doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Another Springfield.

I bought a beat up old Springfield actioned rifle off the internet last week for NZ$300-00
Its got Churchill (Gunmakers) Ltd 7 Bury Street London on the barrel which is amongst the highest real estate in London on the barrel.
the number on the action is 1468744 which according to a web site equates to being manufactured in 1934. Thats all there is on the action.
The wood to metal fit is very good and although the exterior has lost nearly all of its blue the 308 barrel looks to me in pretty good nick.
The trigger is another story though with lots of creep.
I bought this with the intention of a re-barrel to 220 Swift.
This is the first Springfield I have handled and the action looks nicely made.
If anybody can throw any light on what I have I would welcome any comments.
Regards, Roly.

Roly,

Sounds like a very interesting rifle. Hard to tell you a lot without some good pictures. If you can't post them here you could send them to me and I'll post.

I see very few 1903 sporters from the UK so I'm very interested to have a look at yours.

ROLY: If the rifle is an all original Churchill et.al., barrel to action, metalwork to stock, I would not consider rebarreling to .220 Swift or any caliber, under any circumstances! Just as long as someone didn't use an orphaned Churchill barrel on a run of the mill Springfield action you're fine! The rifle is as valuable as it will ever be now, [maybe a proper reblue] and mucking it up by rebarreling it will drop the value through the floor. There are plenty of PARKER HALES, F.N.'S etc. in THE LAND DOWN UNDER that you can get to build a .220 but don't mess with this one, you probably have a jewel here and got it at a certifiable steal! Congratulations and Best Wishes Jerry

If Churchill is srtill in business you could ask them about it.

The Bury Street address would date the barrel (and perhaps the rifle but not necessarily) to around 1971-75 or so. Very interesting time period for a British maker to be stocking up a Springfield action.

The "308" barrel - does it say "308" on it, or did you measure the bore?

The military two stage trigger is designed to have a lot of creep before the final (hopefully crisp) let off.

Hi Michael,
thanks for the offer to post a photo here but I took it over to my local gunmaker a few days after getting it, for him to check it out as the bore of the rifle looked so good to me that I thought to leave it as original and trade it on. He said he would check the head space and measure the bore as I didn't want to trade it on if it wasn't safe to use.
From the state of the outside of the rifle I was expecting the barrel to be shot out.
It did say on the barrel Cal. 308 and also where the British proof marks are on the barrel.
There were no proof marks on the action itself though which I found rather strange as all my other rifles which were sold in the UK have.
This was an impulse buy because it was cheap and a Springfield action which some of you guys tend to rave about but I had never handled.
It also has a red knackered butt pad with Churchill Gunmakers London on it.
Regards and thanks for the replies. Roly.

Red rubber pad - now I really want to see pictures of it...