doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com S man rifles

Fred will be along to post some photos for me. They show 4 S man rifles and an interesting thing has come up. The ones with the long slide Lyman 48 do not have the carving on the borders of the checkering pattern. Those with the post 1920 shorter slide do have the carving. My theory is that S man graduated to the carving later in his working time. I have found 3 additional guns which fall into the same pattern. Anyone out there with additional guns which may agree or disagree with this theory? Of course he could have still used a long slide on a later gun.

Dan

Here they are, I've numbered them to make the discussion a bit easier

picture #1





picture #2




Picture #3



Picture #4



Picture #5



Picture #6




Picture #7




Picture #8



Picture #9

Forgive my total ignorance here. I'm sure I must have missed something. But who is "S man," or where does the term come from?

That oak leaf carving on the borders of the checkering is really starting to grow on me.

The S-man name was one that Michael Petrov put on these rifles made by an unknown maker until he could figure out who the maker was. But unfortunately the maker is still unknown. I'm sure the S came from the pistol grip shape. I remember how excited Michael was when I sent him photos of the first one I got as it was something like the 5th one he had seen. He later got the one with the scope shown in the photos that I got from his auction.
Dan

Thank you DanLH. That's an interesting story. These rifles certainly show a distinctive style. Hopefully someone will be able to connect them with a name. Any idea as to which region of the country they're from?

I find this thread interesting since I own 2 rifles that are almost identical to the one Michael displayed in his first book on page 92. Rifle 1 I received from Oregon, serial #657895, it has the s shaped pistol grip bottom, tapered sleeve in front of action, long slide Lyman 48. Stock style appears identical to the one on page 92. Rifle #2 came from the Ohio area about a year later and is serial #1180051, it has a Lyman 48s correct to the 1920-30 era. The stock and metal work is identical to the other ones. I am wondering some one in that era was producing Springfield sporters in an economy version similar to Sedgley, if so there must be more out there. Michael and I corresponded about these rifles but he passed away shortly after.

Rifle 1





Rifle 2

H47,
I don't think we have established a part of the country where these were made. My first one (picture 9) came from CA but the widow who sold it said her husband had bought it at Paul Jaeger's shop in PA. I think Michael's rifle with scope came out of WA state. The one with the poorly repaired stock came from TX. I just got the full stocked one and I will see where the seller may have found it. I know one of the Kornbrath engraved ones came out of IL and I will try to find out where another of the engraved ones was found. I don't know if Michael's papers have any more info about where the rifles have turned up.
Dan

DanLH, that's a pretty wide geographic distribution. I've been thinking about this a lot, with no particular conclusions though. The style is certainly distinctive and should be easy to identify in other guns if need be. For a couple of things, the contour transition between the point of the comb and top of the grip is much more gradual in your examples than those from other makers, but seems very consistent here. The contour at the ejection port is likewise more along the lines of an armory stock. And the S shape of the grip bottom is very different from others.. also more "heavy handed" and obvious if you will.

It can be tricky to tell from the photos, but the checkering appears to use a 3 1/2 to 1 proportion diamond, and this appears consistent too. The other example from James - I seems to have a 3:1 proportion. Not the same maker. The checkering is oddly proportioned and located, less delicate and artistic than from other makers, and includes a lot of surface,area. I might tentatively conclude from all this a few things.... I don't think this guy was a "master" although he may have worked around or been influenced by one. From the quality of the checkering and consistency of style, I would conclude that he was a good "mechanic" but somewhat lacked an artistic sense of shaoe, design, and proportion, at least to the extent exhibited by the better known makers of the time.

So he may have been locally or maybe regionally known, but never achieved top status. He might have worked as a carver in the furniture industry for example, copying patterns provided by others. Or maybe in some other aspect of wood working, and did gunstocks as a sideline. It would be hard to identify his styles as "Germanic" for example, although a bit easier to consider it a bit primitive or self taught in the "Grandma Moses" sense. And imho the style is rather unlike anything else from the era.

I'm sure at some point it will be possible to identify a certain area or individual. I hope so anyway. I will assume that these have been disassembled and that there are no helpful stamps or inscriptions inside..

Another option might be to try to research the serial numbers,for old sales records. I see that Springfield Research Service does this for $65 per number plus cost of a magazine subscription.. might reveal to whom the original metal was sold. If a common location could be found, that would be a great start .