Bigslug
05-16-2015, 12:47 PM
If you pay their hand-select fee, it seems that they will take care of you!
139609
My dad continues to enjoy his retirement. We spent yesterday's rainy afternoon at the loading bench on his back porch waiting for "Peachy" to arrive (Danny never left Nepal. Peachy managed to get out, but was never quite the same as when he left England:lol:). Pictured with my .32-20 Aussie Cadet "Binky Roo" for no good reason other than to have a neat "father and son" photo.
Dad's instructions for selection were for a Mk.II or Mk.III to be used as a shooter; go ahead and wipe it off to check condition, but don't do any sanding, serious cleaning, etc... What arrived was an 1876-dated BSA Mk. II.2 with a GREAT bore (uniformly mildly frosted) in the original barrel (matches the receiver numbers). Slugged it out at a very tight and uniform .457" as best I can tell - the seven groove Henry pattern doesn't totally jive with either the three or five flute mic). Forend in GREAT shape. Buttstock very nice, but probably sanded at some point, as it's a little smaller than the buttplate, and the original cartouche barely visible and accompanied with other (Nepalese?) markings. There was some heavy pitting on the barrel along the stockline that had been cleaned out and reblued at some point in it's life. Frankengun on the various small parts, and what I'm guessing to be Nepalese proofs tagged on along with the British. All in all, it took about four hours of the two of us cleaning off mild surface oxidation, grease, and assorted Himalayan goo to get it ready to rock. Looks like this should be a great shooter. . .just as soon as we get and organize all the hoopla to turn 24 gauge shotgun shells into .577/.450 hulls. . .The irony is amusing me greatly. . .these Martinis are probably the fastest of the single shots to shoot, reload, and shoot again, but we're going to be too paranoid about losing or damaging the cases to exploit that. I can just see Chard and Bromhead holding Rorke's Drift, assegais flying past their heads, giving the orders "FRONT RANK: FIRE!. . . SECOND RANK: PICK UP THEIR PAINSTAKINGLY FORMED BRASS!!!":veryconfu
I think we'll probably tune one of Dad's variable paper patch buffalo molds to approximate the service weight and let fly - though we've got plenty of greaser options to fiddle with. . .
If you've never handled or torn one of these down. . .this is a seriously beefy and well conceived Weapon of War. This rifle came along at the tail end of 300 years of Imperial skull-cracking, and the experience shows. Considering how the Brits fought with them, this is one of the better balanced rifles for offhand shooting I've ever picked up, and it would clearly make a dandy club or pike handle. Bayonet en route - curious to see if it shoots closer to center with or without it.
If this one is any indicator, it seems that whoever was in charge of the Nepalese mothballing back in the day had at least some concept of long-term storage - or at least some of the folks involved in the process did. Even several years on, they've still got good ones. If you've got the itch, by all means SCRATCH!
139609
My dad continues to enjoy his retirement. We spent yesterday's rainy afternoon at the loading bench on his back porch waiting for "Peachy" to arrive (Danny never left Nepal. Peachy managed to get out, but was never quite the same as when he left England:lol:). Pictured with my .32-20 Aussie Cadet "Binky Roo" for no good reason other than to have a neat "father and son" photo.
Dad's instructions for selection were for a Mk.II or Mk.III to be used as a shooter; go ahead and wipe it off to check condition, but don't do any sanding, serious cleaning, etc... What arrived was an 1876-dated BSA Mk. II.2 with a GREAT bore (uniformly mildly frosted) in the original barrel (matches the receiver numbers). Slugged it out at a very tight and uniform .457" as best I can tell - the seven groove Henry pattern doesn't totally jive with either the three or five flute mic). Forend in GREAT shape. Buttstock very nice, but probably sanded at some point, as it's a little smaller than the buttplate, and the original cartouche barely visible and accompanied with other (Nepalese?) markings. There was some heavy pitting on the barrel along the stockline that had been cleaned out and reblued at some point in it's life. Frankengun on the various small parts, and what I'm guessing to be Nepalese proofs tagged on along with the British. All in all, it took about four hours of the two of us cleaning off mild surface oxidation, grease, and assorted Himalayan goo to get it ready to rock. Looks like this should be a great shooter. . .just as soon as we get and organize all the hoopla to turn 24 gauge shotgun shells into .577/.450 hulls. . .The irony is amusing me greatly. . .these Martinis are probably the fastest of the single shots to shoot, reload, and shoot again, but we're going to be too paranoid about losing or damaging the cases to exploit that. I can just see Chard and Bromhead holding Rorke's Drift, assegais flying past their heads, giving the orders "FRONT RANK: FIRE!. . . SECOND RANK: PICK UP THEIR PAINSTAKINGLY FORMED BRASS!!!":veryconfu
I think we'll probably tune one of Dad's variable paper patch buffalo molds to approximate the service weight and let fly - though we've got plenty of greaser options to fiddle with. . .
If you've never handled or torn one of these down. . .this is a seriously beefy and well conceived Weapon of War. This rifle came along at the tail end of 300 years of Imperial skull-cracking, and the experience shows. Considering how the Brits fought with them, this is one of the better balanced rifles for offhand shooting I've ever picked up, and it would clearly make a dandy club or pike handle. Bayonet en route - curious to see if it shoots closer to center with or without it.
If this one is any indicator, it seems that whoever was in charge of the Nepalese mothballing back in the day had at least some concept of long-term storage - or at least some of the folks involved in the process did. Even several years on, they've still got good ones. If you've got the itch, by all means SCRATCH!