This is beautiful example of a very rare prewar Barney Worthen made custom Model 1903 Springfield rifle. The custom rifles made in the Worthen shop in San Francisco were equivalent to the early Griffin & Howe custom sporting rifle as made in NY, with the same style and patterns. It is estimated that Barney only made approximately 35 rifles in total, as he died in 1936, with almost all of them being takedowns, while this rifle has a fixed barrel. The base rifle was probably an early 1903 sales, converted by Worthen just like those done by G&H. The original barrel was professionally recontoured and polished to remove the rear sight base hump, however you can still see where the rear sight base, alignment pin was filled in and polished over just as G&H did. The font sight base was remover and the barrel is now fitted with a barrel band ramp front sight base with a ivory tip, blade front sight and push-on front sight hood. It has a Lyman 48C rear sight base with the aperture arm that has been machined off. The right side is fitted with a G&H dovetailed scope base (no mount or scope). The left side of the barrel is marked "MADE BY BARNEY H. WORTHEN SAN FRANCISCO ". The top of the chamber retains the U.S. Model 1903 marking. The bolt has been lowered to clear the scope with the bolt body and extractor polished. Interestingly the Worthen shop installed a small spring loaded plunger into the front of the safety lug that engages a small detent in the rear of the extractor. This detent snaps in place and makes an audible click when the bolt is fully closed. The safety has been modified to clear the scope tube. The rifle has been restocked in a very nice slightly fancy American walnut with some fancy gain in the butt and forend with straight grain through the pistol grip. It has a horn grip cap with a unsigned silver insert and a red rubber pad. The stock has a fine line, multi-point checkering in a pattern typically of the 1920's and 30's.

Excellent as professionally built with 98% blue finish overall with edge and high spot wear. The stock is fine with a small hairline crack at the rear of the receiver tang and the rear of the trigger guard. There are few minor pressure dents on the checkered area on the left side of the forearm, the remaining checkering is crisp overall. Mechanically excellent.