Frank, 

This is part of a Mike Petrov thread that I wrote some years ago; 

From about 1972-73 I lived in Long Beach, California, attended Cal State Long Beach and worked for Thompson’s Sporting Goods, which was a gunshop. Although I wasn’t impressed with Bernie Thompson (working for Bernie was like working for a spoiled four-year-old), I managed to meet some very interesting folks there, it turned out that some of the customers, as well as local workmen were former Weatherby’s employees and were the workmen who made the custom Weatherby guns in the 50’s and early 60’s; some of the men I still remember were; Engilbert “Ole” Olafsson, Ralph Davis, John McCormick, Michael Chang, a big Irishman named McIntyre, and several whose names I’ve forgotten, what I've come to realize is that these men never put their names on their work and have now been mostly forgotten. I got to know Engilbert and Mike Chang quite well and was amazed by their skill and the high quality of their work. Engilbert was the finest wood worker I’ve ever met; his stock work was absolutely flawless, many times I visited his shop in downtown Long Beach where he was doing the final finishing on shotguns from Pachmayr Gun Works, some of these guns were absolutely breathtaking! A-grade Parker’s, Holland & Holland’s, etc. Ole was from Iceland, he was very tall with a strong Icelandic accent, he told me that as a boy he was apprenticed to a furniture maker in Denmark, where he learned techniques of fine woodwork, then in the early 1950’s he came to America and went to work for Roy Weatherby, where he was taught stockmaking. More later...

From what I was told, Roy Weatherby was an insurance salesman who decided to start his own company to market a unique “brand” of high-quality hunting rifles. Weatherby’s rifles would have their own unique design and would be made in their own special calibers; their slogan was “Tomorrow’s rifles today.” Ralph T. Davis was a master machinist who owned “Modern Gun Shop” or “MGS” that manufactured a line of high-quality jacketed bullets. Originally, Ralph Davis was Roy Weatherby’s partner and was in charge of the manufacturing of the rifles; of course, Weatherby was in charge of marketing and advertising. It's fun for me to write about these men because I keep remembering more things that I had forgotten, another man who worked for Roy Weatherby was Walter Abe (pronounced Ah-bay) and although I didn’t know Mr. Abe, I’ve seen his work and it appeared to be excellent, he later became known for converting 52 Winchester target models into sporters. At that time, the late 1940’s and early 50’s, hunting was fashionable and Weatherby’s catalogs were filled with pictures of Hollywood celebrities like Roy Rogers, John Wayne, Andy Devine, and many others, holding their custom Weatherby rifle and sometimes a bear or elk they had just killed with it. As I recall Engilbert also made rifle stocks for King Farouk of Egypt, The Shah of Iran, as well as the Shah's brother.

Frank, 

That was a long time ago, I'm guessing your rifle is a Hiwall, it's likely that it was one of Russ Barnes' rifles. Russ owned B&B Lumber on Cherry Ave. in Long Beach. Engilbert made lots of rifle stocks, this is a pic of one of Engilbert's typical classic sporter stocks.

Yes, it was Russ Barnes rifle. I didn't know him but, I knew Ken, well.

Ken saw my rifle at a shoot and gave me the build history of it. It has a A&M barrel, a high end barrel maker of the '60's.

Yes, A&M is Atkinson and Marquardt and yes, the target is 200 yards at a ASSRA match.

Wes Turner