WW2 rifles

gunny123

tac foley wrote: »

Your 'rude and intractable' police officer had obviously forgotten that a police officer of any rank, yes, even including Chief Superintendent, is still a public servant, paid by the state to serve the community. That is why police officers are taught to say 'Sir' and 'Ma'am'.

tac

Take a look at todays irish news regarding the moj/gardai/whistleblowers, tac and then tell us about the gardai. A law unto themselves in many ways, since the founding of the state. Also remember for many years here it was "garda policy" that dictated what firearms you could licence here.

tac foley

Since joining in here a few years back, and remembering incidents from my own childhood vacations in Co. Wicklow, it is very apparent that there are three ways of doing things -

1. The right way.

2. The wrong way.

3. The Gardaí way.

Sometimes you guys get lucky and have a co-operative super, but it is altogether too clear that many times you do not, and have to recourse to the justice of the courts to uphold the laws of the Firearms Act. Or not. As far as firearms law is concerned, sometimes you're the pigeon, but all to often you're the statue.

An urgent and wide-ranging overhaul of the Act is way overdue, with its out-dated Victorian attitudes and susceptibility to 'interpretations' in what is intended to be a republican democracy, rather than any kind of a police state. It has been said before, maybe not here, but there are twenty-six different versions of the Act in force, one for each county, instead of a countrywide/unified set of requirements and conditions that are used to serve all legal gun-owners.

The chances, as a visiting foreigner, of running foul of the present Irish gun law when in charge of my own legal firearms is one of the reasons why the RoI and I will remain strangers, as far as coming over and shooting are concerned, for the foreseeable future.

tac

gunny123

Back on topic, who here sells milsurp rifles ? What sort of money do the likes of lee enfields, mausers etc run ?

tac foley

Apart from John over at Fingal Sports Naul, there are a few who sell the guns, but sadly, it seems less that sell the ammunition. We have Prvi Partizan to thanks for making just about every single military cartridge below .45-70 as a reasonable alternative to the almost defunct milsurp sales of yesteryear - .303, for instance, is almost totally gone from sale in Europe these days.

Prices are dependent of the popularity of the type, with Lee-Enfields leading by a huge margin even at eu400 and up. For some reason, even though they are not strictly-speaking, WW2-involved, Swedish Mausers [the older m/96 long rifle and the somewhat shorter m/38] remain very popular, possibly because of the availability of civilian manufacture ammunition of the correct bullet weight of 139/140gr. They are often astonishingly accurate, even more so in sharpshooter variant [m/41b] but the price premium is huge, as is the same variant cost of the Lee-Enfield, the No4(T).

With no known historic connection in Ireland, any of the Meso- and South American Mauser and Mauser contract rifles in 7x57 are good to go as far as ammunition availability is concerned, but the Persian variants - German-Mauser built or FN-licence-built in Teheran, are in 8mm Mauser, and therefore restricted. They are probably among the finest military long arms ever made at any time, I have a Teheran-built rifle and matching bayonet in Oregon that could have been made yesterday, and a Venezuelan contract version that makes them all look like complete clunkers. Even the fully-machined spring-loaded muzzle cover is a work of mechanical art by itself.

The same goes for Japanese, French and the Swiss IG Model 1900/K11 and K31 - ammunition is hard to find unless you have a VERY friendly dealer who will import it on your behalf - again PPU make it all.

Mosin-Nagants of all kinds are agricultural, but are capable of fine accuracy, providing you stay well clear of the corrosive military surplus stuff AND the Barnaul steel-cased fodder unless you are happy spending an hour or so scrubbing out the bore. The AK-variants, voodoo guns here in Western Europe, have hard-chromed bores and piston assemblies in recognition of this foible of Soviet-era ammunition production.

The Norwegian Springfields and the Israeli Mauser Kar98[K], converted to .308Win, as well as the Ishapore Lee-Enfields - actually made from scratch in 7.62x51/.308Win are good buys - the latter a lot more common than the former.

Anybody who has an interest in this kind of challenging fun-shooting should make the effort to take a trip over to the Kingdom and spend some time with the gentlemen of the VCRAI, whose main range is An Rioch. A peek at the VCRAI website - www.vcrai.com - will reveal the next range day.

Talk to Mick O'Connor or Eamon Tynan, or anybody there for that matter. Tell 'em I sent you!

tac

PS - just to reinforce my point - any of the rifles/carbines converted to shoot 7.62x51 NATO may not be totally reliable with a constant fodder of civilian/commercial .308Win, which is actually of markedly higher operating pressure than the military stuff due to a combination of case design and bullet weight. We are used, over here, to seeing the Ishapore guns proofed here in UK to safely shoot commercial ammunition. IOW, if your gun of this kind came from a source that does NOT proof ex-military firearms before sale to the public, you are advised to stick to the 147/150gr military surplus stuff.

