doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Sedgley Springfield Sporter 7x57 on Gunbroker.

Sedgley rifle

A friend passed on this link, wondering what I thought about the rifle. Has this rifle been discussed on here before? It looks familiar, especially the buttplate treatment.

What are others thoughts on it?

Many thanks

Looks like a typical, standard grade Sedgley sporting rifle. A bit unusual in 7x57 Mauser, which is a nice change from the almost universal .30-06. Too bad about the clumsy bolt handle modification though, which just about ruins an otherwise nice rifle (for me at least). The Griffin & Howe scope mount is a common period modification, although with 1" rings I suspect it was a post-WW2 addition. However I can't quite see how the trap buttplate is done. It looks like a Model 70 (also used by Sedgley) which has been sliced horizontally about 1" from the top; presumably that is also where it is hinged somehow, but the design is unlike any that I've ever seen.

As far as pricing, I think you could get a much nicer example for the $1797.50 starting price (astute observers will be able to identify the seller from this number alone). Apparently other buyers agree, since there are currently no bids on the rifle.

Cheers,
Peconga in Boise, Idaho

I would like to have a better look at the buttplate mechanics. A couple of days ago, we saw a Winchester buttplate with hinged door. I want someone to take this on as a project and make them.

Yesterday asked seller for photo of buttplate opened, no response yet. It is a G&H mount, but the question is who installed it. Have to see the left side of the rifle, asked for that photo too. G&H machines and polishes over the screwheads and pins holding the base to the receiver (and incidentally has to reblue the receiver) when installing the mount. A few other high class smiths in the classic era, who bought the mounts from G&H, also did this, but most did not.

Heard from the seller, mount screwheads not smoothed over so mount was not installed by G&H. A definite minus. Bore X. Will send a photo of the open buttplate, I will post it or if I can't will ask Mike to. 1" rings so mount is postwar - there were no 1" prewar scopes that I can recall. Weavers were 3/4", Alaskans and Noskes and small Euros were 22mm/7/8", big Euros were 26mm or larger. There were a very few Unertl hunting scopes prewar but I think they were 7/8".

Buttplate doesn't look like it's cut straight across but rather on a radius. I suspect one pushes the release button and the bottom part of the buttplate will pivot sideways on the bottom screw.

Great catch, Recoil Rob. Odd, I think I can gain access to a hole in the stock without cutting a nice buttplate in half by just removing a screw rather than pushing a button. However, I think the idea can be pursued in a more stylish manner with good result.

It is surprising to me, considering the common use of Winchester steel shotgun buttplates on custom rifles - as well as on Winchester factory rifles - for a century, that a trap conversion has never been offered for them. As RR suggests, such an alteration would not be too difficult. An especially elegant conventional oval trap could be made by sacrificing a second buttplate, cutting an oval from it, and fitting the piece in place. I imagine a clever machinist could rig up jig and run off a few dozen of them. The advantage would be that such buttplates - the RR model or the oval trap style- would fit right onto buttstocks already cut for the factory plate.