Parker Hale M85 Serial Number Checks & Provenance on Manufacture (Records)

[Simon P]

The chap who took the pictures normally does a good job as he specialises in Lugers and his pictures are spot on, I think these pictures were taken by the original seller and it has had the the old spit & polish to brighten her up, one of the old tricks is to lightly wipe over with BLO its makes everything look brighter

[chosenman]

A good day on the range yesterday at 600 yards with two very nice examples of the M85. Both equally matched with the Kahles ZF84 scope. Note the urban camouflage stock. Very rare and it has to be said very nice to. All in all a good mornings shooting although because the scope is not by any means a target scope and doesn't offer the fine adjustment it took several rounds to pinpoint the v bull but once found it got pounded.

[Gil Boyd]

First shot always hits the bull ha ha!! Nice brothers there. I did the same on my range she shot as she always has .....................spot on, a true sniper rifle with oodles of history.
They will be worth a great deal soon mark my words.
If you haven't got one yet, I would advise you do and add it to your collection as they are getting as rare as Rocking horse ****.

[Simon P]

Just missed another of these rifles, didn't get the serial number but this one was in 7mm Rem MAG and was on route to OZ

[blurrededge]

Hi Gill,

Here's a couple of pics of the M85 as I picked it up today. Couldn't seem to send you the pics in a PM.... which I'll also send you.

[Gil Boyd]

Great pictures and confirm it is a PH mod on a Santa Barbra bolt assembly as it has the two absolutely tell tale circular holes on both parts of the bolt and is correctly numbered and electrically PH etched with the number on the arm 299. I think Bill will confirm my thoughts that this was built by Eddie Taff. His wheel marks are a signature of much of his past work hwich was like all of the PH engineers........outstanding
I would definitely get the green stock as they are rarer than rocking horse poo and always worth keeping if you want to change from wood in the future if you can't repair it.
Great to see another M85 rescued by someone who cares enough about them.
The price was a great buy without a scope so don't look back. Two recently with scopes went for £5500 each in Germany, I would have had them but that would mean losing the wife ha ha!!

Added a piece as I think I may have found some info on 299 afterall will post it once I have sorted it out

[blurrededge]

Outstanding Gil thanks for the info, appreciate it, intreagued to here what else you may have on it :-)

[Gil Boyd]

This reply is aimed at those who have an avid interest in the Canadian side of Parker Hale rifles, rather than on PM's for which I apologise, so that the wider community can pick up the same information so it is not lost forever.

If I could firstly state some historical fact:

In 2000, every OFFICIAL record was destroyed and burnt out the back at the Birmingham factory by the Liquidators which is a real crime in itself. The only records that survived were those manually written down in personal books by either Eddie Taff/Bill Smallwood or Paul Burke. These three men were the king pins in Parker Hale and did some wonderous things in their time, and thank God they kept what they did for histories sake, making their little record books the ONLY source of historical and numerical listings kept on individual rifle's history from initial manufacturing.

Canadian C3A1 Rifle

All the C3A1's did in fact come back to Parker Hale and were swiftly renamed M82's, most were sold to the UK market as target rifles. All the actions were definately Santa Barbra and all prefixed by the letter R. So look out for them they are out there.

I can definitively state that a large number of C3A1 rifles came back to Parker Hale on the 2nd November 1993 in particular R23292 and R29813 which are recorded.

Roger Hale decided to conjure up letters preceding or ending the number on each weapon which meant little to those assembling them, and is best described as random, however, the F after the M85 was designated to describe for Military use as FIELD.
The M87 Rifle used a C and the
M84 Rifle used the letter J
It is also recorded by these three ingenious engineers that in 1995 Canada did send back a number of C3A1 rifles for refurb which did get reclassified and sold by Roger Hale as M82's into the public arena.

Sadly these limited historical FACTS which these men luckily recorded and retained as interest for themselves as the "hands on" builders and engineers of these rifles, has now become the only records ever kept after such a sad period of sell offs across the Atlantic and back again by a number of buyers of the Parker Hale brand after 2000 in my view.

The Gun Quarter of Birmingham of course was awash with collapses/sell offs etc in the late 90's and early 2000's. It is therefore not surprising that many records of other famous brands have gone missing or sadly destroyed, as people never seemed to look further than the end of their own noses in terms of historical value to future owners who wanted to know the history of their rifle.

I am passionate about Parker Hale rifles, and continue to search for the Holy Grail, becuase I do believe, some records must still be out there that would in themselves fill in the gaps and provide that vital information.

I work closely with Bill Smallwood daily, and I will eventually record all the Parker Hale information we hold together, and let Doug or this site store them for histories sake to be kept for ever in a Central Database, as we all know our own mortality!!
Hope that helps someone out there, but we continue to update where we can

[rgg_7]

Gil..thank you for taking the time for posting this information.

There are a lot of followers of the Canadian C3 and its successor the C3a1. C3 was trialed in 1973 in CFB Gagetown NB and put in service in 1976. It was built on a 1200TX target rifle using the Palma 1969 barrel profile. The official scope was the Kahles ZF69 calibrated to the 7.62x51 Nato. It saw service to 1985 and was replaced by the C3a1. The transition from C3 to C3a1 is somewhat "Cloudy". Officially the C3 was destroyed however it has always been rumored that some were returned to Parker Hale. It would be very interesting if you could tell us how many were in fact returned to Parker Hale.

The C3 serial number range was randomly from R-21187 to R-39519. I would be most interested in the details of your record for R-23292 and R-29813. Where these rebarrelled? Restocked in "beech", Reserialized or remarked as M82's. Did they get sold to the public? Other "R" serialized receivers have surfaced and maybe Parker Hale recovered the parts for M82's and sold off. All depends on the serial number. Any detail you have would help us better understand the C3.

The C3a1 which is built on the M87 action has just recently been retired from service however retained as a training rifle. 10x Unterl scopes replaced with Schmidt and Bender so I've been told.

Anybody have recorded numbers for the C3a1?

Greatly appreciate any information on the C3 and C3a1.

Ron (CANADA)

[Gil Boyd]

Ron,
Thanks for that. Bill and I will be wading through the info held to try and identify that for you in due course. Sadly "CLOUDY" is a great phrase and covers a lot about what happened with Parker Hale as it slid down the slippery slope.
I apologise for any misunderstanding on my post but the recorded writing is what I have to go by in the hope that the engineer on the day was not under pressure duplicating the serial numbers and the models, as don't forget the "Official" records have been destroyed and we are going by personal interest hand written entries in little black books, and at best scribbled:
C3A1 - M87
C3 - M82 (1200TX) more commonly known
to also clarify also and thank to Darren for reminding me:
C3A1 numbering: 0001C to 00500C
M86-87 numbering: 01550G to02100G
Again many of the entries miss out zero's and letters too, which occurrred in conversions at Enfield as well on the L42 so it isn't unique to PH