Grizzly 45

[QUOTE=tac foley;101266837
The chances, as a visiting foreigner, of running foul of the present Irish gun law when in charge of my own legal firearms is one of the reasons why the RoI and I will remain strangers, as far as coming over and shooting are concerned, for the foreseeable future.
tac[/QUOTE]

Just to show how paranoid/crazy it was back then.As a youngster one of my first jobs was an apprentice gamekeeper/dogsbody/farm hand on Dromoland estate in Clare in the 1980s.At the time people did come into hunt from the EU [or EEC as it was then known] for the fallow deer on the estate and brought their own rifles with them.I remember members of the local Gardai with NPWS rangers being delegated as security escort for these stalkers!!!:)
What was the thinking behind this?Send an unarmed garda out on a shooting party with a ranger in case the local PIRA man was lurking in the estate forest to aquire a deer rifle?? :P
I do hope and think we have got a bit better since those utterly crazy times.

what is intended to be a republican democracy, rather than any kind of a police state

You would wonder sometimes,what were the firearms laws in this land like when the post boxes were painted red instead of green?It seems sometimes that ours state organs seem to have aquired all the nastier traits of the shower they removed by force of arms.

gunny123

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

You would wonder sometimes,what were the firearms laws in this land like when the post boxes were painted red instead of green?It seems sometimes that ours state organs seem to have aquired all the nastier traits of the shower they removed by force of arms.

It was not any better really, the Westminster government was worried about the Irish getting uppity, and their own getting bolshie. There was the 1843 Irish registration act as you can see below on David Strouds excellent blog about Irish fireams. Interestingly under this act it was found that there were over 300,000 firearms in the hands of the Irish, mainly Anglo Irish i presume, back then. But there had been previous gunlaws in Ireland dating back to the 1670's.

http://ramrodantiques.blogspot.ie/2016/02/arms-bill-1843-registration-act.html

http://ramrodantiques.blogspot.ie/2015/11/irish-registration-act-1843.html

http://ramrodantiques.blogspot.ie/2015/11/early-gun-controls-ireland.html

http://ramrodantiques.blogspot.ie/2016/05/limerick-irish-registration-act-of-1843.html

http://ramrodantiques.blogspot.ie/2016/09/1843-registration-act-forms-h-i.html

Grizzly 45

Great blog that.Very intresting .:)

tac foley

Quote - 'He did not suppose that any person would dispute the first part of this motion that any British subject had a right to carry arms. To restrict that right would be to subvert the principals of public liberty.'

Those were the days, eh?

When we had the Bill of Rights, and it carried weight.

tac

Grizzly 45

Seven "cannons" registerd in Rathkeale Co Limerick.. Things must have been as bad out there then as they are now in certain parts of that town.:D:D

gunny123

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

Seven "cannons" registerd in Rathkeale Co Limerick.. Things must have been as bad out there then as they are now in certain parts of that town.:D:D

Yup, until a certain demographic nicked them for scrap iron. Its an excellent blog, and hopefully someday David will make a book out of the information he has collected. He comes over and searches for any information he can find on irish gunmakers and the laws surrounding them.

gunny123

tac foley wrote: »

Quote - 'He did not suppose that any person would dispute the first part of this motion that any British subject had a right to carry arms. To restrict that right would be to subvert the principals of public liberty.'

Those were the days, eh?

When we had the Bill of Rights, and it carried weight.

tac

When were those rights quashed, and by whom ?

tac foley

Well, the noon cannon on Spike Island has to be licensed to somebody, I'd guess. Do you suppose he keeps it locked up when not in use? ;=/

tac

tac foley

gunny123 wrote: »

When were those rights quashed, and by whom ?

The Bill of Rights is still there, deeply 'subsumed' into a mass of obfuscating 'Acts' that have been steadily piled on top of it by successive governments here in UK, until it would take an army of legal minds to find it again.

Every now and then, however, there is the faintest glimmer of gold among the dross of years, as can be seen in the recent decision by the Law Lords to 'allow' home-owners to use force to defend themselves and their family and even, gulp, property, against unlawful invasion - even to the point of causing or bringing about the death of the intruder.

tac

gunny123

tac foley wrote: »

Well, the noon cannon on Spike Island has to be licensed to somebody, I'd guess. Do you suppose he keeps it locked up when not in use? ;=/

tac

And the Armstrong guns overlooking Wicklow harbour.

http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-ireland-co-wicklow-wicklow-harbour-historic-anchors-and-cannon-overlooking-39179435.html

gunny123

tac foley wrote: »

The Bill of Rights is still there, deeply 'subsumed' into a mass of obfuscating 'Acts' that have been steadily piled on top of it by successive governments here in UK, until it would take an army of legal minds to find it again.

Every now and then, however, there is the faintest glimmer of gold among the dross of years, as can be seen in the recent decision by the Law Lords to 'allow' home-owners to use force to defend themselves and their family and even, gulp, property, against unlawful invasion - even to the point of causing or bringing about the death of the intruder.

tac

Maybe now the uk is not under the dead hand of the looney liberals of the european parliament, a lot of nonsense can be jettisoned.

tac foley

gunny123 wrote: »

Maybe now the uk is not under the dead hand of the looney liberals of the european parliament, a lot of nonsense can be jettisoned.

Not yet free of the loons, but soon.

The overlying laws that hide the BoR were all made at the instigation of the British government, and have nothing to do with Europe.

BTW, AFAIK, the Wicklow Harbour guns are not fired every 12 o/c midday, as the Spike Island cannon is, or was. So, no bangs, no powder needed, and no license either.

Mind you, I might be totally wrong.

It might be possible to arrange a mechanical contrivance that springs into action at the appropriate time, with the safe ejection of a soft rubber flag bearing the words 'BEWARE,LOUD BANG' in English and Irish 'Cúram a ghlacadh, torann ard!'

Meanwhile, back in WW2 rifles........................

tac