Identify Parker Hale 6,5x55

duschkungen

New Member
Hi,
Can anyone help me identify my rifle?
Bought it a couple of months ago and I am about to replace the stock since the old one has cracks.
Anyone know what model it is?

All I know is it is from the late seventies

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Sometimes I think it would be good to have Brithunter back. His knowledge of P-H rifles is second to none. This would be right up his street.
 

Not sure of the information there as looking at the Midland rifle the Midlands that I have seen never had a stock like that. That stock is off the Lightweight surely. Only recently saw a post about the 1100 Lwt and that has the beak end to the stock. The number for the Midland also sounds wrong. Yes typing :

Parker-Hale Midland Rifle ........ into Google brings up the title Midland 2100 ............ NOT 2700. Typing Midland 2700 into it brings up an article:

18 Feb 2014 - Gibbs thus made the Parker- Hale and Midland branded rifles in the US in an array of options from cheap sporters to African game models and .

Who ever Gibbs are. I doubt it is the famous Gibbs of Bristol somehow.

I was looking at photos of stock for sale rifles at the club only the other week and there is Midland 2100 and 1100 Lightweight for sale there. Both 243's I think and that is why that book thing looked wrong.
 
1100 deluxe for sure

the 1100 lightweight had a different forend

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however that rams design bottom metal is alloy and as far as I know was a Midland item so may have been a different addition at some point

you can get a straight swap Santa Barbara trigger gaurd release hinged bottom metal for it though (which is what i did with my midland!)
 
Most likely an M1000 based on a cleaned up and worked-over surplus KAR98k military rifle action I'd have thought. (Hundreds of thousands if not millions of these rifles were available on the international surplus arms market from the 1950s through 70s - P-H bought vast numbers many in 'scrap grade condition' for the actions which were rebuilt, had a new P-H trigger assembly with side-mounted safety fitted, and the bolt handle recontoured to suit scope fitment. The basic Mauser 98 based 1000 sporter used former military actions cleaned of their original blueing and left in the white as with this rifle. Later P-Hs especially higher grade ones from the 1980s used an in-house manufactured receiver which has 'flats' on its top and side external surfaces allied to a new-manufacture Spanish La Corunna Arsenal bolt.

Stock designs were subject to prevailing fashions, also what or who the primary intended market was and changed regularly over time. You can't therefore say it has to be an X or Y model rifle as the stock shape is 'right' or 'wrong', a model maybe having two different stock options at any one time, and maybe as many as three or four versions over a 30 year model life. This rifle has a US influenced stock shape which was known in the USA as a 'California stock' type with the sharply angled and square forend tip plus an almost exaggerated high buttstock comb and cheek-piece. This type was popularised by Roy Weatherby with his rifles which also included different wood type and colour tips and other contrasting features with white-line spacers fitted between sections to accentuate them. Many European customers (and more than a few American ones too) never took to the California look and P-H, BSA and others who intended to sell rifles on both sides of the Atlantic therefore offered two stock forms for a single model.

The Midland Gun Co. was an old established Birmingham maker which like most of the old Brummy trade either failed to survive WW2, or never prospered afterwards and succumbed eventually. P-H bought this company at some point and revived the name later for its (P-H's that is) budget rifle and shotgun lines. The 'Gibbs' referred to is nothing to do with the old English Gibbs riflemakers - it was a large American retailer of surplus arms amongst other things. When P-H became bankrupt, many of its designs (or at any rate manufacturing rights to them) and much production equipment were bought out by the American Navy Arms company which in turn spun them off to its Gibbs Rifle Co. Inc. subsidiary. I seem to remember, the 'big prizes' for the American companies were to get the P-H M85 7.62mm sniper rifle into production for which there was a large north American civilian shooter demand in the 90s, as well as continuing production of P-H's repro Enfield and Whitworth ML rifles and associated accessories such as bullet moulds. This tied in neatly with the existing Navy Arms product range. AFIK, there were US made M-L rifles, but the M85 project never succeeded.

http://www.gibbsrifle.com
 
Remembering back away BH said that the P.H. numbering system was mystifying.

I believe Norman Clark in Rugby bought most of the spares up on closure? Here---- Norman Clark Gunsmiths

Bill an ex PH gunsmith is a mine of information and used to work Fridays in Norman's workshop?

His parts list shows the 1100 lightweight to have a Schnabel forend.
 
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