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After searching locally for a few years I finally found one at a little shop that just opened up in town. Everything but the wood matches and I'm looking forward to taking it out to the range. The top is my 1935 Ishapore SMLE No1 MkIII. I've suddenly took a liking to Indian arms after shooting the SMLE. The SMLE is accurate but expensive to shoot. I'm debating on if I should strip the wood down and apply a few coats of BLO or leave it as is.
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...8/ishies-1.jpg
A goodly dose of BLO never did noone no harm.............. Get BLOing!
labrat1469: Nice pair of rifles! I have a similar pair of Ishapore's and am impressed by the finish of the pre-war #1 MkIII. After initially applying raw linseed oil to my stocks by rag I decided to get a bit more industrial and cemented two wallpaper soaking trays together which allows me to soak two forends and smaller pieces at a time. I usually let them soak for two hours and it seems to be effective. Might even try pre-heating the RLO to duplicate the WW2 British process which you can find in video form elsewhere on this forum.
Ridolpho
THe SMLE has been stripped down and has a few coats of BLO. It took me forever to get the cosmoline out of the SMLE's wood but a black plastic bag and the hot Florida sun helped the wood sweat out the cosmo. Hopefully I get some range time this weekend.
I find the Indian rifles interesting as well. Some have fantastic bluing. The transverse fore end strengthening screw (if present) bothers me not at all. The 2A1s usually aren't as cosmetically refined as the earlier rifles, but their magazines are actually better than most .303 mags in that they will generally interchange and function just fine without fitting. Handy when I was competing in "CQB" matches at Ft. Benning. I had four or five mags at hand for speedy reloads. No way I'd try that with a .303! But the .303s tend to be more accurate, I think.
I must get me one of those 2A1s sold my last one and regretted it
I know I over paid for mine but I wanted one to be my go to bolt rilfe and regret not jumping on one a few years back when they were 200. I paid 400 OTD for mine but it was the only one I've seen locally with matching numbers and a decent bore. The magazine had to be tweaked and now it cycles pretty good.