Can I please get a little help identifying this rifle?

You know the more I looked at this rifle the more I thought thats a Parker Hale stock. Got home and looked at my rifle and it looks exactly like my PH 1200 stock. The skip line checkering was a dead give away for me along with the rose wood tip.

Did PH build sporters on military actions? I know they used a 1903 bolt in the Midland models but I though they only used commercial 98 actions from Santa Barbara. Could be someone put this mil-surp into a PH take off stock. PH did use some nice wood in there stocks as well.
 
Not sure what it is... But I can tell you what it's not. It's NOT a Weatherby. The early Weatherbys were made with Mauser actions but were not made in Belgium. They were made in South Gate California and are marked as such. It's a beautiful rifle you have there. How does it shoot?
 
It shoots remarkably well from what I remember. I was in a case for probably 17 years and moved to a dozen different houses and when I pulled it out to fire it for the first time in all those years the scope didnt even lose zero.

Its a great firearm, I'm proud to own it.

Thanks everyone!!
 
hot damn. i have a near identical model in 22-250 except mine has an octagonal barrel.

It's a highly customised Mauser 98 bolt, with an FN receiver and barrel (most probably chrome-moly, and your trigger looks to be an aftermarket - most likely a timney as well.

The stock is just a nice example of a run of the mill sporter stock.

That is a VERY nice rifle to have inherited. Make sure you keep that in your family. How did its original owner get it?

does yours have a tight chamber by chance? :rolleyes:

HiBC and some others have been helping me diagonise my tigher chamber problem.

P.S nothing about that rifle has anything to do with weatherby. It's very much a european rifle. How does it shoot?
 
i see you say it shoot well. When i look closer - yours has the same aftermarket safety as mine does, now im guessing that these things came out of some custom shop somewhere.
 
The early Weatherbys were made with Mauser actions but were not made in Belgium. They were made in South Gate California and are marked as such.
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Early Weatherbys were made in West Germany by Sauer on M98 actions and stocked in European walnut stained an awful red color. They were marked Weatherby, South Gate, Calif because Weatherby was the importer/distributor and that was where they were located at that time. When Weatherby first started importing the Mark V rifles, they were made in West Germany also.
 
Although no where as nice as yours here is a FN Actioned Mauser with a stock that has the rolled over check piece
http://collectorsfirearms.com/admin/product_details.php?itemID=10078
Here is also a web page with all Belgian FN proof marks, so you should be able to get an idea when your rifle was made
http://damascus-barrels.com/Belgian_All_Proofmarks.html
EDIT: Also I think that your rifle is probably worth more than $800-$1000, here is 3 pages of Mausers (alot of custom made jobs)
http://www.gunsinternational.com/Mauser-Rifles-Sporters-Post-War.cfm?cat_id=318&start_row=1
 
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Hey Scorch... Not trying to **** in anyone's Cornflakes but this is a quote from Weatherby's Website on the "History of Weatherby"...

"As a young man, in the late 1940's, Roy Weatherby developed an insatiable interest in ballistics and rifle performance. At a time when many firearms "experts" were promoting large bullets traveling at slow speeds, Roy was experimenting with lighter weight bullets traveling at extremely high velocities. It was his belief that this combination was ideal in creating the hydrostatic shock needed to kill animals quickly and humanely. In Roy's mind, there was no other way: speed kills - period.

Roy's initial work began with developing his high powered, magnum cartridges. He developed the .220 Rocket (based on the .220 Swift), and the first Weatherby Magnums - .257, .270 and .300 (based on the .300 H&H Mag.). From his small operation in South Gate, California, Roy was building his own rifles on virtually any actions he could obtain (FN Mauser, Schultz & Larsen and Mathieus to name a few), as well as offering to rechamber rifles for his newly designed magnum calibers."

Everything else I've read says the same basic thing. I've owned several South Gate Weatherbys and have spoken to Weatherby directly and that's their story and I believe they're stickin' to it...
 
