Adolph Minar

[Lancebear]

Hey Jim and Michael,

The grip on that rifle stock looks truly like a "Pistol grip", as in an old dueling pistol. Look at the stock and imagine the butt gone. Wonder if that was Adolph's intention? The curve would seem to me to make the rifle a natural pointer, and not fight the natural curve of your hand formed when you grip a rifle or pistol to aim it.

Robert/LB

[Jim Tarleton]

That grip is designed to reduce the impact on the hand from recoil. A much more comfortable grip, for me at least, is shown in the pictures attached. This is a 25-06 I am building from junk parts I have had lying around for years. The barrel is an Adams Bennett I bought on sale about 3 years ago (still not finish reamed), the receiver is an Orbendorf I had lying around since Moses was a minnow, the bolt I bought off eBay years ago and I welded a new bolt handle onto it, the stock was an unfinished reject that I bought for $45 due to a knot, which due to the design I choose (wrap over cheek piece) disappeared (I cut over 1 lb of wood off that stock). The Redfield rings, base, and scope I also had on hand. The recoil pad is my last spare, and I really wanted a black one with no white stripe, but I didn't want to spend any money. The trigger was off eBay, the floorplate is an old 09, and the cocking piece is from a Mexican Mauser, welded to work with the odd ball trigger. I have spent no "new" money building this rifle.

The grip is shaped to fit my hand, and the cheek piece to fit my face when shooting offhand, and I used a grip design by Jim Howe (from his books). I find this particular grip more pleasing to the eye than the "slanted{" grip used by Minar. I guess it is just personal preference, but it makes a lot of difference when shooting the rifle to me.

The rifle is unfinished at this point (pretty obvious).

Jim.

[Lancebear]

Hey Jim,

Interesting project. Where the heck do you start something like that other than selecting parts that will work together?

I'm guessing the receiver is a Mauser and the trigger guard. Was the barrel threaded already to mate with your receiver? And is the bolt also a Mauser that you knew would work? How much machining did you have to do to get this far? What I mean is, were the receiver, bolt, trigger guard and barrel an easily workable match from the start?

Robert

[Jim Tarleton]

I started with just parts I had in boxes. I maintain a few receivers, bolts, floorplates, triggers, and all other parts for rifles of different makes on hand for various projects.

The stock was rough cut and over 2" wide (square), and the mortise for the receiver was only partially completed with no barrel channel at all. The maker quit cutting the stock when he saw the knot because it was in the cheek piece, which was originally meant to be a high comb rollover like the Weatherby. I re-cut it by hand with chisels to appear to be "placed" over a cheek-less stock. I also hand inletted the rest of the stock and installed the recoil pad, which I wish was black.

The bolt shroud is NOS and was one of two I had on hand. I just had to polish it. I do all polishing with sandpaper by hand to maintain sharp edges.

The barrel was an unthreaded blank that I machined to fit the receiver I had. The bolt was a 98 bolt out of another later Mauser receiver, lapped to fit the lugs to the receiver before barrel installation. I have about a dozen or so bolt handles, and I chose to weld a new one on rather than forge the original. I also D&T'ed the receiver in a jig once the barrel was fitted.

I have a box of mounts, and I chose the Redfield mounts and rings (NOS) because I was going to use an old Redfield scope I had in stock.

The trigger was the real pain in the a$$ because it was not made for a Mauser action (but it was cheap!). The sear engagement wouldn't work with the trigger because of the "V" in the Mauser cocking piece - the bolt wouldn't open after you pulled the trigger because the trigger wouldn't allow the trigger sear to depress under rearward bolt movement because it was up in the cocking piece sear "V". I like the Springfield st ye cocking pieces,so I filed a 98 firing pin assembly to fit the odd-ball Mexican Mauser cocking piece and welded up the "V" so that the trigger would work, then re-hardened it. The trigger has an adjustable safety engagement that had to be changed so the safety would work. The receiver had to be altered for the trigger to fit.

I dissembled the trigger to hone everything inside. You will need trigger honing stones for this work.

