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.