Two Long Term Projects Complete !!!

[W.R.Buchanan]

I have no idea if the second is a Parker Hale job. It did have remnants of muzzle damage and a hooded ramp front site installed. I added a slip-on break to cover the muzzle bad and silver soldered it to the muzzle. It looks ok as is and I'm not throwing any change at it. It's a 2-groove barrel and doesn't like boatail boolits. The furniture works and is kinda unique. Handles nice and I added the 5-round mag and foam cheek pad. All that's left to do is add a barrel band sling loop and sling. PAX

It will say Parker Hale on the side of the Front Sight.


If it has that weird 2 groove barrel where the grooves are only about 1/8" wide but like .316 deep it is probably a Long Branch #4Mk1* Made in Canada. I'm pretty sure most of those barrels were made by Savage.



I noticed that your gun has a Short Magazine. Is it a "Santa Fe magazine"? If it is the gun was probably done by PH.

It's a good candidate for a bore out to a larger caliber and there are .338,.358, and .375 to choose from.

If you like the wood you could experiment with different finishes that could enhance the look. It's amazing what can be done with Min Wax products and Birchwood-Casey products. You might be surprised what character lives below the surface in that wood. Compare this to the before pic of the gun that had 1/8" of varnish on the wood and I literally took my Palm Sander to it and ground off the paint and blemishes, (and there was plenty of them), to get to good wood. Somebody had worked over time making this gun look as bad as humanly possible, took several weeks to resurrect it from the dead!. But it was fun doing it!



Look at the pics of the handguard and buttstock on this gun. None of that showed up initially, it was totally hidden by a very thick layer of goo!.



This type of stuff ain't that hard to do and is very rewarding when finished.

Randy

[W.R.Buchanan]

The Enfield is out getting the new caliber engraved on the barrel. I have always
known that it is downright dangerous to not have the new caliber tattooed on the gun, which easily invites the wrong ammo being chucked up and fired.

Not sure what it would do to fire .303's and a .35-303 barrel but I'm pretty sure it would not produce desired results. Hopefully the engraved numbers on that big flat just in front of the front receiver rig will get noticed.

Randy

[W.R.Buchanan]

Done:



The "5" got a little screwed up when the engraving tool went thru a hash mark on the barrel but it still serves the purpose.

This gun is officially done but for Load Development. still digging for decent data.

Randy

[W.R.Buchanan]

OK, I figure I ought to put this picture up with the NRA Sporter as this is the guy I bought the Barreled Action from in 2000. His name is Mason Parrish and he was my Metal Shop Teacher in High School and also the Long Term Swim Coach at Buena High School in Ventura CA. The Pool a Buena High School is named after him! He is well known in the Ventura CA area and is one of the outstanding people in my life and in the lives of so many others . I can safely say he has been a major influence on more people than I can name...

He bought that Barreled Action from the DCM in 1965 for $15 ! I gave him $150 in 2000, and he was very interested to see how it came out. I took the gun to my Gun Club Meeting last night to show it off and he was there . He was quite happy with the way the gun turned out. So am I. Also my NRA Match Director was also there, and he really approved of the gun as well.

Our range is supposed to open back up by Labor Day so we are working on moving dirt that was displaced by the heavy rains we got in January, but by then I will have the gun completely sighted in and ready to go it it's first match.

Randy

[BB1776]

Very enjoyable reading. Outstanding pics. Those rifles are purdy. Thank you for posting and bringing us along on the ride!

[DArBad]

Very nice, Randy. Thanks for sharing the pictures.

[W.R.Buchanan]

So I am making good headway sussing out various bits of load data that I have been able to find and others have sent me. Finally got good full page pics of .35 Winchester pages from Lyman 41 and 42. .35 Winchester is the closest cartridge to the .35-303 So that info compared to .358 Win Data will yield a usable 225 gr and 250 gr jacketed bullet load.

Randy.

[BrokerB]

Your tapping story sounds painful.

Excellent looking rifle

[W.R.Buchanan]

Your tapping story sounds painful.

Excellent looking rifle

Yeah and I'm supposed to know what I'm doing?

Randy

[Doughuntr]

Old school, well done!