Hi I'm form Brisbane, Australia and I'm new to this website. Judging from the number and variety of the posts on this topic there are many interpretations of custom and that was always going to be the case. have what you love and love what you have.
My interpretaion of a custom rifle is as follows. I decided that I wanted a fine classic custom rifle about 20+ years ago. There was a guy who had a reputation as a fine gunsmith in Brisbane and I had heard that he had a bit of a speciality of building 308 Norma Magnums for professional buffullo (water buffullo) hunters in the Northern Territory of Australia. I had by this time deveoped a passion for a full custom rifle as this was my dream.
My custom rifle was born. I read almost everything I could on custom gunmaking from the US, all the good magazines, Guns & Ammo, American Rifleman, Guns, Shooting Times, Gun Digest, etc , etc. The experts back in those days (mid to late 1970s) were Elmer Keith, Jack O'Connor, John Wooters, etc, etc. I learned about the work of the great custom rilfemakers in the US like GriffIn & Howe, the Winchester Custom Shop and I obtained a copy of "Checkering and Carving of Gunstocks" by Monty Kennedy (published in 1962) and drooled over the works of the great stockmakers such as Dale Goens (in fact I chose one of his patterns for my stock), Jerry Fisher, Lenard Brownwell, and so on. Bored yet?
This was to be a classic big game rifle, the basis of which was to be my M98 (ex Belgian military) with all the good work done to make it a true custom action. Machining, milling and lapping,etc. We addeda bunch of custom bits like hinged floor plate and trigger guard, a timney trigger, custom bolt handle with knurled knob and shroud. My gunsmith friend was to checker the floor plate screws to match the checkering pattern on the stock.
The barrel was originally to be octagonal (my gunsmith's suggestion) but a barrell could not be sourced from Douglas at the time. Instead I settled for a premium grade Douglas barrel 24" in length to which was to be fitted a barrel-band foresight (I like iron sights on rifles, which seem to be curiously missing from modern factory rifles) and an express multi-leaf rear sight on a raised quarter rib. In keeping with the classic big game rifle look the forward sling swivel was located on the barrel about three inches ahead of the fore-end of the stock.
The stock was a Californian walnut blank and styled as a classic rifle stock after the English design but without the very slim forend they like to do. I suppose you'd say it's style was that which the custom stock makers in the US tend to favour. A straight comb (for a scope) with a raised cheek piece on the left side of the stock. The blank has some fancy grain that was polished to highlight this on the butt stock. The rifle was fitted with a custom safety inletted into the tang of the stock, once again in the classic tradition. The base of the pistol grip base was enclosed in a skeleton grip cap of matching highly polished blued steel and the grip base checkered in the same lines per inch of the checkering of the stock.
The checkering pattern was really the masterpiece of the stock. It was my favourite pattern, one of the renowned Dale Goens, I found in Checkering and Carving of Gunstocks" by Monte Kennedy. It is found on page 272, and is called "Fluer-de-lis Pattern with Points". This is a difficult and time-consuming pattern due to the number and position of the fluers, particular on the pistol grip as both side of the grip pattern meet in the fluer on the front of the grip and any error in layout or checkering is immediately noticeable here. The fore-end pattern is difficult because of the number of points. All in all my gunsmith's pedigree as a maker of fine custom guns is evident in the finished product. Because of the length of the fore-end pattern I elected to do without a fancy (ebony) fore-end tip.
I'm not into fancy looking stocks with carving or ivory inlay but I do like a stock to look exquisite. There is nothing like a good checkering job use tastefully to make a stock look exquisite. The grip cap treatment, mentioned above, was a nice custom touch for this stock.
The Final touch for the stock was, as the magnum calibre has only a 3 cartridge magazine capacity, I asked for a metal butt stock cartridge trap holding a further 3 rounds to be fitted a blued to match the rest of the metal work. This gave the big 30 a six round capacity.
That's about it, my custom big game rifle which took about two years to build (gave me time to accumulate the considerable price tag but worth every cent), now more than 20 years old (or should I say young) still takes pride of place in my gun cabinet. It's the catalyst of my world wide hunting dream(s) of taking Marco Polo sheep on the roof of the world in Asia, a trophy Elk in Colorado, a moose in Canada, etc, etc (dreams never end).
By the way, I had a practice session with it this afternoon at my local rifle range and with 180 gr Hornady it put two 3 shot groups into less than 1" and in each group the first and second shot were virtually through the same hole. As I'm coming out of 20+ years of inactivity as a shooter and hunter these trips to the range are as much reacquiring my markmanship skills as they working up load that shoot with the new Australian powders. The rifle currently has a 2-7X Leupold which will shortly be replaced with a 3.5-14X50 LPS Leupold. With that and new sandbags for my benchrest I hope to put the second shot in those groups (see photos) where the first and second shots are.
That's my interpretation of custom and Ilove it so much that I have another FN M98 action just sitting in my gun cabinet to build a matching 270 Win. However, my gunsmith has now retired so I'll have to find someone else who shares this passion as much as I do. As a post script a major element in building a custom rifle, for me, is the planning of all the little things that go into it. To me this is really waht a custom rifle is all about and you just have to find a gunsmith who shares that same passion and will start the journey with you. When I come to think of the time my man put into this rifle, it ought to cost a lot more th an what it did. So obviously, it was a passion, a labor of love for him too. That's was my interpretation of custom is.
Now if someone will tell me how to include pictures (jpeg files) with a post I could let you have a look at the rifle too.
Magnum308
Good shooting,
Magnum
Poll