Hi All,
 
Well I finally got my hands on this rifle picked it up and a couple of boxes of ammunition yesterday (Friday) lunch time. Once we got home it was the usual procedure of giving it a clean and going over.
 

 

 

 

 
 
 
One of the first things I noticed is that the trigger has some creep and as they have the "Timney" type adjustable tigger this sort of surprised me that is until I tried removing the stock not your usual retaining method and requires a small pin punch. More of that later.
 
The stock is probably the best figured wood on any of the Parker-Hale's that I own and possibly even the best figured stock I have seen on a P-H once I re-do the finish and bring the figuring out with some Red Oil is should be quite stunning it's darker than most P-H's and has some wonderful tiger stripping.



Sadly it felt rough and dry :huh: and the white spacers are no longer white which got me to thinking. A little application of BLO rubbed in with the palm then left for a short while and a careful wipe over and gentle rubbing with a piece of 600 wet and dry paper smoothed the surface by removing excess "stock conditioner" well that's what I assume was on it the white diamond in the grip cap is now white again.
 

 
I now have to decide on what finish to go for :undecided: as this obviously has an oiled finish but it does not appear to be a high gloss oiled finish. Will have to give this some thought. The bore was clean this is a first with a S/H rifle from a dealers for me. I know I asked abotu bore condition in the e-mail so I assume they wiped it through to examine it however never having visited this shop perhaps I am not giving them the credit they deserve and perhaps it's one shop that does clean it's stock rifles! The metalwork did need a clean especially the Leupold one piece mount at the rear where it was covered in what I first thought was rust but turned out to be Loctite Darn it the guy must have used a tube of the stuf and it took me ages to remove it. It was in the small grooves for the windage screws, the windage jam screws were stuffed up with the stuff as were all four ring screws. On the flat of the Leupold base I resorted to using a wood chisel to remove it ..................... yep it was that thick on there. The gold plated trigger had spots on it and was very dull and frankly looked awful and uncared for.
 

To check the view mark and clean under the stock of course the stock have to come off, so I tried the two action screws and found both to be only nipped up Hmmmm so I took them out and the front of the action and barrel lifted and the front of the floor plate came away and I took the magazine out, they are tight no chance of dropping one accidently, but something was holding the rear of the action in place. I first thought the trigger guard was a tight fit but no.
 
After much deliberation and getting the rifle upside down under the lamp I could see what appeared to be a small allen headed screw but it's not possible to get anything on it, not without drifting out the roll pin which retains the magazine/floorplate catch so that's what I did an managed to unscrew this allen screw and Voila the trigger guard lifted out and the action came out of the stock.
 
It seems that the action of the 1200C is different from the other 1200's as it has an extra lug which this small screw goes into and that holds the magazine shell and trigger guard in place. Once seperated I cleaned the underside of the barreled action and wiped the grime off the trigger unit but those spots refused to budge :frown . So taking a deep breathe I broke out the Brasso and carefully polished the offending trigger blade and got all the spots off without removing the plating. You can still see speckling on the sides of the blade but they are not glaringly obvious now. It might have been possible to remove all the marks but I was fearful of polishing through the plating.
 
I gave the bore a wipe through with P-H 009 and got some dirt out, a minor amount, and cleaned the bolt and all it's little nooks and grannies. there was a fair amount of accumulated debris in the mag well of the action and under the rear bridge and around the bolt shroud but a cotton bud soaked in 009 got it out and off. I left the trigger alone for now as I wish to do something with the stock finish and time was getting on and I had the scope to mount as I wish to test fire the rifle this weekend so I put the rifle back together and got the scope off the Brno ZKK601 which is a straight 6x42 then hit a snag .
 
The Leupold base places the front ring quite well forwards and the body tube of the 6x42 is not long enough to get the correct poistion for eye relief I had not considered that as with the P-H mounts it had fitted on the 1200V before so some head scratching followed then it was open up the cabinets and see which scope I could rob that would fit. It then occured to me that maybe an American scope would fit these American mounts so I pulled my late model BSA Supersport Five out that had a Simmons 6-18x40AO competition scope on it and yep it has a long body tube so I pulled it off and mounted it on the 1200C. Even now I have had to pull the scope right back in the rings but the eye relief is good even prone so it would appear we are good to go .If the weather co-operates this morning I will take photos and maybe see how close the collimeter got the scope setting. I thought I might not be able to use my Collimeter on this rifle as the 25 Cal spud can only just be forced into the muzzle. This barrel's bore is TIGHT but I managed to set the windage adjustment about central on the scope and adjust the jam screws to get it centred on the collimeter grid. Only firing will tell if it's right or not.
 
Edit:- Sorry for the long write up Photos now added

Thats a fine rifle to add to the collection BH. What a great find!
 
Can't wait to see the range report now.

