A Chet Amick Rifle

Pete Wass

Pete Wass

Well-known member
Not long before I left for Florida, I visited a friend who has a fairly large collection of RF Benchrest rifles. We got to talking and he began to show me some of the rifles he has acquired over the past few years. He mentioned that he had a rife built by Chet Amick. I asked if I could look at it. He dug it out of his safe and un-wrapped it. Lovely Hall in a Larson stock, signed by Chet and the name of the fellow he made it for. I asked to look at the chamber and was permitted to do so. It isn't like any other chamber I have looked at to date, I must say but have some idea of what is in there. Very interesting, indeed it was.

Pete
 
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Pete Wass said:
Not long before I left for Florida, I visited a friend who has a fairly large collection of RF Benchrest rifles. We got to talking and he began to show me some of the rifles he has acquired over the past few years. He mentioned that he had a rife built by Chet Amick. I asked if I could look at it. He dug it out of his safe and un-wrapped it. Lovely Hall in a Larson stock, signed by Chet and the name of the fellow he made it for. I asked to look at the chamber and was permitted to do so. It isn't like any other chamber I have looked at to date, I must say but have some idea of what is in there. Very interesting, indeed it was.

Pete
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Wasn't there a heated argument in the past with the Amick estate about the proprietary configuration of these rifles, and the estate did not wish to release Chets accuracy secrets?

After those discussions I am surprised an Amick rifle made it out of the family collection...........Don
 
Chet Amick Rifle

I have one 10.5 Swindlehurst not glued in, (Lugnuts), also shoot with a friend with a 54 sporter.
 
earlm said:
I have one 10.5 Swindlehurst not glued in, (Lugnuts), also shoot with a friend with a 54 sporter.
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Thats a good one, very lightly used. I set up the ignition on that one , Gary and I were both shooting Swindlehurst's at the time. As i remember anything from 1053-1068fps worked well.
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Don said:
Wasn't there a heated argument in the past with the Amick estate about the proprietary configuration of these rifles, and the estate did not wish to release Chets accuracy secrets?

After those discussions I am surprised an Amick rifle made it out of the family collection...........Don
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There was no battle over anything other than misinformation. The number one "proprietary" element of Chet's work was how he lapped his barrels.......gone with him.
 
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tim said:
I suspect the prior owner wasnt the first, Chet never signd or marked any gun I ever heard of.
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The current owner told me he bought the rifle from the widow of the person who was very close to Chet and the rifle was a present to that fellow who is and was deceased at the time of purchase.

Tennyrate, the chamber is far different than any I have seen in other rifles; lapped, I would say and finished very well. The rifle hasn't been shot very much, from what I saw.

Pete
 
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Hi Pete
Hope you had a Merry Christmas

A couple Questions. When you say The Chamber was finished very well. Did that mean polished to remove all tool marks? All tool marks including the leade? How did he say it Shot.
Always wondered what other people thought About chambers. Is it finish or dimension?

Thanks
Gordon
 
Pete Wass said:
The current owner told me he bought the rifle from the widow of the person who was very close to Chet and the rifle was a present to that fellow who is and was deceased at the time of purchase.

Tennyrate, the chamber is far different than any I have seen in other rifles; lapped, I would say and finished very well. The rifle hasn't been shot very much, from what I saw.

Pete
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Didn' t lap them but they generally looked quite good. All of them done with one single reamer, he said it would never leave to be sharpened.......never found out what happened to the reamer.
 
GordonE said:
Hi Pete
Hope you had a Merry Christmas

A couple Questions. When you say The Chamber was finished very well. Did that mean polished to remove all tool marks? All tool marks including the leade? How did he say it Shot.
Always wondered what other people thought About chambers. Is it finish or dimension?

Thanks
Gordon
Click to expand...

It's a finish and looked to me as if it was lapped. You know how a cylinder looks after it has been honed? It looked something like that. No tool marks at all where one would normally see a leade. He said it will shoot about anything.
 
This one I have seems to shoot most ammo. I have not had it long enough to know for sure. It seems from what little I have shot it to be a shooter. I have been refinishing and bedding the stock. Going to try and find a tune and take it to the swamp shoot in February and see how it shoots. Can not see the chamber with the naked eye but the bore is really polished.
 
BARTMAN said:
Pete. was it sighned like this.?

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That is typical of the signature on the four Amicks I have owned and the three others I know where are. Chet did some experimenting with leade angles and freebore. He also talked about chamber polishing in our discussions.
 
tim said:
I suspect the prior owner wasnt the first, Chet never signd or marked any gun I ever heard of.
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My bad, should have re read this post , it came out wrong. I meant marked with owners name. Never type n a hurry.
 
Don, did they all shoot well? I hope with the chamber not engraving that maybe ,it will not be so picky on ammo. It would be nice if the family would find a smith to turn over his work to , and to further his methods and to see how his method would work with today's actions and barrels.
 
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