The floorplate is a hinged lever release 1909 Mauser floorplate that will soon have a narrowed trigger bow. FYI, it will also fit a Springfield 03. I just put one on a 03A3 receiver.

To answer your question, I started with a bunch of mismatched parts and made them all fit. It is just a hobby for me, and I like to make nice things out of a pile of junk.

The order of assembly:
1. Inlet the barreled receiver (such that a piece of cigarette paper will not slid between metal and wood at any point)
2. Inlet the floorplate (ditto)
3. Inlet the trigger, and you better have a great set of chisels for this job. I made my own long ago, but I recommend Miller.
4. Reshaped cheek rest (two days of meticulous work)
5. Shape stock to fit your physique and taste
6. Finish stock
7. Checker stock
8. Blue parts

I am in the process of finish sanding and shaping the stock. If you look closely, it appears that the right side has been finished, but that is just where I have rough sanded it (240 grit). I pour RLO on the stock while I sand it, and it whiskers and fills the pores with the natural wood dust/RLO mixture - the best pore filler money can buy. Just keep doing it through the progressively finer grits (I go to 400 grit). After 24 hours, the sanded area is smooth as glass and ready for the real finish application, which will be Tru-Oil in this case. I some cases I bleach the wood (Chlorox) and apply Lemon Oil - then apply the final finish. The results can be stunning depending on the wood.

Except for fitting the barrel, all work was done by hand at my kitchen table while watching TV (westerns mostly).

I still need to finish ream the chamber (tight) and test fire. I glass bedded the whole thing in five steps (five different glass bedding jobs). In the pictures, the rear receiver bolt isn't even in the rifle.

Hobbies can be quite involved, but the results can be a lot of fun. This rifle is going to my grandson #1, who is currently using my Win Model 70 in 270. He has yet to see it.

Jim

[riflegreen297]

Adolph Minar was from Fountain, Colorado and made about 36 stocks. He became well known after he made a stock for Jack O’Connor and O’Connor wrote about him. A few days ago I was asked for some better pictures of a Minar rifle and this morning another gentleman asked about how to ID a Minar. After the article and book no new Minar rifles have come to light. This rifle is a .257 Roberts and has a barrel by Sukalle. It came from a Oregon Vineyard, keep you eyes open they could be anywhere.

I live in Fountain, Colorado and never knew of this craftsman. Thank you for this bit interesting local history. That is a truely beautiful stock and rifle.

[Michael Petrov]

You're the first person I've meet from Fountain, here is a little more background on him. Who knows, you might find one of his rifles.

Adolph George Minar
1879-1936
October 1999

Adolph Minar: I first heard about the stockmaker Adolph Minar from the same place most everyone else has, from Jack O’Connor. Jack O’Connor used many rifles made by well-known custom gunmakers and wrote about them in his books. Reading what he had to say about the different makers was always interesting to me, but when he wrote about Minar there was a little something special in the way he wrote about this stockmaker. In The Hunting Rifle, Winchester Press 1970: “I have owned Springfield sporters by Owen, by Griffin & Howe, by Linden and by Minar, a neglected genius who died before his fame was widespread.” From The Big Game Rife from Knopf © 1952: “So was a remarkable man named Adolph Minar who lived in the little village of Fountain, Colorado, and turned out some of the most beautifully checkered and shaped stocks ever made in this country. He died in the middle 1930’s but I have an old Springfield stocked by him and I shall always keep it.” And from The Art of Hunting Big Game in North America, Outdoor Life 1967: “I was carrying one of the handsomest, fastest-handling rifles I have ever had- 7x57 Mauser fitted with a ramp front sight with gold bead and a Lyman cocking piece rear sight. It wore a stock by one of the finest craftsmen to practice the trade of stock making - Adolph G. Minar.”

