1901 Remington Hubalek pistol

[marlinman93]

Recently won this Hubalek modified 1901 target pistol at an online auction.
It is marked "A.HUBALEK" on the top barrel flat and has a very extensively modified grip frame to change it from a one piece grip to a three piece grip. The grips consist of two side panels, and a closely fitted center filler to secure the two panels. Nicely checkered, and using two grip screws, plus a pair of fitted pins per side to locate the grip panels. Grip panels also extend up inside the frame at the top.
The frame is attached permanently at the rear to the original rear tang, and also at the front to the trigger guard/tang. The two halves meet bottom center and a long screw enters at lower front frame to secure the two halves together. The wood filler block is fitted in between the two halves closely so it can't be removed without splitting the grip frame. A very nicely done modification.

The barrel is a later 1901 Rem. barrel, 10" long with a beautiful bore! The trigger has been worked over by Hubalek to a crisp, clean, light pull. The extended grip frame with the extra weight of it's thick metal adds weight back where it's beneficial to balance out the gun's long 10" barrel, so it holds quite nicely.

[aardq]

Hi Marlinman93,

Here's some info from Landskron's book on the RB pistols. ALL RB pistol frames were made by E. Remington & Sons! So all RB frames were made before 1888, thus no matter what model number, or what year it was assembled into a firearm, they are all antiques. This is by the 1968 law.

That is one very nice pistol. I'd never heard of Hubalek before your post.

Thanks,
Daniel

[marlinman93]

Hi Marlinman93,

Here's some info from Landskron's book on the RB pistols. ALL RB pistol frames were made by E. Remington & Sons! So all RB frames were made before 1888, thus no matter what model number, or what year it was assembled into a firearm, they are all antiques. This is by the 1968 law.

That is one very nice pistol. I'd never heard of Hubalek before your post.

Thanks,
Daniel

Thanks!
I thought Landskron's book said none of these frames were made after 1876? Think he wrote the Model 1871 frame were made 1871-1876 and all pistols after that were made from that era of frames.
But it turns out this custom pistol isn't a 1901 after all. It is a 1891, and was fitted with a later 1901 barrel. Had it been a true 1901 the rear sight would have had a dovetail milled lengthwise into the top of the receiver. Instead it has a dovetail slot cut crossways through the top of the 1891 receiver, and the 1901 barrel fitted to it. Probably those barrels were readily available from Remington at that time and cheaper to replace an old worn out barrel than make a new one.
Seller listed this as a 1901, and said it had to be done through an FFL, but my dealer is knowledgeable enough to know it is "antique" by FFL rules and passed it along to me.
Arthur Hubalek was one of the finest shooters in the early 1900's, and much younger than most of the master shooters at that time, but often beat his contemporaries in matches around the area. He became friends with H.M. Pope and Pope took him under his wing to show him how to make barrels. Hubalek worked as a piano maker and had skills as a machinist, so he took to barrel making and a couple years later he began selling his barrels, much to Pope's dismay. I think Pope thought he might become a full time assistant to him, so he wasn't happy when Hualek became a competitor instead.
Hubalek advertised himself in local ads as "The .22 Rimfire Expert" and his barrels won many matches. He also did custom gunsmithing, and built mostly match rifles for indoor gallery matches held at the Zettler Bros. Gallery in NY City. At some point he also decided to build from scratch a downsized Ballard action, and had a man named George Dorn cast him 3/4 scale Ballard actions. Hubalek designed and built his own striker conversions to fit these actions, and fitted his .22LR barrels to them. Castings were not extremely well done and all I've seen had tiny porosity holes all over them. But for a .22 RF rifle they were plenty strong and nothing was done to attempt to polish out the porosity holes.
Hubalek worked as a custom gun maker in Brooklyn, NY up until just before WWII, and passed away around the same time as Pope in I think 1950?

[aardq]

Hi Marlinman93,

It is just easier to say that all RB pistols were made by ERS, and thus before 1888, rather than get into what happened, and in which years. It's simple, all RB pistils are antiques.

Thanks for the Hulabek info. I spent some time online researching him. Very interesting man. Makes me wonder what his barrel making secret was.

Daniel

[marlinman93]

Hi Marlinman93,

It is just easier to say that all RB pistols were made by ERS, and thus before 1888, rather than get into what happened, and in which years. It's simple, all RB pistils are antiques.

Thanks for the Hulabek info. I spent some time online researching him. Very interesting man. Makes me wonder what his barrel making secret was.

Daniel

Thanks again!
Seller made it difficult to complete this purchase just because he was ignorant of that fact that all of these are antique, and that this wasn't a 1901 either. But fortunately my FFL friend is better educated and said he wasn't going to make the same mistake.
I'm not certain on Hubalek's rifling style, but being taught by Pope he may have used the same techniques Pope did, which meant a very slow process of cutting each groove and shaping his cutters with rounded corners to eliminate any sharp inside corners in the bottom of the grooves where lead or fouling can build up. Don't know if he also used left hand twist like Pope, or made his typical right hand twist?