Ray Morgan rifles

[morgan]

I googled Ray Morgan rifles and this forum came up. Ray was my uncle. I was too young to remember him.
Can anyone tell about his guns?
Morgan

[waksupi]

Bringing this one back up. I can hardly believe this bunch hasn't heard of these. Anyone?

[Hip's Ax]

I am the proud owner of a Ray Morgan. I shoot with a guy that has the Morgan that use to belong to Viola Pullham in PA. I know another fellow who has since retired from shooting who has two Morgans and yet another fellow who just passed away who had two as well.

You will be glad to know my Morgan still sees the firing line at NRA competitions as your Uncle intended.

[Hip's Ax]

I had the Morgan rebuilt by Kenyon, Klienendorst and Sitman and it now looks like this. The Morgan is the one with the red stock.

[Hip's Ax]

Here is the Morgan barreled action.

[Three44s]

Old Chinese proverb: (at least as old as cameras!)

A picture is worth a thousand words!

I like it ....... !

Three 44s

[Doc Highwall]

Hip's Ax, who's butt plate is that in the picture rifles, and is it a three way or four way adjustable ?

[Hip's Ax]

Doc, thats a DV4 four way butt plate. They were made by a smallbore shooter named Dave Vanderzee. Unfortunately a couple of years back Dave's Bridgeport broke down and he chose not to have it repaired. Alex Sitman owner of Master Class Stocks designed his own 4 way in order to meet the demand and I now have Sitman 4 ways on a 6XC mid range prone rifle and one on a 6.5-284 long range prone rifle. Haven't had them back long and haven't fired them yet but I love the look of his new 4 way.

[Hip's Ax]

I googled Ray Morgan rifles and this forum came up. Ray was my uncle. I was too young to remember him.
Can anyone tell about his guns?
Morgan

I'll repeat the legend as smallbore prone shooters have told over the years. Perhaps you can verify or straighten the story out.

Ray Morgan was a Winchester engineer who figured he could design a better .22 rimfire mouse trap. Designed for smallbore prone during the golden years of competition after WWII the Morgan rifle has the flavor of both the Remington 37 and the Winchester 52. A cult item amoung smallbore prone shooters, owning and competing with one even to the day gives a shooter star status. These rifles are prized that much.

Morgan tried to make 100 actions, story goes that one batch got "burned" during heat treat so the number of Morgan rifles actually produced is obviously less than 100. There were stories years ago that 85 were actually produced but many of us have noticed that no serial numbers in the 60's or above have been seen. The actual number of known Morgan rifles is much less.

In the beginning Morgan worked with Karl Kenyon and Eric Johnson as well as Creighton Audette. Of course Johnson did the barrels and Kenyon did the triggers and many of the known examples have Audette stocks but some do not. Story goes Kenyon did the triggers for 15 Morgans and then withdrew citing that since Morgan was a hand made action and each one was a little different he had to reinvent his trigger for each action. Morgan made his own triggers after that.

Morgan rifles have won all levels of competition over the decades including the National Championship at Camp Perry.

[deltaenterprizes]

Interesting, thanks for answering "What is a Morgan rifle" for me.