There was no way I could read such a glowing report about a stockmaker and not try to find out more. I had almost come to the point of believing O’Connor had made up this fictional stockmaker from a make believe place called Fountain, Colorado when I found an article by John Jobson. Jobson was a camping editor for Sports Afield and had seen his first Minar stocked rifle when a friend of his father’s brought it by their house for Jobson’s father to see. In the years to follow John and his dad tried to find a Minar that they could buy. The story of this search is told by Jobson in My Quest of the Minar printed in the 1964 Sports Afield Gun Annual. This search for information about and the desire to own a rifle made by Minar took on proportions that some might call an obsession, but not me. Having spent most of my life on one quest or another, I’ll just say Jobson was focused. Jobson made at least two trips to Fountain, placed ads in the Fountain paper and wrote, by his own admission, over 400 letters looking for a Minar. As these things sometime work out John Jobson became friends with Jack O’Connor and shortly before O’Connor’s death Jack gave his Minar to John. This rifle was also featured in an article O’Connor’s Other Rifle by Bob Hill in The American Rifleman ,April 1980.

I will admit that I was somewhat intimidated by one determined mans lifetime research that had yielded so little information. There’s nothing like 60 years to make a trail cold. My first stop was the U.S. Census records of 1920 where I found Mr. Minar living in El Paso County, Colorado, a white male 41 years old, born in Minnesota with a son Frank, 19, and a daughter Otillia 16. (Two tools available to me that Mr. Jobson did not have were my home computer and the Internet.) My second stop was a people-locating Internet program called Switchboard™, (Yellow Pages, White Pages, Maps, and more - Switchboard.com). Here I learned that there were at this time three people named Minar in Colorado; one had an electronic mail (e-mail) address. I sent off a quick note to the one with e-mail and letters to the others telling them about my research. Within hours I heard back from the e-mail, one Ms. Carol Minar who was not only doing genealogical research but volunteered to help me in my search. Carol got caught up in the project and did some scouting around in Colorado looking for the elusive Adolph Minar. At the same time I pointed my computer at El Paso County, Colorado looking for names and addresses of county record offices, historical societies and newspapers. What I needed was an obituary. These seem to have the most information about a person in the least amount of space. With addresses in hand I had letters off to half a dozen organizations. In less than a week I hit pay dirt, from the Penrose Public Library, Colorado Springs, Colorado. Minar’s obit from the Colorado Springs Gazette Saturday, March 14, 1936 read “NOTED GUNMAKER ILL 10 DAYS AT HOSPITAL: No Funeral Plans, “Death yesterday claimed one of the region’s most prominent farming men and sportsmen when Adolph George Minar 56, of Fountain succumbed at the hospital here. President of the Fountain Valley Mutual Irrigation System since its reorganization in 1931, and President of the El Paso, County National Farm Loan Association. Mr. Minar was an outstanding authority on farm management, finance and irrigation. Coming here 26 years ago, Mr. Minar settled in the Fountain district and built a farm home that has remained a region show place.
“About five years ago the versatile man became interested in the manufacture of fine gunstocks. He made a number that equaled the country’s finest in skilled workmanship, and his reputation: in this line was growing throughout. Recently he wrote an article “Building the Dream Rifle” which, illustrated with photos of his guns and shop, is now in the hands of a national sporting magazine for future publication. Mr. Minar is survived by his father and stepmother Mr. & Mrs. Frank Minar of LeCenter, Minn.; a son George J. Minar of Flagier, Colo.; a daughter Otillie (sic) Agnes Hondek of Fountain.”

I have not been able to locate the article that was written by Minar and have no idea what magazine he sent it to or if it was ever published. I even checked with the Library of Congress and found nothing. I’ve been looking for George J. Minar with little luck but I did find an address for Otillia that was less than a year old, then I lost her again.

