbolt.

Next, the piece was turned over to Robert Hughes for the engraving. He complemented the rifle with a traditional English scroll pattern with a Cape Buffalo in gold inlay on the floor plate. Once Hughes was finished, the rifle went back to Steve Nelson for rust bluing of the action, barrel, floor plate and grip cap as well as a nitre blue job on the screws, pins and other small parts.

Marvin Huey then crafted one of his elegant fitted oak and leather trunk type cases to cradle the rifle and its accessories in French fitted compartments. A custom forged Damascus knife crafted by Keith Kilby, completed the accessories in the case.

Beautiful, But Meant To Be Used

While many, if not most, of the ACGG annual projects are more museum pieces than they are functional field pieces, Steve Nelson was true to the consensus reached in Harold Randall's shop a few years earlier. Nothing would please the makers more than to see this rifle taken to the field and used for the purpose it was designed and built for. This does not mean that the quality of the rifle is any less than the museum pieces that preceded it. It only means that they left off many of the less useful bells and whistles that are not really functional on a rifle built to stop dangerous game.