BSA Ralock - An interesting old semi auto .22

I picked this up a couple of months ago on a whim, didn't know anything about it but it was different enough to be interesting! Here is a link to a video of me demonstrating it

https://youtu.be/-8quMWR_4Gk

A bit of history - They were made in England from 1948 to 1951 and I think around 5000 were manufactured in both 22lr and 22short. They are a similar looking rifle to the Browning SA22 but they have some very different features, it fires from an open bolt, it has twin strikers, the rifling only has 4 very wide lands, it holds all the spent brass on board until you re cock it and it takes down with the flip of a lever.

While they are probably quite collectible this example had a historic stock repair, holes drilled in the receiver for a rail and was missing a part in the safety mech which is unobtainable. So.... I decided to modernize it a bit and spec it to what I like, short and quiet!

Before
Attachment 73228

After
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The list of mods is quite short really but they have made a huge difference to it. The barrel was cut pretty much in half down to just under 13", re threaded, re crowned and a custom carbon fiber over barrel suppressor built up using the core from a SAK silencer. Then a 20mm rail was mounted to the receiver so I could mount my Falcon M5 scope to it (chosen to keep the length down when taken apart). In testing it is very very quiet with the only noise being the smack of the action, it groups under 1" at 50m and around 1.5" at 100m with CCI standards but I havent tried anything else in it yet. The chop did lose around 80 fps but I don't think the rabbits will notice. It cycles flawlessly and is a real joy to shoot, cant wait to get it out hunting.

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but being british does it leak oil ?

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Originally Posted by gonetropo

but being british does it leak oil ?

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Yep, It also pours water over your neck if you try to open the boot in the rain!

Nice to see an old rifle given new lease of life.

40+ years ago I used to do a lot of work on these. They are built like a brick outhouse but there are also a lot of critical parts made of pressed steel and spring wire. No parts are available (have not been for many years) so take good care of it. They were bad for powder fouling because of the closed breech and brass catching system. Give it a good clean every few hundred rounds and it should serve you well.

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Originally Posted by Mintie

I picked this up a couple of months ago on a whim, didn't know anything about it but it was different enough to be interesting! Here is a link to a video of me demonstrating it

https://youtu.be/-8quMWR_4Gk

A bit of history - They were made in England from 1948 to 1951 and I think around 5000 were manufactured in both 22lr and 22short. They are a similar looking rifle to the Browning SA22 but they have some very different features, it fires from an open bolt, it has twin strikers, the rifling only has 4 very wide lands, it holds all the spent brass on board until you re cock it and it takes down with the flip of a lever.

While they are probably quite collectible this example had a historic stock repair, holes drilled in the receiver for a rail and was missing a part in the safety mech which is unobtainable. So.... I decided to modernize it a bit and spec it to what I like, short and quiet!

Before
Attachment 73228

After
Attachment 73229

The list of mods is quite short really but they have made a huge difference to it. The barrel was cut pretty much in half down to just under 13", re threaded, re crowned and a custom carbon fiber over barrel suppressor built up using the core from a SAK silencer. Then a 20mm rail was mounted to the receiver so I could mount my Falcon M5 scope to it (chosen to keep the length down when taken apart). In testing it is very very quiet with the only noise being the smack of the action, it groups under 1" at 50m and around 1.5" at 100m with CCI standards but I havent tried anything else in it yet. The chop did lose around 80 fps but I don't think the rabbits will notice. It cycles flawlessly and is a real joy to shoot, cant wait to get it out hunting.

Attachment 73230Attachment 73231Attachment 73232

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Interesting what you say about losing 80fps with the barrel chop. I have had a thread up here about velocity loss in .22lr but am getting a bit of conflicting info. From what you say that would put standard velocity ammo below sos?

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Originally Posted by Shearer

Interesting what you say about losing 80fps with the barrel chop. I have had a thread up here about velocity loss in .22lr but am getting a bit of conflicting info. From what you say that would put standard velocity ammo below sos?

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Yep definitely below SOS, The ammo in the video was CCI Standard and it runs in the mid 900s through this. From what I understand 22lr normally reaches max velocity by 16" so it does start to drop off below that, but this might not be a good example to base this off as the 4 land rifling probably has less drag than a standard barrel!

Could it be from the bolt and case moving rearward as the powder charge is buring?
Since it fires from an open bolt?

Possible I guess but wouldnt expect it to make that much difference! I didn't chrony it before the chop but always expected a drop in velocity with half the barrel length.

From memory my Gevarm would leave a bit of unburnt powder in the action with some loads,if the powder is unburnt,its not adding to the velocity of the bullet.i wonder if the bolt "bounces" a little after impact with the rim?That the cartridge backs out a fraction as the powder ignites?

As I understand it, when the firing pins strike the cartridge the forward movement of the bolt is stopped by the first recoil impulse then the cartridge starts to back out when the pressure ie still high. As there is no extractor gas pressure has to blow the case clear of the chamber and that may account for some of the speed loss.