After a discussion about someone's Perfect Gun, I started to think about what my Perfect Gun would be.
I love full power cartridges, iron sights, and wood stocks. This meant I liked WW2 rifles. I had some issue with bolt action rifles only because I shoot rifles lefty (cross dominant), but actually found some functions fit lefties better. The Enfield safety is perfect for lefties, the Mosin straight-handled bolt (and any other mauser straight-handled bolt) actually gave more opening leverage left-handed, and the Enfield's bolt handle hanging rear of the receiver was very accessible to lefties.
I started picking bits and pieces of rifles that I would combine into my perfect rifle, and actually came rather close to a rifle currently in existence. The Ishapore SMLE Bulldog.
PRO: It has the weight and balance of an Enfield. It's shortened to make it easier to point and maneuver. It's chambered in 7.62 NATO / .308 Win, which meant no rimlock, and that there would be plenty of surplus available, and that the popular cartridge would remain in production for some time! It would easily take a trigger job to turn it into a snappy two stage. And the mags hold 12 rounds without getting in the way of prone firing.
CON: It has the Enfield stock, which meant a jaw-weld instead of a cheek-weld (difficult to fix without disturbing the lines of the rifle). It has open sights (mojo makes aperture sights for them, but I'd rather see how much a gunsmith will charge to figure out how to install a No.4 ladder sight, or one of these for the sight radius).
All in all, it was a great fit for what I was looking for.
Lucky for me, I found one.
Double lucky for me, it was one of the 3rd party importer rebuilds instead of a bubba'd one.
Triple lucky it was a $150.
Sorry for the cell phone pics, (I'm actually surprised how well they came out) I'll put better ones up when we unpack the camera.
Clicky for full size!
Looooove that profile!
I was not expecting the wood to be this good. It's all matched, and very nice.
They removed the front sling mount point (no real reason for it now!), but left the bayonet lug intact! This shorty needs one of those patented Enfield No.1 sword bayonets! There is a split in the wood on the forward top handguard. It has been repaired with some glue by the previous owner, but I think I might be able to do a bit better.
It came with the sling, which is kind of thin for the proper shooting sling that it is, but I'll have more to say about it once I've tried it out.
The finish is definitely not the usual Brit finish (shitty, cracking oven paint), instead it's much more hearty. It shows some wear on the corners, but just enough for character.
5 comments:
Loooove the lines on that rifle, I'm not really a fan of the straight stock comb, but I lurve box mags on bolties. The stubby looking muzzle end is also sexy as fuck, I'm jealous.
You should buy a lotto ticket - that rifle for $150 is astounding.
No kidding Suburban Survivalist, it also came with one additional magazine, a mosin sling, a mosin ammo pouch, and a soviet flag. (???)
Whoa nice find!! Ishapore's are great rifles.
I really need to find one of those. I've always loved the Lee Enfield. The action is so damn smooth.
I'll just have to have fun with my Finnish M39 in the meantime. :D
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