I like No. 3 a lot, it’s in a great caliber and was stocked by Seymour Griffin himself, I’m attracted to all these early G&H’s. When G&H first started (1923) they did not number their rifles. Next they tried numbering using the same number, one for each caliber, so there is more than one rifle with the number “3” on it. They next assigned blocks of numbers according to caliber, this stopped at No 500. From 500 on they used the next number in line for the work order (barrel number).
For a look at some other classic 1903 custom sporters you might check out this.
http://forums.accuratereloading.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/9411043/m/318101376Mr. Bain's rifle is what I call a “Depression Era” rifle and I used this very rifle in a resent article published in March, 2007. Here is the text sans pictures.
Custom Sporting Rifle Makers
Part Twenty-one
Depression Era Sporters
By
Michael Petrov ©
The Great Depression was an economic downward turn in America, Europe, and other industrialized parts of the world which began in 1929 and lasted until the late 1930’s. The US was in an economic depression for about six months before the collapse of the stock-market on the New York Stock Exchange in October, 1929. By late 1932 stocks had dropped to only about 20 percent of their value before the crash; by 1933 about half of the banks in the US had failed and 25 percent of the work force was unemployed. No matter how you look at it, the custom rifle was a luxury item and those makers who could not adapt to the changing times failed. During 1930 the best financed custom gunmaker in America, Hoffman Arms Company of Ardmore, Oklahoma had gone out of business. Bob Owen was building houses out West and later took a job back East with Winchester.
For custom gunmakers to survive in these financially troubled times they had to be innovative and offer to do work that they would not have done earlier. In good times Griffin & Howe’s main business was the rebuilding of the 1903 Springfield and Mauser rifles into sporters. A sporter made with European walnut (Circassian) stock and normal bells and whistles ran in the $175-200 range, not including the price of the original rifle. One service that G&H offered at this time was to remodel a 1903 Springfield NRA Sporter using the issue stock. They offered two options.
“No. 1 Simplest Reshaping Job.”
“We disassemble your rifle and using its stock and receiver, we reshape the stock to the form shown in the illustration. We provide a new steel sporting butt plate (They used the standard Winchester one), steel pistol grip cap and buffalo-horn forend tip, and we checker the grip and the forend. Your rifle is reassembled, and for reshaping the stock as described our charge is $25. For adding a new barrel band and a swivel stud in the butt stock, Whelen quick detachable swivels and Whelen shooting gunsling, our charge is $7.50. For replacing the Government front sight base and sight with our G&H ramp front sight, and whatever style of hunting bead you specify and our slip-on sight cover, our charge is $12.50. Your rifle as thus finished is gone over carefully, and functioning and operation checked and smoothed up by hand where found necessary.”
“No. 2 Standard Rebuilding Job”
“Furnished the same Regular U.S. Springfield sporting rifle (NRA), we rebuild it as follows: The rifle will be disassembled completely, and the entire action will be hand finished and engine turned. This will insure perfection of functioning, and smooth, silent operation, with a very attractive finished bolt. The receiver top will be deeply matted in our own distinctive style, with smooth rounded shoulders. Bolt knob will be slightly bent in and the knob reduced on inside. The bolt knob and trigger will be finely checkered. A patch on the magazine floor plate will be checkered. This facilitates opening, and adds to appearance. The entire stock will be expertly reshaped to Griffin & Howe design, with refined pistol grip of most approved curve; new sporting steel butt-plate, and steel pistol grip cap. We will provide a refined G&H barrel band and sling swivels, and a Whelen leather shooting gunsling. We will replace the Government front sight with our special G&H ramp front sight, and furnish a slip on steel sight cover. Our charge for this work is $57.50.”
Griffin & Howe would also make and install a cheek-piece on your rifle.
