I actually wrung up the current owner of Gibbs and spoke to Mark Crudington who is a gentleman and very generous with his time. He explained to me in some detail how Gibbs built the rifles and in the case of mine it was as follows.

A complete military action was used with the barrel removed and shortened to 26" and re-profiled to a sporter pattern. A new front sight base and sight was fitted and the rear sights were removed from the original sight base, a new base machined and fitted and the rear sights sporterised with yard numbers and platinum lines, then refitted to the new base. The trigger was converted to s single stage and the original bolt handle bent down. A complete new pre-inletted stock was supplied and then finish inletted by hand. The entire stock was finish shaped and checkered by hand, in my case flat top checkering. The rifle was then shot and sighted followed by finishing the stock and plishing and bluing of the metal.

Obviously there were many variances according to customers requirements but the majority of plain grade Mannlichers sold as a Gibbs as well as those sold to the trade followed what happened above.

Some rifles were rebarreled if the buyer wanted a slightly different length or profile, or a different cartridge. Stocks could also be completely custom made as could the sights but most were as described which is probably why there are so many with similar features and the same barrel length.

At least that's what I was told by Mark.

Matt.