Jim:
Regarding [military surplus] Ishapore SMLE .308 bolt acton rifles, I bought a few of these a while back on a “buy ten for” deal. A buddy and I both sprung for five of them to get 10 of these and we paid a ridiculously low price… something like $69 each plus shipping and tax.
Anyway, I gave one to my dad and my uncle and kept the best of the lot for myself.
These are some of the finest bolt action rifles we have ever used. They all had decent two stage triggers. Each came with a 10 round box mag, and I ordered a few extras. (The extra magazines were $35 each!)
This is a very accurate rifle, though a little heavy as it came out of the box.
My dad took all the wood coverings off the barrel, the bayonet lug and front sight off and it lightened the rifle by about 3 pounds.
We had a heckuva time getting a scope mount to work and ended up milling our on as the ones we bought would not hold sight after about 10 shots.
The “redneck engineered” version we made is dog ugly, but you could drive a truck over it and it would not come off.
This his and my uncles favorite truck and hunting gun now, as they don’t mind beating it up, but know it will still shoot every time.
I have shot mine at the range and consistently shot 1-inch groups at 100 yards with open sights.
Even my Sako M995 Kevlar wiz bang super accurate .300 Win Mag doesn’t shoot much better.
Most of the “goodness” is in the trigger. It really does have an excellent trigger.
If folks get one of the yellow sheet wholesale gun mags like Shotgun News, they will find lots of dealers selling Ishapore .308s cheap… maybe not as cheap as the ones I bought, as they had just come out and folks hadn’t yet realized that they were diamonds in the rough. – Mel
Letter Re: Rifle Recommendations for Canada
