walnut stocked Ferree and Wigle

[Herb]

This walnut was planted by nuts in the late 1800s by former Ute Indian Agent Parson Dodds, in Vernal. About 25 years ago the then landowner cut the trees down for more farmland. Arn Ufford got the logs, sawed them to lumber, and stored it. He cut these three blanks for me. I sent two of them to Jack Garner at Tennessee Valley Mfg with my patterns, and he cut them. The top one is a Joel Ferree, from the book "Arms Makers of Western Pennsylvania" by Whisker, page 99. The bottom one is a Jacob Wigle pattern, from a rifle in the museum here. He also built the one on page 162 of this same book, though nobody else knows it.

There was a bark inclusion in the Ferree blank that I expected to be covered by the trigger guard, but it was larger than I could see. I sawed pieces and glued them in the two inclusions. The customer liked the wood so well that he did not want a patch box. The stain is Fiebings Dark Brown Oil Leather Dye, the finish Tung Oil.

The swamped barrel is a B .50 Green Mountain 38" and the lock a Durs Egg, which was heat blued with an acetylene torch and cold blued with Brownell's Oxypho blue. I modified the trigger from a Leman, to the shape the owner wanted. This rifle was given by a father to his son as a wedding present, and was placed on the grandmother's handmade quilt at the wedding reception. This is a nice handling and shooting rifle.

 

Man, that's a GORGEOUS rifle! Nothin' like a nice piece of walnut with good burl in it!

I'm sure your customer was overjoyed with the result!