Litetrigger1
Active Member
Attached are photos of a rifle with interesting history, beginning in the late 1960's when I first visited the A&M Rifle shop in Prescott, Az, and met owners Bill Atkinson and Paul Marquart. Over the following years I often visited them and became close friends with both. On several occasion I went prairie dog shooting with Paul, at which time he used his pet .17 Javelina shown. Paul was a terrific gunsmith but not a great stock stylist, as you will see, and I often wondered why he had made a Mannlicher style stock for a varmint rifle. But even so the rifle was unquestionably accurate as I saw him splatter hundreds of PDs with it. The .17 Javalina was developed by A&M and one of the mail reasons it proved so accurate was because of the superb .17 barrels made in the A&M shop by Bill Atkinson. It's fair to say that those barrels made .17 caliber rifles a doable proposition as previous .17's by other makers had problems, mainly with fouling and poor accuracy. During those visits to the A&M shop I met other well know rifle people such as P.O. Ackley, Vern O'Brien, Fred Wells, etc. and heard some great shooting tales. Years later, after Paul's death, I came across this rifle in an unexpected place and recognized it immediately by the stock, single shot Sako action, A&M barrel and 6X Weaver scope Paul favored, plus a good supply of Paul's original Javelina brass. Sorry this story is so long.