Carol Minar used Switchboard™ and found many Minars in Minnesota. I’m not sure how well she did in locating her family but she did a great job of finding Adolph’s relatives. As if that was not enough for her off she went to Minnesota and visited with them. From this visit we learned that Adolph was the son of Frank and his wife who emigrated to America from Czechoslovakia. Adolph and his three brothers were banished from their family home to some land near Pine City, MN along with a team of horses and a plow. The boys did not get along with their father’s second wife. Adolph got married and had three children, Frank, Otillia and George. I found nothing more about Adolph’s wife. The 1920 census as well as the obit in 1936 list George and Otillia but no Frank. The family remembers Adolph visiting in 1934 and cutting down a cherry tree, then having the lumber cut and stored in a barn for drying. They also reported that Otillia had visited as late as 1993. This is where I got her last address. Otillia told the family that Adolph had made 36 stocks total. Carol also reported that one of the family members had a family rifle that was stocked by Adolph. Follow up correspondence with the family produced the pictures of the German Jaeger rifle illustrated.
Previous authors have said that when Minar first made a stock he sent it to William Sukalle, Sukalle then sent him a Griffin & Howe to show how a proper stock should be made. It’s also reported that Minar & Sukalle traded work, so it’s possible that many of the 36 stocks that Minar made are on Sukalle rifles.

William Sukalle: William Sukalle was an automotive machinist and hi-power shooter who wanted a better barrel. He played around at barrel-making for some time, then took the Big Step by buying 100 military surplus .22 caliber barrels made for the Springfield Hoffer-Tompson. These he re-bored and re-rifled to .25 caliber for the then “new” .257 Roberts. The first business address I found for him in The American Rifleman was in October 1931 at 60 South 5th Avenue Tucson, AZ; in November 1935 he was at 1120 East Washington St. Phoenix, AZ. Sukalle barrels will have the Sukalle mark that is an “S” in an oval (and a four-digit number.) I just do not have enough numbers to say positively but I believe that the last two numbers are the year the barrel was made and the first number or numbers signify the barrel number. If this is correct then number 1036 would be the tenth barrel made in 1936. I have reports of barrels marked with just the “S” and barrel number, with no name. Early barrels are marked “W. A. SUKALLE TUCSON ARIZ” while later barrels are marked on top “W. A. SUKALLE-GUNMAKER-PHOENIX-ARIZ” One rifle I know about has a barrel marked A.O. Niedner Dowagiac, Mich. on top and W.A. Sukalle Tucson Ariz. on the bottom without a Niedner or Sukalle barrel number. You figure that one out.

A couple of Sukalle’s well known customers were Jack O’Connor (at least eight rifles) and Dr. Russell C. Smith of (Barren) per lee in Montana Berlin, Wisconsin and later of Petersburg, Alaska. Dr. Smith was the Patron Saint of the custom gunmaker, having custom rifles made by many of the custom smiths. When Dr. Smith died in 1968 his collection totaled around 400 guns. One of the highlights every year for Sukalle was to travel to Alaska and clean Dr. Smith’s rifle collection, and I would think a little hunting was in order also.


The Guns: Knowing now that Adolph Minar had made approximately three dozen stocks I knew getting to examine one, much less own one, would be more an accident than by choice. Let me tell you about my accidents. A few years ago I had a steady running ad in the gun papers looking for Custom Springfield sporting rifles. The problem with this approach is the same as the princess looking for her prince: You have to kiss a lot of frogs along the way. Many of these frogs wore mail order stocks, or were sporterized with a hacksaw or axe. So many, it fact, I was feeling guilty at not being able to answer all the inquiries. One I did answer was for a Springfield 1903 unmarked except for “25-ROBERTS” on the barrel, no other markings. I talked with the gentleman who had it for sale and asked for some pictures. Shortly, some of the best pictures I have ever seen arrived which showed a nice looking classic sporter in about as new condition as you could ever hope for. The checkering pattern looked like one I had seen on a Bob Owen rifle but looking at the pictures I was Clueless. Not long after, my favorite Man In Brown showed up at the door, Mister UPS, with a gun box. As good as the pictures were the rifle was better, nice work from one end to the other. Out of habit I looked at the side of the banded front sight and there were the partial date markings as found on issue Springfields. The problem was what were Springfield markings doing on a .25 Caliber barrel? As much fun as it is pulling a rifle out of the box for the first time, so is taking a screwdriver to it and having a look at the insides. Several things hit me at the same time: Sukalle’s barrel markings (2635 & S in an oval) and the most detailed inletting I have ever seen. I’m not sure how long I sat staring at all this before it sank in…..THIS COULD BE A MINAR! What could I compare it to? I got out the pictures of the O’Connor-Minar. The checkering pattern on the pistol grip looks the same, so does the cheek-piece. I need to find O’Connor’s rifle or another Minar with a good provenance. Jobson said he was going to see that the O’Connor rifle went to the NRA. Well, as of now it’s not there. The first week in February of 1999 and I’m off to the Las Vegas Antique Arms Show, lots of custom sporters under one roof that I get to look at and collect up some new numbers for my files. Time to visit with old friends and make new ones. This is how it happened, really. A man I have never seen before walked up to me, introduced himself and said, “Hi, I have Jack O’Connor’s Minar Rifle.” He may have said more before or after but you couldn’t prove it by me. My mind was somewhere between “Yeah-Right” & “Who put you up to this?” Fact is, he did and does have Jack O’Connor’s Minar Springfield. I found that Jobson was upset with the NRA at the time of his death and his widow did not feel right sending the rifle to them. Instead it went to a friend and hunting partner who has it to this day.

