Hi All,

      Late this afternoon I phoned Joe at Gunshop East Barnet and whilst I was on the phone he pulled the Midland .308 off the rack and went over it described it to me and it sounds to be in good condition and it's fitted with P-H blocks and rings and has a 3-9x40 of unknown make on it. The fore sight hood is missing but the stock only has minor handling marks on it. Now I agreed to buy it over the phone . I might add that I have brought several rifles over the years from Joe so I pretty much trust his description.

      Now all we have to do is gather the money and arrange to make the trip down to Barnet North London to pick it up. So another little gap in the collection is filled .

From memory they sold Midlands here for a while.
 
Were they made from, in part, Springfields? Or am I on the wrong track?
 
I used to work with a fitter who had a Midland on .270. It was a very tidy rifle.

Yes the Midland uses the Springfield 03 bolt with a modified bolt release and action and we have a member although hardly active now here on THL I am sorry to say. Sav17 has a nice lightly customised Midland .243 :) the rifle he brought from a friend who did the stock work on it , modifiying the std stock very professionally, and it requires several looks to see that it is in fact a Midland rifle the work has changed the look so much. I do not know if the posts are still in the achives but there were some nice photos of it and a rather nice Fallow Buck he shot with it.

Ahhh I did a search and found this thread :-

http://thehunterslife.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4580&highlight=Sav+17+Midland+243
 
Which has Sav17's Midland and his Fallow buck, you will see what I mean it's a very nice rifle .

I have a Midland , originally in 30-06, but it had a ringed barrel when I first bought it, I sent the barrel to Australia to be rebored to 338 cal & it is now in 338-06.
The stock has been reshaped to emulate the old Westley Richards stocks after a fashion & it shoots quite well. I've refined the bolt handle a bit & tidied up the casting marks on the receiver & in general it not inelegant. The Midland receiver is an investment caste hybrid to use a Springfield bolt in a receiver that fits into a Mauser 98 style stock. Midlands should drop into pretty much any after market stock for say a Mk X but they will need modifying around the rear guard screw for the Parker Hale type trigger. I'm not ware of any other trigger that fits them & it is different form a Mauser one. All in all I reckon they're a very underrated rifle & capable of good service. The Parker Hale barrels are normally very accurate.
Steve

Sounds like a nice rifle.  Could you post some pics of it?

Quote from: 22hornet;83883Sounds like a nice rifle.  Could you post some pics of it?

 The family are away at present & have the digi cam with them (school holidays) but I will when they get back.
Its still very mucha work in progress but the eventual  aim is to have it looking like a WR with a sling stud soldered in the barrel, maybe an ebony foreend tip etc. I've just shortened up the P-H stock thus far & really, it needs a better piece of wood on it. I'm also tempted to transfer the barrel into a Mauser action, the threads are the same as Mauser ones but quite a lot longer due to the difference in the bolt so it wouldn't be too big a hassle.
Steve

Ahhh the traditional material for grip caps and fore end tips is Bufffalo Horn. It might look like ebony from a distance but all the classic british rifles that have the black tips that I have had they were all horn even on the BSA's that is until Rose Wood became fashionable and then that was used. Horn was alos used for butt plates.

Oh the Horn tips are not solid but a thin covering at least on the BSA and tha Swinburn's Patent Martini that I used to have.

Bu99er, I'm right out of buffalo horn just now:laugh: :laugh:, I'm sure you're correct, in fact I know you are,  but in a way its using what I have & knowing where it came from that is more important than being totally correct. I swapped a pair of desert boots with a joker at the Makonde carvers market just north of Dar es Salaam for some blocks of Ebony. He couldn't get his head around what I wanted them for, but I jacked it up the day before & when we stopped there the next day there he was, patience is all, just as well he had big feet( or knew someone that did). The Ebony & Ivory chess set cost me the jeans I was wearing + $US50, & I still thought it was a good deal. In truth, unless I put a better piece of wood on this rifle it would be a waste of the Ebony, I have a couple of blanks put aside but once its shooting. the urge to restock seems to diminish. One day.:smiley:
Steve

Ahhh Cape Buffalo horn is actually quite easy to get. There will several available at the Bisley show later this month I am sure. I even brought a green hued Cows horn from a junk shop just in case I find a suitable project for it :) .

Once I get some wood sorted for the Mannlicher this will have horn tip and cap maybe even a horn plate as let's face it the 6.5x54MS does not have much recoil so a rubber recoil asorbing pad is not needed this is the long term project of mine, been years in the doing as money is tight and things like that Midland 2100 keep coming along and that Zeiss 6x Jena scope I just brought. so far it's had a brand new Steyr made barrel fitted and re-blacked, the Zeiss is a rail mounted scope and I am thinking of ways to make some mounts to fit it to take the rail mounted scope as I think it will look just right on it.

Sounds like it will be a very sweet little rifle, just the job for a Fallow, bit of overkill on a Roe but would do the job all the same & a long round nose at moderate velocity such as the x54 does should not spoil much meat. I'll have to keep my eyes peels for a cows horn, still probably go with the ebony though, its only 'sposed to be "in the spirit of" after all.
Steve

Ahhhhh I suppose it's because it's new but I have successfully shot the 120 grain Speer bullet through this one, by successfully I mean accurately , Kynoch used to load lighter bullets for the Mannlichers 6.5mm's and using the 120 grain bullets it should be quite easy to obtain the 2450 Fps needed to be legal in Scotland. The 160 grain bullets fall below this stupid restriction . The 1903 Schoenauer has not got a good reputation with the lighter bullets from what I have read however I have never found it to be a problem myself ?