New old member here. I have been away from the Hide for about 10 years, and feel it's time to get back to some precision projects now that the kids are gone! I always wanted a Parker-Hale M82, but, they are un-obtanium, and when one pops up, they are super expensive. So, I have planned to build a "clone" for some time, so here goes. I found Old West Scrounger had M81 "cadet" stocks available. The profile is the same as the M82, but they are single shot, and use a different accessory rail. I bought a couple to play with. Pro's, they have the internal magazine outlined for in-letting and are beautiful Walnut stocks made by Parker Hale, with spacers and a recoil pad. Cons, as mentioned above, different accessory rail (Anschultz style versus the PH threaded rail), no internal magazine, and as they were single shot, large round recesses for excrussions. I plan to inlet the magazine well, and found a PH accessory rail for the Cadet stock, which will be , not quite right, but, is what it is. I started searching for a large ring commercial 98 action, and decided to use a Zestava action for the project. I found a good one in 30-06 on gunbroker, and pulled the trigger. A day later, three nos, in the white Santa Barbra actions came up for sale. Santa Barbra produced the commercial actions for PH. To much to resist, bought one. I also scrounged a set of PH 22 and 28 scope bases, and found two brand new RAHS3 scope rings in 1 inch. I plan to go with a 10 power fixed Bushnell 1 inch scope. The M82 used the RALS3, but the high rings will work with my scope. I sent the Santa Barbra action to my smith, who advised me it was actually a magnum action, and would need the bolt face welded up if I was going to run .308 through it. As I also had the Zastava action, I had him swap bolts, true the lugs and bolt face, and she will work fine for .308. This leaves me with the Zastava machined action, which now has a magnum bolt in it. Next build, .404 Jeffery Safari rifle... Last is the barrel. I had McGowan Precision build a 26 inch 1-12 twist on the M82/1200TX profile. Barrel arrived, and is a thing of beauty. Time to put all of this stuff together into a rifle.
View attachment 7387563