The stocks of these guns are two-dimensional beech with deeply impressed chequering, which looks just like - impressed chequering! It’s much too deep to re-chequer, so I ran a border round it and filled it with walnut dust. A few inlays and an oil finish makes it look quite presentable.
Photo 2 is a Webley Mk111, found in a junk shop with a cracked stock for £12. I persuaded the late, great gunsmith Bob Rayson to fit a scope ramp - he hated air- guns and he said he would get round to it “some time”. Two days later he rang to say it was finished but commented “That Mk32 scope is too heavy. It comes off after 50 shots”. Really? Just shows even he could not resist a Mk111. All steel and walnut with a tapered barrel, it handles beautifully but was too expensive to produce.
Black
Powder by Chris Risebrook
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Photo3 shows its predecessor, the Mk11 Service air-rifle. If it looks like a Senior on steroids, that’s because it is. You can easily see the method of construction is exactly the same but with a longer barrel on one end and a walnut stock on the other. The barrel lockup was however novel. Rather than the sliding catch of the Mk 1 pistol or the revolver stirrup catch of the Senior, it used a turning bolt with a camming-action which positively screwed the barrel to the breach via a washer, giving a near perfect airtight seal. This one was found hanging from the roof of a market stall, painted silver, for a tenner. Thomas Blands re-blued it for me nearly 50 years ago, I refinished the stock and it’s standing up quite well, in spite of considerable use.
Photo 4 shows a totally different animal. It’s a Haenel bolt-action. Prior to World War 2, Haenel were famous for producing a variety of air-pistols, where the barrel and action hinged at the rear of the grip. Some of them also had magazines. Their air-rifles were of either standard break-barrel type, or under- lever tap loading and one of these had a drum magazine. During the war, they made magazine fed versions of the bolt-action rifle with military stocks for army training (along with sub-machine guns) but after the War they adapted the basic design to a tap loading target rifle.
Originally, it wore a hideous orange varnish over its pale beech stock, so that was a strip and oil finish job. NARPC used to run a competition for recoiling air-rifles and, not being able to afford a Walther LGV, this proved quite successful. Trouble is, it is a pig to cock - there is so little leverage on the bolt handle. The best way is to stand the rifle on its butt and to use your weight to push down the bolt handle.
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