In my opening post I alluded to an incident with my .303 years ago.
I used to work for the NZ Railways and was posted in a relief role to Wanganui back in the early 1980's. I duly trundled off into the unknown and filled this relief role while the normal guy took off to the roar in Stewart Island. He arranged for me to stay with his Mum and I duly spent 2 weeks in a strange town getting fed better than if I was at home.
At some stage I found out she had an old 303 up in the roof of the garage and it was mine for some pultry sum WOW was I rapt at the find - yes sure it was a bit rusty on the surface but with elbow grease and gun oil she cleaned up pretty well. Its a 1918 Lee Enfield Mk3 sporterized.
I took it back home after letting the Police know of the transfer ( yeah right this was the (Eighties).
Used it to cull some goats out the back of Grandads farm and roll on a couple of years I'm married but the marriage didn't last. She leaves and cleans most of the house out but leaves all the blokey stuff so that included the rifle.
So a few weeks go by and my friends say come out for a shoot. Saturday comes round so I pick up the gun and check it over before heading out. Darn cant see out the bore - must be blocked - darn wasp nest
On further checking my pull through goes all the way through - WTF??
Hold it up to the light and cant see anything
Hold the rifle and look more carefully
Some BAst...d had put the barrel in a vice and bent it !!
My heart pumped pretty faaast as if I hadn't been so careful I do not know what would have happened if I had pulled the trigger.
After a brief stint in the gunsmiths at Papakura she got a new barrel and all is at peace in the world.
Same friends said -we've got a farm out the back of Karaka we can use. Off we go and I make sure they know all I have is the 303 and its over kill but it was camaraderie and a good evening out.
Shot one rabbit and cleaned the carcass out from chest to backside. No need for any gutting with this boy.
And after that it hasn't seen much use but it lives in a dry safe place and gets a round or two through it now and again.
Any rate onto my username 35 Desoto
I bought a 1935 Desoto Airstream off a good friend of mine years ago. Got it road worthy and made some modifications to keep it a good vehicle in modern day traffic. Im a bit of a hot rodder so she got disc brakes and a better steering box, a later model diff and mag wheels. She was a great beast - never been off its chassis so I didn't want to cut her up or molest the body as there was something in its originality that way. It collapsed the exhaust manifold and by a luck there were none available here in NZ or USA. It was an odd bod motor and while Chrysler people will say you can get exhaust manifolds try and find one out of a 24.5 inch side valve used in Airflows. So I made a set of extractors for her and boy did that let the engine breathe better - no increase in horsepower but did its torque curve improve and she'd hunt any small block V8 up any hill.
But as things go I wanted a V8 ans it got sold to a neat guy in the Waikato who I think still owns her. The username 35 Desoto stuck and thats that tale!
