Thread: Nice surprise from an old girl

Dont know why we always seem to refer to our rifles as females, but what the hell.
About 6 months ago a mate was rumagging around in his shed and came up with a battered and torn 303. He promptly chucked it at me saying in no uncertain terms that it had seen better days and I may as well have it to play with...for FREE.
Unfortunately he had long since lost the original bolt, but I already had a 303 that was only good as a donor so thought I should see what I could do.
Got a guy to check out the headspace as I had been advised, and he was happy that the donor bolt was good to go. I stripped the old girl down and basically gave her a bloody good seeing too. Barrel looked all good apart from some very minor pitting on the outside, but given that the date stamp said 1917, I wasnt too surprised at that.
After a re-blue and oil up of the stock, I put her back together, better than when I got her .Popped iout to what passes for a range up here this morning, and after 3 remote test shots with a string on the trigger and me hiding behind a DOC dunny, I took a few shots at target aprox 80/90 meters away on a sand bank.Having never in my life fired anything with iron sights, I wasnt expecting to be on paper, but was pleasantly surprised with my effort

I only had 6 rounds with me and they were cheapo Highland 150 gn. I think I could get to like this rifle. Time to get tweaking her I think.

Always good to see an oldie taken care of, looks good

Very nice Pengy, good effort

What product did you use for glueing ? Any tips/tricks you can pass on ? I'm about to reblue a barrel that's been sanded down.

I used Birchwood casey Perma blue paste from Re loaders. It is a simple process, with reasonable results, but not as good as the real deal.
Just noticed that my first pic didnt come up too good. I only took 3 shots at the wood target. 1st hit is the one clearly seen. The other two are just out of the frame, but hit aprox 2>3 inches outside of the circle. From what I have been led to believe, these old 303`s can be very picky when it comes to amo, so I will grab a few different weights and makes to try out asap.
Any suggestions are welcome. I dont even know how to use the open sight properly. I am guessing you just set the ramp to read off at whatever distance you think you are shooting at , but this would be calibrated in yards, and most likely for a specific bullet type???