“Quite a few customers wish an inset cheek-rest added to their stock, which we handle very successfully along with reshaping the Government stock. Our charge for this is $7.50”
The G&H rifle (in picture No. 1) is marked in one line on the barrel “Griffin & Howe, Inc. New York” This rifle would have cost the owner $41 for the rifle from Springfield Armory and $45 for the work by G&H. This rifle was originally ordered and sent to Kodiak, Alaska in 1931 and with the exception of a trip to Griffin & Howe for remodeling it has, to this day, remained in the state. Considering that you could buy a Winchester Model 54 in caliber 30-06 for $46 at the same time period this was an expensive rifle for the era. The 1922 caliber .22 with NRA stock (see picture No. 2) would have cost the owner $47 from Springfield Armory. I have been unable to learn what Niedner’s charged for this work but I suspect it would have been in line with the G&H price. I have examined one G&H rifle that started life as an NRA Armory stock, it had a cheekpiece added, bolt checkered. This rifle had not only the Griffin & Howe name and address on the barrel but had a work order number on it as well. I have also seen a couple of rifles done at G&H that have no markings whatsoever (see picture No. 6). This rifle is an early, possibly NRA sales rifle, circa 1911, made over using a later Armory stock. To summarize, these rifles can be found with anything from no markings to Griffin & Howe’s complete marking with work order number.
It was not until I was doing the research for this article I learned that Griffin & Howe would also convert the factory (NRA) stock on the Winchester Model 54. The first model 54 stock (1925) was not very well designed. The 54-NRA stock first appeared in 1931.
Another innovation offered by Griffin & Howe In 1933 was a fully inletted stock of plain imported walnut for the 1903 Springfield and other rifles with buttplate, grip cap and horn forend fitted. This rifle was roughly shaped on the exterior for the customer to finish and sold for $32.50. I don’t believe that I have ever seen one of these but until now it was not something I would have looked for.
Normally these rifles made with the issue stocks are easily identified by the straight grain American Walnut, the two cross-bolts and the stock cut out for the magazine cut-off. Griffin & Howe did make sporters with the crossbolts and it seems more are found on their rifles with a Mauser action than on Springfields. G&H also made some 1903 sporters using the Springfield NRA sporter barreled action and the 1922 M2 NRA Stock (see picture No. 4) which did not have the crossbolts or the stock cut-out for the magazine cutoff. These can be tricky to identify, however all armory stocks use two screws to hold on the rear sling swivel base. The custom sporters used a single stud so one of the holes had to be filled. Please note the curvature of the wood by the action (see arrow). This is found on all Armory stocks but not on custom stocks. The custom maker ran the wood straight until the end of the receiver ring than curved down.
The majority of these higher-grade sporters made from armory stocks seem to be done by Griffin & Howe or Shelhamer-Niedner. I’ve never kept track but I believe that I’ve seen an equal number from both firms. I have seen two rifles by James V. Howe, made when he was in Cleveland, Ohio. I’ve looked at a couple of other high-grade armory stock conversions but was unable to determine who did the work.
In an interview one former employee of the Niedner Rifle Corporation told me that during the depression they would take in any gun work they could. He told me that at the end of the week after expenses they would divide up what money there was between the employees. They had many custom rifles and barrels on order before the market crash and many simply defaulted on the orders but I was told that others would send a few dollars when they could and many, after a time, were able to pay their bill.
Picture No. 3 shows a pair of Shelhamer-Niedner rifles, one a .30-06 built using an NRA sporter and the other a .22 Hornet conversion of a 1922 Springfield. Notice that the pair have a schnabel forend and the Shelhamer-Niedner in Picture No. 2 has a horn forend.
I should point out that many hundreds of all the model 1903 and 1922 Springfield rifles were modified to one degree or another using the armory stock. Not only by the owners themselves but gunsmiths, some with talent and some without. Many will be found with checkered or reshaped stocks, recoil pads, drilled & Taped for scopes with the bolt bent and the stock inletted for the bolt, reblued. For every hundred of these I see, I find one done by the experts such as G&H or Shelhamer-Niedner.
These are very interesting rifles and reflect the prevailing economic conditions of the time. It took a lot of skill, time and craftsmanship to make such a handsome stock by reforming the armory one. I seem to run into a lot of resistance when I point out that these are reshaped armory stocks. Most owners, at first, just flat refuse to believe it. In the end, the final point that does convince them that their stock started life at the armory is to call attention to the filled sling swivel base hole (See picture No. 5). Pointing out the stock is the original armory stock is in no way belittling the rifle in my opinion. The marketplace certainly bears this out. From a 1932 ad by G&H titled “Special Limited-Time Offer to Hunters” talking about refining their NRA sporting rifle: “When you get it back you will have a Griffin & Howe Springfield that will be a lifetime source of pride and satisfaction.” These are great rifles and seventy-five years later I still find this to be true. Fine workmanship with or without a name will always make these rifles desirable.