Parker hale m85

[jmoore]

From Post#18, I notice your front sight base is a bit different than mine- yours is a later rifle. Do the lock screws allow for rotational adjustment when loosened or is the base more or less keyed in place?

[Gil Boyd]

Yes its locked in place. I understand that was a requirement later on within the project to ensure no unnecessary movement or loss of parts.

Still waiting for the P&H M85 lists, which identify when they were produced and where they went to, which will be beneficial to all.
Gil

[sd4f]

I stumbled across this forum discussing M85's recently, so I thought I'd show my one.





Some things I've noticed are that my one has a muzzle set flush with the foresight, whereas there appears to be a few variations other than that, as mentioned in this forum. Also, the bolt handles appear to vary, where my one appears to be swept back. Does anyone have any idea why there were variations in the production?

As far as I've been told by the previous owner, this one was purchased direct from P-H by a civilian (he was bought it off someone else who bought it off the original owner afaik). It appears that they didn't come with a scope, although I'm on the lookout for the appropriate S&B 6x42.

Also I don't have a suitable sling, curious what would be the period correct one, as I thought of getting a L8A1 sling, but they don't appear to be able to take the M85 sling swivels.

It took me a while to find one, and I'm quite happy that I have it. I know another fella who shoots at the same rifle range as I do, and he bought his in the 80's, from P-H, and it has the threaded muzzle, with a parkerised action. His is in very nice condition, with all the paper work as well (although his has a test group print out) in the box. If he was willing to sell, it would have been mine.

[Gil Boyd]

In answer to your queries, some of the bolts did have a very slight variation on the angle of the bolt.
If you see the enscribed number of your rifle it should be on the flat of the bolt which is what the engineers at P&H did.
The Santa Barbra bolt has round blast holes and is rounded where the p&h was elongated as a Military requisite, thats how you can tell the difference.
I should be able to get you some more information if you tell me the last 3 numbers and the letter shown on the bolt. It should be prefaced with two 00's. I know one of the original engineers and he has a log of serial numbers as and when they were developed who I tracked down when I wrote an article on the rifle comparing it to why it lost the MOD contract here against the L96 at the time.

The rifle barrel end was modified in anumber of ways he tells me for the various clients. Some wanted a threaded end to take the large moderator and others wnated their sight at the end, so there was no hard and fast rules on the production, it was a client based order from start to finish and hand built and crafted by the engineers there to you.
Hope that helps
Gil

[Gil Boyd]

Lastly,
I notice under the thread about Bisley Shooting Fair last weekend that one of our members has an original 6X42 scope for sale might be worth contacting him to see if its still available
Gil

[sd4f]

The Santa Barbra bolt has round blast holes and is rounded where the p&h was elongated as a Military requisite, thats how you can tell the difference.

Thanks for the response, but one thing about that part. I have a P-H 1200 sporter, which I'm quite sure is with a santa barbara action and bolt, and the bolt is quite different to the M85 bolt. My M85 bolt has round vent holes, but I suspected that it was UK made, since it is quite different to the santa barbara bolt.

I've put pictures of the bolts of the three P-H rifles I have, one is the 1200 sporter, one is the M85 and the other is a M84 bolt (with the longer locking lug).





If you look particularly at the bolt handle, where the serial number is on the M85 and that same region on the sporter bolt, you'll see that it's quite different.

On the topic of serial numbers, I block those out because here in New South Wales, Australia, we have firearm registration, and the police have managed to get the registry to leak, so I'm a bit concerned about putting rifle serial numbers on the internet.

[Gil Boyd]

Yes you will clearly see the round holes on the M85 bolt on the left lower pic and the elongated ones on the other two Santa Barbra bolts. I know each bolt handle produced by hand after the engineering stage, was done by hand and the actual bolt handle itself could be very slightly differently angled, which I have seen when you put two M85's side by side.
Thats the beauty of the beast, I love em.
I will eventually I suppose place my article on the site for all to "judge", but I still maintain as do a lot of UK Army experts that this rifle should have been our rifle from 1985 onwards....outstanding.
Great to see the rarity of the rifle now pushing the prices up exactly where it should be. I am waiting for a list of all those produced and will let members know when it arrives so they can check them off as to where they ended up.
Gil

[SS1988]

Sorry for the poor pic.Attachment 46915

[sd4f]

Three of them, nice stuff. If I could, I'd like to have one of each camo pattern, problem is there's 4 camo patterns and one nato green one. Too many to find, and I've never seen pictures of the urban camo and artic camo rifles other than the parker hale brochure.

[jmoore]

...the parker hale brochure...

BTW, I found the P-H M85 manual the other day, there may be a brochure in that area as well. Don't have a good way to scan them, though.