interesting you tube video on the history of the gun

Got board and was going through You tube and came across this History of the gun series. Very interesting british perspective. Part 7 goes into detail about the 303 somewhat and some mid 70's competeition in England.


part 1. Flintlock to percussion. Documentary from 1976. - YouTube

The weapon handling is something to behold

"With a double barreled shotgun there was a real danger of blowing your head off"
That simple statement has been replaced with 5 pages of warnings in the owner's manual and obnoxious roll marks on the arm itself.

I remember watching this the first time around, in the '70's. Still good. :-)

An excellent series. I contacted the BBC to see if there was any chance of getting it on DVD but they gave some reason it could not be done.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by WarPig1976

"With a double barreled shotgun there was a real danger of blowing your head off"
That simple statement has been replaced with 5 pages of warnings in the owner's manual and obnoxious roll marks on the arm itself.

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That's very true but back then there weren't thousands of lawyers wait to sue your backside off whenever some moron got it wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The very knowledgable gentleman doing the introduction is Dr Chris Roads a founder member and president of the Historic Breechloading Smallarms Association here in the UK (HBSA) an organisation that I can highly recomend especially if you are interested in research.:thup:

There was also The Gun: Rifleman All

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tK3k1qeZjv4

Then there is the book.

Each chapter was a different episode. Still have the book as well.

Its a very good series, I have been picking away at episodes over the last few days.

Each time he fires some transitional or uncommon relic I think of the value and rarity of those guns in today's world.

There he is shooting pistols I have only read about, or given passing mention in some book about firearms design evolution.

Discovered... and then lost another one of British soldier and IRA sniping at each other. The Falls road area inthe late 60's early 70's. the British soldiers are using scoped 4's , in 303 while the RA are using the 42A1's.

I found the # 7 episode vey interesting, to see the heavy barrel target No 4 rifles. At least one had the No 4 T cheek piece added.

Also the use of the Schmidt Rubin 1911 action for a full bore target rifle.

In the book he shows a Ross M10 converted to 7.62x51 as a Match Rifle.

Sadly, some of the people featured in it, such as John Bell, have passed away now. And the rest look a lot older.