When my dad brought his hunting rifle out from Canada, he also brought out a pair of little old .22s. One is a single shot with a little 4x scope and was claimed by my sister. I think it's a Lithgow Slazenger, but I can't remember offhand. The other is this:
It's a BSA Sportsman Fifteen. BSA is Birmingham Small Arms for any who don't know, they made bicycles and motorbikes as well as guns (and probably more besides). I don't know how old it is, but I do know my grandfather owned it and my mother learned to shoot on it. Regardless of age it's in really nice condition. It's a cock-on-close action, and the spring in it is really beefy so it takes some effort to cycle, but it locks up nice and tight and otherwise is pretty unremarkable, I guess. It also has a pretty heavy barrel on it, with lots of nice stamps and proofmarks:
It's a tube-fed rifle. I don't know how many shots it actually holds (I've never bothered to count, too busy shooting), but it's quite a few. The tube loads in a fairly bizarre way, through a little .22lr-shaped port in the bottom front. To open it, you have to twist the endcap a half-turn left, then pull it free. It's attached to a long sleeve which sits inside the magazine and also houses the plunger and spring.
The stock (which looks really, really nice for its age, and is nice and light) has a big BSA cartouche on the left side.
I'm not sure what these rifles carried for sights originally, but there is a dovetail about halfway along its length. This one has something a little classier than most plinking rifles I've seen, I'd have to say.
Safety is, as can plainly be seen, a simple matter of twisting the cocking piece. The word 'SAFE' sits level when the safety is engaged. This locks the trigger but the bolt can still be opened. Apparently this concept is beyond Australian Customs, who felt the need to drill sizeable divots in the rear of the bolt and the cocking piece and then put red paint in them so us retards could tell when our rifle was cocked, off safe, and ready to fire. Thanks, Customs!
Anyway, the rifle is nice to shoot and pretty deadly. I'm crap with any manner of ironsights, but once I find the sweet spot I can nail a little 2" swinging plate with it pretty easily out to about 40 yards, which is probably not that impressive but is a start for someone who learned to shoot on scopes. Between getting a chance to spend some real quality time with this lil' guy and getting my Enfield's front sight adjusted properly after three years of shooting about three miles to the right of whatever I'm aiming at, things are pretty sweet right about now.
Originally Posted by Warsaw
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