Thread: New boomstick... what a bloody drama

So, I took possesion of my shiny new 375 H&H a week or two back and yesterday I finally got to fire it. When I first got it, it had a steel leupold scope base on it and upon mounting a scope in it (I took the wee burris mini 4x off my 22 as I just wanted to have a play with it) I noticed that to my eyes the scope seemed like it was on the piss a bit, I tried to bore sight it to confirm and run out of windage well before getting things on the straight and narrow. I took the scope and rail off and discovered the reason why... some plonker had drilled the action holes all wonky! Pretty dissappointing for what is otherwise a very nicely built rifle, my assumption is the rifle was built without the intention of being scoped and then backyard barry has got his hands on it and gone to town in his garage to mount a scope. I took it to a gunsmith and his opinion was that filling and redrilling the holes would be possibly dangerous as one is drilled into the action close to where the bolt lug sits so any extra heating and making holes in that area was going to be out of the question. I took the rifle home feeling a bit dejected but then decided to ask another gunsmith his opinion, within a couple of hours he had taken a rail that had the correct height progile front and rear and machined some "wonky holes" into the rail itself so once fitted everything lined up nice and square.. sweet! (But it still pisses me off knowing a nice rifle has a backyard tapping job under that rail!) It was also noted that previous owner obviously did not know a lot about mauser type controlled feed actions and had been single feeding the rifle and managed to chip the extractor claw, so the rifle extracts ok but its not holding the case tight enough for reliable ejection. Im a bit reluctant to pull apart my old BSA P14 sporter to steal its extractor so currently in the process of tracking one down. But for now, the rifle functions! One of the lads I met through this forum came out to do some load development shooting on my wee range yesterday and since I now had a functioning rifle I got a bit envious of him having all the fun so I finished up moving my cows around etc and shot home and loaded up a few rounds at ADI starting load, using 2208 and 270gr speer soft points. Took the rifle down to the range and sighted it in.... it makes a big boom! I only had 8 rounds so didnt really shoot it for groups just got it sighted in then put a few over the chrony to see where it was at, the trees that line the range had been dropping their leaves through autumn and every time I fired a huge cloud of leaves would lift up off the ground from the pressure/percussion and cover the chrony haha. Still, managed to get 2425fps from the starting load. Looking forward to hunting with it now!

Nice stock. Is it a custom m98?

good to hear it pokes holes in things...the rest you will iron out in time....might be a good idea to carry your old kitnkaboodle with you when hunting so if extrator lets you down you can slip the stiff wire down from muzzle end and poke case out.

good that it didnt snowball into a major disaster for you keen to see how this progresses

Rifle looks far too good for back yard barry !! , what sort of range would you except to get out of it ?

Ryan I am happy that the rifle has come together despite the offset tapping. As I was reading I started to think you were going to tell us that you solved it with some number eight wire and fencing staples.

Originally Posted by Boaraxa

Rifle looks far too good for back yard barry !! , what sort of range would you except to get out of it ?

I've sort of lost interest in the whole long range thing but I would say most of my hunting would be 0-350yds which im sure this rifle is more than capable of with a 200yd zero and a bit of learning the correct holdovers. Its going to be my main hinting rifle so its got some tahr hunting lined up in a few weeks time, will hopefully get out after a chamois sometime the next month or two and theres plenty of fallow about round home.

Originally Posted by stevodog

Nice stock. Is it a custom m98?

Built off a P14

Are you going to suppress it or just take some ear muffs?

Originally Posted by Russian 22.

Are you going to suppress it or just take some ear muffs?

No way am i gonna deface it lol. Earplugs for hunting

Originally Posted by GDMP

I recently purchased a brand new Zastava sporter and had the same issue....rear scope mount holes drilled out of alignment with the front ones.Rather than return it I did the same I made a custom rail with holes drilled off-set to match the holes in the rifle.Another way they can sometimes be corrected if they are not out too much is to set the rifle up in a mill, and drill new holes the next screw size up (using a milling cuttter not a drill bit) in order to 'correct' the position of the holes in the receiver to be in the correct alignment.

I had that problem with a Zastava too, front holes running off down left side. The rail is wonky but put in Burris offset rings to give me the windage.

Nice rifle RS,tie yr earplugs to it,so you don't forget them.Youl have no hearing left after that 375 goes bang.

What a hassle Ryan. On the surface the Farm hunter photos you posted looked like a real custom made rifle in every respect. Bloody kiwis should leave things like that to the experts. A lot of hunters have either struck this problem or know of someone who has. Great that you've got it sorted. now time to draw blood with it.

Is it one of the BSA refurbished actions? Looks a bit like it with the side screw holes for an aperture.
Got several of them and found to varying degrees that the rear mount surface where the open sight assembly/ears was ground on the piss so that the tops of the base wasn't level with the front. Not quite the same as your issue though.

Originally Posted by csmiffy

Is it one of the BSA refurbished actions? Looks a bit like it with the side screw holes for an aperture.
Got several of them and found to varying degrees that the rear mount surface where the open sight assembly/ears was ground on the piss so that the tops of the base wasn't level with the front. Not quite the same as your issue though.

No its not a BSA one its been done from scratch, I have a bsa p14 and rear profile is totally different snd it doesnt have the big circle "plug" bsa put in them