This Minar rifle in Jack O’Connor’s hands had a good but hard life. I’ll let Jack tell you about it from The Rifle Book Knopf 1949. “It is scarred and battered, and it’s third barrel is now so worn it won’t keep its bullets in a two-foot circle at two hundred yards. Once down in Mexico the front saddle cinch broke, and the runaway horse battered its poor stock terribly. Another time in the same country when I was hunting sheep, a rotten granite ledge gave way with me, and I had to drop the rifle to save myself. The stock is badly cracked and held together with a bolt, the checkering is smooth, and the rifling is gone. But I’ll always keep that rifle. I shot my first elk with it on the Mogollon Rim of Northern Arizona, my first grizzly with it in Western Alberta. I have carried it in Sonora, Arizona, British Columbia, Alberta and the Yukon. It has five grizzlies to its credit, and I feel the same way about it that a horseman feels about an old but much-loved mount”.

With bolts, glue and fiberglass used to repair the O’Connor rifle there is not much about the inletting that can be used to help in the identification of other Minars. Pictures mailed back and forth confirm that externally the suspect rifle and the O’Connor rifle are by the same hand. It would be very helpful to find another Minar rifle so we can close this case with more than circumstantial evidence.

There are still many questions unanswered about Mr. Minar and his work. Looking back on a task that at first I thought was impossible, now when I pick up the Minar-Springfield .257 I feel a bit guilty because in fact it was so easy. This guilty feeling does not last long however. All I have to do is think about the makers you will not hear about from me, because after many years of searching I have found next to nothing about them. Maybe it does all average out. Adolph Minar may have made only a few stocks but what great stocks there were. A list of the “Masters” would have to include the name of Adolph G. Minar for quality , if not for quantity.

[Jim Tarleton]

Magnificent work for someone who started so late in life.

Jim

[Lancebear]

Hey Jim/Junkmaster,

Thanks for the details. Something from nothing, by your own hard hands, with of course a lot of hard work included. Hope it shoots right when you get it finished.....good luck!

Robert

[Jim Tarleton]

I didn't like the coloration of the stock, and I decided to try to bring out the grain texture of the stock. This was a common practice by the old masters. The first step is bleaching out the dark areas. In my case, I chose to bleach the entire stock, as it is Black Walnut, and the dark coloration hides the nice grain structure of the stock.

Bear in mind I am working with a $45 stock, not a High Fancy.

Once bleached, I will finish sand and stain with logwood stain, and then run some trials to see which finish gives the best definition.

Note the drastic difference in grain definition in the two photos. The dense areas will accept stain at a different rate than the less dense areas, and hopefully I can add some light red coloration (maybe even some light green streaks) and a predominently clear finish and have a much prettier stock.

Jim

[George Sr.]

His work is excellent. Jack O'connor who really knew first class stock work praised him in several of his articles over the years.