As with most creative partnerships, it’s impossible now to say who had what idea, and when. Suffice it to say that O’Connor wrote about perfection in hunting rifles, and Al Biesen transformed those ideas and principles into steel-and-walnut reality. O’Connor hunted with his Biesen rifles under all kinds of conditions, and the lessons he learned were passed on to his gunmaker, to the ultimate benefit of his other big game hunting clients.
LATE LAST YEAR, I came upon an Al Biesen rifle for sale and snapped it up. It is a .270 Winchester on an FN Deluxe action with a 22-inch Douglas barrel, and incorporates virtually every one of O’Connor’s rules for a fine hunting rifle. It was built in 1985. Fitted with a Swarovski 3–10 x 42 scope, unloaded with no sling, it weighs eight pounds two ounces.
Al Biesen was a superb metalworker as well as a stockmaker, and that expertise allowed him to fashion rifles with excellent balance, at the desired weight, adjusting each detail to perfection himself. This, I believe, is a vital factor in creating a rifle with that indefinable quality of being “exactly right.” Rifles built by committee never have that quality.
My rifle has the bolt shroud altered to accommodate a three-position wing safety, made by Biesen himself; the floorplate release is Oberndorfstyle. The bolt, extractor, and follower are machineturned to perfection. The chamber is minimal tolerance, with no freebore. The bolt knob is knurled top and bottom. The trigger is a Canjar.
Overall, in 1985, this rifle was state of the art, both technically and aesthetically.
The stock is a luxurious piece of walnut with fiddleback end to end and perfect grain through the wrist. It has a cheekpiece with a discreet Monte Carlo comb and a thin English recoil pad. The grip cap is knurled steel, the forend tip of horn. The action is partly glass-bedded; whether because of client preference (glass-bedding was the rage in 1985) or because of a spongy spot in the wood, it is impossible to say.
The checkering is the style that had become Biesen’s signature: A fleur-de-lis pattern, recessed about 1/32 inch to make the design stand out.
More important, the wrist is very slim—four and a half inches in circumference, as O’Connor dictated—and the forend is both slim and slightly pear-shaped in cross section. The comb is generously fluted on the right side, while on the left the cheekpiece line flows into the comb—again, the gospel according to Jack. Everyone who hefts the rifle in his hands has the same reaction: “Wow!” It feels and handles like a fine shotgun.
Overall, in 1985, this rifle was state of the art, both technically and aesthetically. With a variety of factory ammunition and handloads, it groups five shots reliably into about an inch and a quarter, with some considerably better. Just as important, the rifle functions beautifully: The bolt is silky, the trigger crisp, it comes to the shoulder with eye and scope aligned, and feeds, extracts, and ejects effortlessly.
But beauty passes, beauty vanishes, as Walter de la Mare observed, and it is no less true of rifles than of ladies of the West Country. With the headlong rush to composite stocks, the art of stockmaking is in danger of extinction, and today, most “custom” walnut stocks are turned on a duplicating machine to a standard pattern (and not a particularly good one) before being inletted, fitted, and checkered. The quest for perfection has given way to the quest for ease of production and the icy efficiency of accuracy.
Jack O’Connor and Al Biesen are both now gone from this world but, like pursuers of perfection throughout history, they have left a legacy in books and fine rifles that will live on. For a while, at least.
Wieland says the Biesen may well be the last rifle he ever buys—and it will certainly be the last one he ever sells. But then, he’s said that before.
