Buehler Custom Sporting Arms LLC

It all started off with one big Turkish stock blank, large enough for 3 guns.

Well, actually it started with my client’s vision of having 3 rifles built, a right-hand rifle cal. 30-06, a matching left-handed rifle for his wife, and a matching training rifle in .22lr. An overall safari look was desired. We decided on using Granite Mountain Arms actions for the .30-06’s, as they make a left hand standard size small ring square bridge action. To keep with the theme, I was able to purchase a Springfield M22 trainings rifle for the .22lr. A few years ago, I built for a customer a big game type .22 rifle on such an action. The rifle was such a blast of a project and fun to shoot, I was looking forward to giving it another try.

Jumping ahead, a picture of the right hand .30-06 rifle.

The barrel of each rifle was machined from an oversize barrel blank. With the end result of it being contoured to half octagon, half round, with integral quarter rib, swivel stud, front sight ramp and a wedding band transition.

That involved a lot of careful turning and milling.

Not an easy job.

But the end result is pretty cool.

I added top and bottom extended tangs to the rifles. Possibly, by now I might have built more bolt rifles with extended tangs than anybody else in the gun trade. Currently I have 6 such rifles in the shop.

The Springfield went through a list of pretty extensive modifications.

The picture above is of the finished .22lr rifle.

These rifles received a few modern twists. The barrels, magazine boxes and most parts are stainless steel, with the exception of the actions. The bolts have been nitride hardened.

On the flats of the ribs, I machined a scale type decorative pattern. The bolts got checkered with 3 panels.

The stainless-steel scope rings feature Heilmann inspired clamping screws. I made wrenches for each rifle that are stored in the grip cap.

I don’t do a heck of a lot of pattern work. I’m faster shaping a stock by hand as fiddling with patterns. Real stock making doesn’t involve a lot of Bondo and epoxy 🙂

Above, the left-hand rifle finished.

Finishing of the metal presented another challenge to me. After a good amount of research, we decided to apply Cerakote. I’ve never had it done before but am pleased with the outcome. The gentleman who did it for us went above and beyond and did a great job.

Schmidt & Bender Klassic scopes were installed on all 3 rifles.

Ready for shipping. Yes, that was a lot of work. I very much hope the client and his wife will get a lot of pleasure from these guns. And yes, I had a lot of fun shooting the .22.

Another great project. 6.5×55 Swedish rifle with full stock. The client provided a vintage Mexican Mauser action. These shorter, small ring actions are a wonderful base for the small calibers like the 6.5×55 or 7×57, 243, etc. These actions require evaluation. Some can be pretty rough. His was a good one, worthy of a custom project.

The barrel was machined from a 1.38″ thick barrel blank. It is 21″ long, octagon, with integral sight ramps and full-length rib. The custom machined front sling swivel is attached to a small integral lug on the barrel.

The nose piece is steel, and I machined it from bar stock. Steel butt plate, and custom bases for Talley rings were added. The stock blank we purchased from a lumber mill in Turkey. It can be a challenge finding a long stock blank with a great grain flow. After all, warpage of the stock needs to be avoided.

3 position safety, checkered bolt handle and a Timney trigger were added, after surface grinding the action.

Who says rifles with Mannlicher type stocks don’t shoot? Certainly, heat will impact it sooner. If the bedding is done well, it will shoot, however. As always, I hope this rifle will bring a lot of joy to my client.

It’s been a while since I posted last on my blog. I’ve been pushing to catch up with projects and have been working long hours. This rifle is one of my latest creations. I have wanted to build a rifle like this for a while. It’s a .275 Rigby caliber Mauser, inspired by the pre 1930’s Holland & Holland rifles.

This was commissioned by a friend of mine. He supplied the vintage commercial Oberndorf Mauser action. The action was already prepared by him. The original bottom metal was to be used. This is an open sighted rifle only. We left the original shroud and safety in place. I re-contoured a 7mm Krieger barrel somewhat, to give it a H&H style rear shank. After barreling, I machined and fit a quarter rib and made a custom H&H style front sight ramp with a flip-down hood.

The stock was made from Turkish walnut. With trapdoor grip cap, vintage steel butt plate and custom machined sling swivel stud. The “perfect” H&H cheek piece can be a thing of discussions amongst die hard H&H aficionados. My client supplied me with a template of the shadow line and the cheek piece. On many of the vintage H&H rifles, the cheek piece is considerably further forward to what I normally do. Noticeable is the amount of the drop on the butt stock. The magic formula is 1″ difference in drop from the front to the rear come. That gives it that great vintage look. Not very practical for scopes, but this is old school!

Even the trigger is original. I modified it with an adjustment screw that allows to remove the first stage. Many of the vintage English rifles had a pin in the bottom metal to block the trigger return to the first stage. Same idea, but adjustable. Simple and it works.

The Mauser 98 action is a real early one. I was surprised to see slightly different front ring dimensions and small ring style threads in that action.

Well, the rest of the work is up to my friend. He will have it engraved and will do the final metal finishing himself.

Some things never change!

I had a good laugh when I received this per email. Perhaps one or two of my colleagues might see this and can have a laugh to. Let’s leave it at that.

My dear friend Lee Helgeland has a few stock blanks for sale. I’m listing them for him. You can contact him directly at (406) 260 7798

These blanks are all well-seasoned, and over 30 years old. California-English walnut. They are marked with the prices. Let me know if you have any questions.

The blanks below are Claro walnut. $1500 for the matching pair

Recently I machined two barrels with integral machined features. It’s a lot of work and much care must be taken as there is little room for mistakes. The first barrel is in the caliber 6.5×55 and is part of a full stocked Mauser rifle.