OK, so maybe I'm misremembering a few things about the early Weatherbys, it seemed to me that I remembered seeing early Weatherby M98s with German proofs. The guy who helped me stock my first rifle had been a stockmaker for Weatherby for a number of years, so I suppose I should have thought that one through (no need for stockmakers if you don't make stocks, right?). I do know that JP Sauer made the Mark V from 1957 until about 1970, after that production went to Howa until about 1995. Since then, the Mark V has been made in USA.
 
And here are other bits of info. I did say earlier that belgian manufacture occurred, and I had found and confirmed that before I posted it, but can't find that source again. Maybe I misremembered it and i was wrong.

. For many years, Weatherby manufactured his rifles at his small facility in South Gate, California. But in 1956, he contracted with Sako to build his production rifles on Weatherby-FN Mauser actions. Custom rifles were still produced in South Gate, however.
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1956 when he commissioned the Danish firm of Schultz & Larsen to build 378 Weatherby Magnums utilizing their Model 54 bolt action.
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the company contracted with J. P. Sauer in West Germany to build production Mark V rifles. Manufacturing of the Mark V remained there until the early 1970s when material and labour costs led Weatherby to move production to Howa in Japan.
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In the late 1960s, Weatherby contracted with Howa of Japan to build a Weatherby rifle that would be more affordable for the average hunter. The result was the Weatherby Vanguard which was introduced in 1970, the same year that production of the Mark V moved to Japan
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You could kind of call it unamerican that one of the icons of the american firearm industry has been made in japan for so long.
 
There is one pretty significant factor that weighs in against it being an early Weatherby.It is a 30-06.

However,there was a time ,as the magnums were coming on,that the cheek piece was designed to slip out fro under the cheek,like "draft" in moldmaking.

The more traditional looking rifles of the time,like the M-70 and the Griffin and Howe sporter,etc,had classic lines.They are elegant,but they were layed out more for the receiver peep sight.
A lot of the old"can't find the deer in the scope" problems were about iron sight stock designs.Roy's cartridges and rifles were designed more for scopes.

And,OK,he may have been thinking about Marilyn Monroe as he designed them.

But,in the pre- Wby days,you would expect your bolt gun to come drilled and tapped for a receiver peep.That scope stuff....maybe,or maybe that meant a trip to your smith.

Roy Wby at least looked at how stocks needed to be redesigned for the scope,and the magnum,to be the new standard.Yeah,a little different,a little racy..but,an era.

It all fits quite well into an honest history of developing the bolt rifle.

Oh,that safety.For a long time,there were no M-70 type side swings.The choices (for scope use) were a trigger safety and a commercial bolt shroud,or a Buehler,or a Mk2,as this rifle has.They work,were inexpensive,and pretty easy to fit.
 
OP... Sorry about the hijack, but this Weatherby history lesson is interesting stuff...
I also found that one of my South Gate Weatherbys had a broken stock that was expertly repaired so it was nearly impossible to tell. The reason I bring this up is because while Weatherby stocks are generally very elegant and beautiful, some of the early ones were a little thin at the wrist and had a tendency to break in half under the recoil of Weatherby's Magnum calibers. That's kinda' why I got out of Early Weatherby collecting. FWIW...
 
"....super-charged ammunition. At that time, he was producing his rifles on FN Mauser and French Brevex Magnum Mauser"

Sorry about that,

F. Guffey
 
A square also uses/used 1917 actions. They bought actions and magnafluxed, alloy tested, etc, to ensure that they only used the strongest steel. Then cleaned them up and made rifles. I'm of the inclination that if an Any rifle that can be built into .505 gibbs, 500 a square, or even the 577 T rex can only be called a great rifle.
 
But in 1956, he contracted with Sako to build his production rifles on Weatherby-FN Mauser actions. Custom rifles were still produced in South Gate, however
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OK, I got the country wrong, but I knew I had seen European proofed Weatherby M98s!
 
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