Thread: Old school hunting

This old geezer is still using the SMELE .303....still accurate ....mind you nowadays it makes a great walking stick...

Originally Posted by bumblefoot

@grandpamac And even later than that. I bought my first centrefire in 1980; a year after I left school. It was an ex WW2 K98 8x57. It cost around $70 and I had to put it on layby because my butchery apprentice wages couldn't afford that cost. I put an old 4x32 Pecar scope on it. It was beaten up and had a very fine crosshair reticle, but again, was all I could afford. But even then, it was mostly BSA's and Parker Hales that were the predominant new rifles we saw in Taranaki.

Funny; to this day I can still remember firing my first ever centrefire shot through that rifle, and the trepidation before I pulled the trigger; I would have been 17. I'd got my gun licence at 16, and because I asn't 18 mum and dad had to agree to me getting it. The only reason they did was because I'd had firearm training in the ATC. They bought me a Stirling .22 for my 16th birthday.

About 2 years later I bought a new Ruger M77 .270 from Sutherland Sports in NP. Cost me $434, and mum hit the roof when I told her the cost! I paid a deposit, put it on laybuy, took it home. I drove to NP every Friday night to put $20 down on it until I'd paid it off!

You're just a young fella, 10 quid was a good wage in the mid sixties, apprentices about 6.

@BruceY Me too. I've had this rifle for about 2 years now, A BSA 1916 .303 SHTLE III* (FTR), I mostly use this rifle and my Howa 223 now,, The 303 shoots 2" three shot groups



And this 1944 SMLE for about 40 years, Was originally my pig bail rifle.