Walnut Hill

Tastes in rifle stocks are funny things – funny, and unpredictable. Take Roy Weatherby’s “California look” that has graced the Mark V rifle for the better part of 65 years. When it was sprung upon an unsuspecting world in the late 1950s, the Mark V’s stock was called everything from merely outlandish to appalling. One thing it was not called, however, was old-fashioned. It was racy, glitzy and appealed to those who wanted the newest and shiniest of everything.

The “California look,” as it came to be called, because the Weatherby company was located in Los Angeles, had some distinctive features. It had an angular pistol-grip stock with an extreme Monte Carlo, forward-slanting comb and a forend that was almost triangular in cross-section. Where conventional stocks were walnut, Weatherby’s were mesquite; where forend tips and pistol-grip caps were usually ebony, Weatherby’s were rosewood; instead of conventional checkering, it used skip-line patterns and, eschewing tasteful oil finishes, Weatherby wood was coated in Varathane-type, high-gloss that made people squint in bright sunlight. The rifles had no iron sights; only a scope would do. As for the bluing? It practically sparkled shiny black.

Weatherby’s alternative for those who did not want mesquite was claro walnut, preferably in blonde hues with dark streaks, which contrasted with the rosewood fittings. Garish? To some, yes.

That was only the beginning. Mark Vs emerged from the shop with some of the wildest inlays, of ivory, gold, contrasting wood, or plastic anyone ever imagined. The rosewood grip cap had a trademark white ivory (later white plastic) diamond inlay. With their ubiquitous white-line spacers, Weatherby stocks, for good or ill, certainly stood out.

Naturally, this set the purists’ teeth on edge, especially such traditionalists as Jack O’Connor and Ken Waters. But here’s the thing: By and large, Weatherby rifles shot really well. They delivered the promised velocity (with a long-enough barrel) and the company was the first to offer an accuracy guarantee of three shots in 1.5 inches. For the time, that was astonishing – both the accuracy and the guarantee.

The rifle stock was just one part of an overall marketing strategy that was undoubtedly brilliant. Regardless of what you think of the California look, belted cases, double-radiused shoulders and all the rest, Roy Weatherby was a fantastic marketing man. Some called him a huckster, and I’ve come close myself, on occasion, when dealing with his frankly bizarre claims for the effect of high velocity on game animals. But as a salesman, the American shooting industry had not seen his equal since Samuel Colt.

While some were dismissing Weatherby and his rifles, other companies began to adopt some of his styling innovations. Several names spring to mind. In the early 1960s, Schultz & Larsen, the Danish maker of ultra-accurate rifles, gave its products a look that was very close to Weatherby; Browning did the same with its line of Belgian-made high-powered rifles, especially in the costlier Medallion and Olympian grades.

The Schultz & Larsen Model 65 DL was just as expensive as a Weatherby, which was twice the price of a Winchester Model 70 ($295 versus $150) and the Browning Olympian even more so. All of them, with Weatherby in the forefront, appealed to well-heeled shooters who valued status above all. This image was not helped by Roy Weatherby courting Hollywood celebrities to endorse his products.

At a lower economic level, the English firm of Parker-Hale had its Model 1200. This had a Mauser action but a stock reminiscent of the Weatherby.

As of yet, I have not mentioned Winslow, a Florida riflemaker, who had decided if a little Weatherby styling was appealing, then a lot of Weatherby-esque styling would be even better. The Winslow rifles were not just outlandish, they were jaw-dropping. They were featured in a mid-1960s Gun Digest and evoked mainly disbelief. I assume someone bought one, but I’ve never seen one.

What mainly happened in such cases – Winslow excepted – was the makers lost their nerve and softened the Weatherby style, reducing the extremes. All this did was turn off the Weatherby admirers while still offending the traditionalists.

My first real high-quality rifle, purchased in 1975, was a Weatherby Mark V in 300 Weatherby. I wasn’t particularly enamored of Weatherbys; there just happened to be one available at the new Eddie Bauer gun shop in Toronto. Those were the days when Eddie Bauer was still a serious outdoors outfitter, and its gun shop was full of Brownings and Krieghoffs, not Mossbergs and Marlins.

What I learned with that rifle, over the next 15 years or so, was that the 24-inch barrel might not deliver Weatherby velocities, but the stock was eminently shootable. The exaggerated Monte Carlo comb put my eye in line with the scope, the triangular forend afforded an excellent grip for controlling the rifle and I developed great respect for it. By the way, the company described that forend profile as a “flattened pear.”

In 1990, I got my second one – a Safari-grade 257 Weatherby with beautiful dark walnut, ebony fittings, conventional fleur-de-lis checkering, and not a white-line spacer in sight. That was one of the most accurate rifles I’ve ever owned. Out of the box, with factory 100-grain ammunition, its first five-shot group measured .6 inches.

The original Weatherby styling has never successfully made the transition to fiberglass and later composite materials. They tried, with an early model called the Fibermark, but it wasn’t even close.

Only in recent years have composite stocks overcome their initial shortcomings of clubby feel, bulky grips, surfaces slippery as glass (bad) or rough as sandpaper (worse) and evolved into designs that actually feel like real rifles, rather than railroad ties or something from Toys ‘R Us. The past couple of years, I’ve had some rifles for testing that I quite liked. The latest Blasers are wonderful, as are the Sauer rifles; so are some from Springfield Arms and one I had from AG Composites.

Most long-range and platform rifle seem to have espoused the idea that the uglier and more angular they are, the better. It’s the belief that utility should trump all, ignoring the fact that human arms, hands, shoulders and cheeks are not flat, square, or hard-edged. What’s more, very few hunters are going to be able to settle in behind the rifle, adopting the classic prone position of the military sniper or Camp Perry competitor, and so they need to be both adaptable and comfortable.

That’s a concept Roy Weatherby grasped completely. His rifles were not the best for shooting prone, as many a bleeding eyebrow will attest, but for offhand, sitting, kneeling, twisting around a tree, or any of the other contortions a hunter finds himself in, they’re great.

In the years after those early flirtations with Weatherby, I became a dedicated admirer of the “American classic” look, which is fine in principle. Devoid of white-line spacers, gaudy forend tips, skip-line checkering and ivory inlays, they are certainly aesthetically wonderful. Or they can be, given the right stockmaker. But they can also be ergonomically poor, given the wrong stockmaker.

Leonard Mews, a first-rate stockmaker in any configuration, is usually credited with perfecting the Weatherby stock so many years ago, although others insisted, he was only executing Weatherby’s own principles. Impossible to say, now, who did what, but it hardly matters: The stock bears the Weatherby name and always will.

Whether due to Weatherby or not, standard styles of wood stocks since 1960 have more pronounced Monte Carlos, more useful cheekpieces, steeper pistol grips, and – alas – more flashy gewgaws. Love it or loathe it, the California look had a far-reaching influence.