The barrel is octagon with a full-length rib and quarter rib.

Barrel #2 is half octagon, half round, with a wedding band and quarter rib. This barrel is for a single shot rifle.

The caliber is 6.5×47 Lapua

It won’t have open sights. Scoped only. The rib is machined for Talley rings.

The 6.5 barrel turned and ready for milling. From the beginning of the machining to the end, 2/3 of the barrel end up as chips in the garbage bin.

Let me end this little post with a beautiful Oklahoma sunset. My neighbor called me last week at work and told me to have a look outside. We both are very fond of pretty sunsets. I miss the Cascade mountains, but this makes up for it.

Oh, my. Does time fly. I can’t believe it is already November. It’s been a while since I posted last. We’ve had such a nice summer and fall in Oklahoma. It makes life easier for sure. Except for a little vacation in the Ozarks, I’ve been working as hard as I can on various projects.

This particular rifle I delivered a couple of months ago to a gentleman in Alaska.

The caliber is .375 H&H. The client owns an older, mid. 50’s H&H built rifle in the caliber .300 H&H. It is an unusual light gun and fits him extremely well. Our goal was to recreate a very similar rifle in feel and looks, but in the caliber .375 H&H. This rifle weighs just a little over 8 pounds without the scope. the light weight was especially important to my client. The action is a vintage Mauser Oberndorf.

The cheek piece and light Monte Carlo back are adaptations based off the original rifle. We had fun selecting the wood. The blank proofed to have a warmer color then initially expected.

Lisa Tomlin added tasteful engravings to the rifle. She is such a delightful person, and I greatly value her contributions she has made to my business over the years. A few features: H&H style sights with banded rear sight ramp and banded H&H style front sight ramp. Trapdoor grip cap (in which the client stores a rolled up $100 bill for emergencies), and over the grip checkering. And of course, the usual re-work of the original action.

Custom bases and Talley scope mounts. The Mauser logo was enhanced in gold.

My wish is that the customer will enjoy this rifle as much or more as he does his vintage H&H rifle. He greatly deserves it.

For sale: Buehler CSA custom rifle, cal. .30-06

This rifle is pre-owned but in mint condition. It has only a couple of tiny handling marks, that are only visible by carful inspection. This rifle has been lovingly taken care off. About 250 rounds have been fired through it, so I consider the barrel fully broken in, the wood completely settled. It has been test fired by me for function and accuracy. Ready to go on your next hunt. The rifle is very accurate; it shoots with factory ammo well under 1 MOA.

The stock is made from a high-grade Turkish walnut blank. The action is a completely re-built new old stock after -war Persian Mauser 98, large ring. I consider the Persian Mausers as good or better as the 1909 Argentine action, so often used on custom projects. The barrel is a Pac-Nor super match grade, 24.5″ long. The rear sight ramp and the front sight ramp both are banded and flush filed to the barrel, to give it an integral look. The ramps were custom machined by me. Basically, the barrel is a copy of the vintage Rigby .275 barrels, but of better quality. Banded barrel swivel and engraved Express sights. Removable sight hood and flip up front sight. The scope is a high-quality German Leica scope, 3.5-10 power. Perfect in size with this rifle. Quick detachable Talley scope rings and custom machined and fitted scope bases. Recknagel trigger, hinged bottom metal and 3 position safety. The length of pull is 14 1/4″. Inlet rear sling swivel stud. Rust blued barreled action and oil finish on the stock. As always, I stand behind my work and behind this rifle.

Sold

I had the privilege to re-stock this 120-year-old Rigby rising bite double rifle. The rifle had been re-stocked sometimes in the last century by Lynton McKenzie. His inletting was fantastic, but the shape of the stock was hideous and un-practical. I attempted to bring it back to original condition. The metal work on this rifle is a testament to the incredible English craftsmanship of the time. The height of gunmaking in England.

The lock in-letting presents always a certain challenge. As it remains hidden, it’s also an area where personal pride can shine.

Picture of the stock in the shaping process. Often, with one of a kind projects like this, I don’t bother with a pattern and make the stock from the blank. With re-stocking, two problems occur. First, great care must be taken not to damage the metal and engravings. Therefore, you are forced to leave the wood slightly prouder as on a new stocking before engraving. Secondly, re-using the original engraved screws and have them installed again flush and timed. I got very lucky on this, as I was able to re-install all of the original screws and didn’t need to replace a single one. That’s a testament to the incredible craftsmanship of the old guys.

This picture is of working on the interior of the forearm

Winchester 52, cal. 22lr.

The partial octagon barrel and a good portion of the metal work was done by another gunsmith. Still, it required a lot of tweaking to get better proportions. I then stocked it and finished it.

If done well, it is so much fun to shoot a custom built .22.

Re-stocking of vintage Holland & Holland rifle:

This is a before and after photo of a .458 Win. Mag rifle made by Holland & Holland. I guess it was built in the 80’s. I had the pleasure to re-stock the rifle and update it to a vintage / modern look. In order to avoid re-bluing, a lot of care has to be applied in order not to mare the metal. The magazine box was made of aluminum, and fortunately I was able to avoid scratching it up.

.223 Hagn Falling Block:

The metal work on this rifle was done by Ralph Martini, in Canada. I stocked it and finished it. The goal with the stock was to give it an English look yet incorporate ribbons in the checkering. The result can be seen in the pictures. The action is rather tiny. It is challenging to make a small rifle like this proportionally pleasing and still very functional for the shooter. The ideal look would be achieved by downsizing all the proportions according to the size of the action. It would look great but wouldn’t be very usable. There is always a balance that has to be found in these kinds of projects.