Show me your Musgrave

[Pirate]

I think we need a place to celebrate our homegrown excellence!



Along with the Blond Czech, I also got a "Boeremeisie". She's a Musgrave Ambidex .22, which my dad bought in the mid-80's. I bought it from him at the end of 2010. The Ambidex is a short-stroke, straight-pull action, based on and similar in concept and operation to the Browning T-bolt.





Where it differs from the T-bolt is that the action is reversible for "hotkloue" (those that shoot, stir and shake with the wrong hand!). This is done by removing the pin at the rear of the bolt, swopping the bolt handle to the left side, and re-inserting the pin. No pics of that, your imagination will have to do! The rear ring of the action is of course symmetrical to accomodate the bolt handle on either side.



The bolt unlocks with a very slight overcenter cam, that releases quite easily.





It has a 5-round magazine, that's similar to the Mauser magazine. I tried an older Mauser magazine, but that did not fit. Far as I know, K-Mag made the original magazines, and one of the "Mauser" mags on their website looks for all intents and purposes identical. However, if you've got one like this gathering dust in your safe, please don't hesitate to PM me...





Africa is a dangerous place, and you never know when you'll need to fire your .22 hanging upside down from a Kameeldoringboom... to that end, this is a controlled feed action, that pics up a round from the magazine and, as it slips under the twin spring-mounted extractors, perfectly aligns it with the bore.







The CRF, coupled that with the fact that we all know bullet placement is the key to hunting success, obviously turns this into a great dangerous game rifle....

... speaking about bullet placement, it'll place them (well, aged Swartklip HV's for which I did NOT pay the R8.80 as marked on the plastic case) with MOA accuracy at 100m, when I do my part. Yeah I know, with no pics as proof, I could also say I shot two buffalos with it, but you can believe me (about the MOA, not the buffalos!)

The problem with sighting it at 100m is that I'll probably hit nothing at 50m, due to the .22's rainbow-shaped trajectory. After some ballistic calculations I decided to sight it in about 6cm LOW at 100m, which will give me about 6cm high at 50m, and a pretty flat trajectory between 30m and 70m. Good enough for government work! The rifle wears an older Bushnell Banner 2-8x28 telescope, using Weaver-style rings mounted directly onto dovetails in the receiver. The trigger pull is quite hard (especially compared to my .308) and unfortunately not really adjustable. The length of pull is about 20mm longer than my .308 which, coupled with a straighter stock, makes it just that bit more comfortable to hold.

My rifle is an early "SP" model which, for a number of reasons, turned out to be rather expensive to manufacture, and yielded low profits. Consequently, not many were made, as far as I can find out. Later, the design was adapted to reduce complexity, and the associated production and assembly costs. The result was the similar (but different in many aspects) "DL" model, which is discussed in more detail here. In my opinion (although it may be "ugly baby syndrome") the later model is not as pretty...



At some point I want to remove the polyurethane varnish from the wood to remove some small dings, and then refinish it with a hand-rubbed oil finish, which I'm sure will make the wood look gorgeous.

But first, she works quite hard teaching me how to shoot again!

:- P

[marshy]

Great pics and details on the rifle Pirate!

[JS4]

Great review Pirate! You can back me up on my buffalo hunt with that beauty any day! ;o)

[Pirate]

Great review Pirate! You can back me up on my buffalo hunt with that beauty any day! ;o)

Thanks :-) I'll do it hanging upside-down from a mopaniboom, and we can fly the whole lot out stateside in my Jab....

There's a lot of Musgraves lurking in the safes of fellow forumites... I really hope we get to see them on this thread, with a bit of a description? There are so many different Musgrave rifles and slowly the knowledge about the different products are getting lost :-(

Come on gents, take some pics of your Musgraves over the weekend and let us see them

:- P

[Marc_21]

Attachment 7106Attachment 7107Attachment 7108

Can you guys tell me what action this is?? It is a musgrave and it has a vektor semi bull barrel. what do you think of the rifle??

[Zipp]

Marc 21
If I am not mistaken, that is the REPSA action, it is the RSA single shot bisley action with a magazine. It is worthless. I will give you R500 for it. (only joking, It is a great rifle.)

[Marc_21]

Thanks Zipp! never heard of it! isnt it maybe the mod 2000??

[Pirate]

Guys, this leads into a question I've had for a long time: Is there anyone that can give us a thorough description of the different Musgrave actions? As far as I know there has been the following:

RSA Single shot
Vrystaat
Model 80
Model 90
Model 2000
K98-based
Santa-Barbara

:- P

[stefanvan]

Hope this works...

[Rugerman]

Hi Stefanvan,
Baie mooi geweer. Se my asb, wat het jy daar aan die voorkant van jou geweer?
Ek wil graag vir my n silencer/supressor op my geweer sit, maar ek hou nie van die lomp ding aan my loop se punt nie. Help die ding met recoil op jou geweer. Vertel asb meer.