Thank you and it looks like it might shoot well too the Sako 117 Grn Hammerhead certainly seems to be accurate enough when I tried it out on the field. I tried it first at 50 yards then moved back to 70 yards all shooting was done prone using a sand bag a-top an ammo tin:-
 

Sorry a bit fuzzy :frown but it shows how the shots fell. #1 was that one up top 3 1/2" high and 1/2" right. #2 was 1 1/4" high and 1/2" right so I adjusted for windage this time and shot#3 hit the black spot which is 20mm (0.78") Dia. I then tried the 100 Grn Nosler in the Federal Premium ammo which shot low and a bit left not performing so well giving a 7/8" group .
 

 
Then moving back to 70 yards the Federal was shot first and put 3 shots into 1 1/8" x 3/8" hmmm (bedding issue?) they landed low left. Next up was the Sako 117 Grn again from 70 yards which gave a 9/16" group 1/2" high of POA yep I can live with that.

In this little test I also discovered that 4 feet of straw bales do not stop the heavier bullets but do stop the 100 Grn Noslers. Today I placed a steel sheet behind the bales held in place by another bale and recovered two cores from the 50 yard shots and all three 117 grn bullets from the 70 yard shots they tumble in straw it seems as they all hit the steel sideways. Also I never noticed before that P-H use narrow lands and much wider grooves .

That is a nice addition to your collection brithunter. I am looking forward to seeing that stock after you refinish it, I haven't seen wood like that on a Parker Hale either .
Regards,
Mat

Nice piece, BH! Looks like the decision to trade the other one in and look for a better one was a wise one. Congratulations!
 
Regarding the 'tumbling' bullets: There is an urban myth circulating since the Viet Nam war that the US Department of Defense "designed" their military bullets to "tumble" once they entered flesh. As is too often the case, this is just more bullwash, as there is no need to "design" such a feature into a non-deforming (full metal jacket) bullet, and all Geneva Convention bullets are non-deforming. As usual, it's just a matter of simple physics, not "evil design".
 
In "regular", jacketed, heavy-core (lead), spitzer (sharply pointed) bullets, the center-of-mass (CoM) is not coincident with the center-of-form (CoF). CoF is always ahead of the CoM in a spitzer-shaped bullets. Without gyroscopic stabilization, (rifling-induced spin), the bullet would 'naturally' swap ends shortly after leaving the barrel. The heavier part of the bullet 'wanting to lead the way' as it were. However, as soon as the bullet hits flesh (I'll get to your straw 'flesh' in a minute), it stops spinning (mostly anyway). When it stops spinning, there's no "reason", (force), not to swap ends, and it often (but not always) "tumbles". In doing so, it creates a different (larger) wound channel than one that doesn't tumble. There's no "evil design" to it.
 
So why doesn't a "deforming" bullet (non-FMJ, "hunting" bullet), do the same? Because, when it's nose deforms on impact, the CoM and CoF become coincident. "Well", some will say, "I've seen FMJs go right through a deer without tumbling and leave nothing but a 'pencil-hole'." That's certainly true, but there's a good (physics-based) reason. First, that doesn't happen when the bullet hits a bone. Second, it doesn't happen when the FMJ passes through the haunch or paunch. It almost only happens when the bullet passes through the lungs, and the reason is that the lungs offer much less resistance to the bullet's rotation than "flesh" does, and so the spinning continues, AND the bullet gets through the body 'quickly' before it can start to tumble. At long ranges, after the FMJ bullet has slowed considerably, even a lung shot will 'tumble'.
 
In the case of the straw bales, there is sufficient resistance to the bullet's rotation that they start swapping ends, but not enough to where their nose deforms. (At least not significantly.) Without that deformation, the CoF stays ahead of the CoM. By the time they hit the metal back-stop, they will produce a 'key-hole'.
 
Paul

Thank you for the kind remarks yes I am rather pleased with it and I may start on the stock next week as it will take at least a week to get the finish I want, may be two weeks as it requires building up after first filling the pores and yes there are some open ones on the butt.

  Now Gitano,

          The British Army did a lot of testing back in the early 1900's before selecting the MkV11 bullet. The previous Mark V being outlawed by the Haigh convention and it's MkV1 replacement was not a howling success then of course in 1905 the Germans introduced the 154 Grain Spitzer loading and put the cat amongst the pigeons however my brain has gone on strike and I cannot recall where the trials took place . I do recall the hung sheep clothed in Battle Dress up on frames and shot them to test bullet performance. There are two reasons for the filler in the tip of the MkV11 bullet, the filler is either Alloy or fibre, and it's use keeps the bullets length the same as the old 215 grain bullet yet yeilds a weight of 174 grains for the velocity of 2440 fps. The MkV111 does not have this filler and weighs 175 grains but the MkV111 was meant for machine gun use and for use against hard targets like airgraft, vehicles and buildings, and so a harder bullet was required. The MkV11 beign designed to use against flesh is softer and does deform some and does tumble rather nicely in a flesh medium but tends to drill through wood (personal experience ).

   Oh I will photgraph those three recovered bullets as their condition is interesting and it would appear they hit, or at least one did, some of my other bullets that are lodged in those straw bales which there are a few I might add as the .222 ones don't exit nor do the .22 L/R's of course. The .303 MkV11's do!

 Meanwhile I will get at least one more box of the Sako 117 Grain Gamehead cartridges :smiley: just to be on the safe side.