Of many dozens of custom rifles and handguns I have built, this is the only one I have left.. Probably because I built it for my wife.
In the Maine woods those boys like heavy calibers and light guns. The trend when I was running my gun shop was for them to buy the 444 Marlin lever action rifles, then have me modify them. Never fired befor they were handed to me. I shortened the barrels and installed muzzle breaks. Rather than fine tuning the triggers for a lighter pull, they wanted the triggers STIFF but crisp..
I bought large ring surplus mousers (8mm) for about 80 dollars each, and cleaned them up and resold them.. Sometimes I used the actions to build a customer a specific gun.. I have a lot of pictures but no scanner.. Give me time.
So I had an idea for these guys wanting big calibers.. I designed a crartridge based off of a .300 win mag case. I liked the cases because they have a shoulder to headspace on, instead of a rim or the shoulder.
Two of the cartridges laying beside an unmodified .300 win mag case.
I spent considerable time making the cartridge specifically for the large ring mouser actions, and sent the design to Clymer manufacturing. They in turn built me a chamber reamer, and designated it the "Sievers .44"
I ordered five barrel blanks from Blackstar, and set about turning them down on the lathe and cutting the chambers. Threading them for the large ring mousers and head spacing them.
I made bolt handels, put Timney triggers in them and custom safeties. Two of them I remanufactured to accept remington clips, the rest I used the original floorplates and made a button to remove the floorplate as this gun has. Trigger guards were modified etc, etc.. The two custom rifles with remington clips recieved Custom walnut stocks, two recieved laminated stocks of black, brown and green laminates, the last used the original mauser stock. I mounted sights, and drilled and tapped them for scope mounts, then ran them all through the bluing tanks.. I advertised them, and sold them with the dies needed to create the cases.
I sold all of them but the one I was keeping in less than a week. The last one had my wifes name stamped into the reciver, so I presented it to her for her birthday...
She took a nice doe with it that fall, and used it for several years.. the looks of disbelief on the "guys" faces when she pulls that cannon out of the case are ALWAYS priceless. At that time she weighed about 140 and stood about 5'6" so it was a lot of gun for her, but she loved it.. she is getting rounder now and handles it a little better with a little weight to put behind the metal buttplate.
So the Turtle gun got its name, because my son and some of his friends were out in our front yard with their .22's plinking at snapping turtles in our pond.. they were not having much luck hitting them... I stepped out the other door and waited, the turtle gun in hand... A big snapper poked his head up, and the rest is history... they all came out of their chairs when that gun went off, and the turtle.. well, he was in multiple pieces.... The gun is widely known in this area as the turtle gun, and it is often heard if someone is having trouble with deer, coyoters etc. to hire the turtle gun, it fixes most problems...
The cartridges are loaded with .300 gran soft point pistol bullets. They have the weight to penetrate, but are too soft to go clear through. they go in eight to ten inches and disintegrate. The bear that were shot with this cartridge dropped on the spot, without taking a single step, needless to say the deer do not go far either. Coy dogs and coyotes are a little difficult to pick up to load in the truck.
The turtle gun has an OLD Weaver 4X metal post reticle style scope. It holds up to the recoil well, but you really dont want to get too close to it or it will idiot kick you hard enough to need stitches. The stock is oil finished and has seen a lot of abuse busting brush up in the northeast. It was made to hunt with, and has served well, I hope it continues to serve for a LONG time after its maker has gone.
So lets see some pics of your favorite!
