I had never heard of a Ray Morgan rifle until this was posted. There was a thread on the ASSRA Forum back in 2010. I found the following on the Cast Boolits Forum:

Ray Morgan was a Winchester engineer who figured he could design a better .22 rimfire mouse trap. Designed for smallbore prone during the golden years of competition after WWII the Morgan rifle has the flavor of both the Remington 37 and the Winchester 52. A cult item amoung smallbore prone shooters, owning and competing with one even to the day gives a shooter star status. These rifles are prized that much.

Morgan tried to make 100 actions, story goes that one batch got "burned" during heat treat so the number of Morgan rifles actually produced is obviously less than 100. There were stories years ago that 85 were actually produced but many of us have noticed that no serial numbers in the 60's or above have been seen. The actual number of known Morgan rifles is much less.

In the beginning Morgan worked with Karl Kenyon and Eric Johnson as well as Creighton Audette. Of course Johnson did the barrels and Kenyon did the triggers and many of the known examples have Audette stocks but some do not. Story goes Kenyon did the triggers for 15 Morgans and then withdrew citing that since Morgan was a hand made action and each one was a little different he had to reinvent his trigger for each action. Morgan made his own triggers after that.

Morgan rifles have won all levels of competition over the decades including the National Championship at Camp Perry. ::

That is the end of the info from the other forum. My guess as to time period would be either late 30s or postwar, extending into the 50s. With the comments about detail changes in the trigger as "production" progressed, the entire design would seem to be a work in progress.

Brent and I are serious smallbore shooters. Perhaps Terry Buffum can add something to this thread. I think I'll put a Ray Morgan rifle on my bucket list. Tuesday is smallbore day for me. Right now, I'm headed out the door with my Farrow. Thanks for a very interesting post.


Richard


Last edited by waterman; 01/20/15 12:42 PM.