Modern Ishapore .315 sporter rifle

[rufrdr]

I saw this rifle on the Ishapore ordnance website:



PERFORMANCE:
With Standard Ammunition, the dispersion area will be 101.6 mm x 101.6 mm at 91.34 meters (100 Yds) and 304.8 mm x 304.8 mm at 274.32 meters (300 Yds) with a series of 6 shots with one elimination in both the cases.

Calibre 8 mm (.315")

Overall length
44''/1117mm( approx)
Length of Barrel 640 mm

Rear Sight
Open sight with two leaves
Graduated to 91.44 Meters (100 Yds) and 274.32 Meters (300 Yds)

Range
275 Meters

Trigger Pull
2.27 to 2.72 Kgs

Weight of Rifle
3.34 Kgs (approx) (without magazine)

Magazine
Box type,Capacity-5 cartridges.


Has it been sold in the UK? It appears to be a #1 action and I'm assuming it is newly made for the domestic market. Is the cartridge a standard .303 case opened up to .315?

[ovenpaa]

Not heard of it so went looking, they say:

With Standard Ammunition, the dispersion area will be 101.6 mm x 101.6 mm at 91.34 meters (100 Yds) and 304.8 mm x 304.8 mm at 274.32 meters (300 Yds) with a series of 6 shots with one elimination in both the cases.

Does this mean a 4" group at 100 and a 12" group at 300? Hmm..... SMLE territory, interesting though.

[Sandgroper]

More than likely it's a 303 necked up to 8mm to stay within Indian law, which prohibits the civillian ownership of certain calibres - I would need to double check, but I think it's something like that.

HTH

[Sandgroper]

Just found this which may shed some light on the subject.

http://www.abhijeetsingh.com/arms/india/

[ovenpaa]

Some wise words here.

Curtailing gun ownership, to curb violent crime, through denying licenses or making legal arms & ammunition ridiculously expensive is based on flawed reasoning. The fact is that licensed firearms are found to be used in a statistically insignificant number of violent crimes, motorcycles & cars are far more dangerous.

Sorry about the minor thread hijack!

[Chapuis]

I just found this on another site regarding 8mm ishapore rifles.

The .315" round is the 8mm Mannlicher round that Ishapore chamber in the L-E for civilians, who are not allowed to own .303" weapons.

The origins of this are that back in WW2 large quantities of captured Italian weapons were sent to India to arm second line troops and police. These included 6.5 Carcano. 7.35 Carcano and 8mm Mannlicher. Kirkee manufactured ammo for the 8mm Mann. and possibly the others as well.

After the war it seems they took a liking to the 8mm.

[rufrdr]

Very interesting. I would think there would be an enthusiast's market in the UK, Canada, and U.S. for new made Ishapore #1mk3 rifles as long as they were of decent quality. Some 1970s dated .303 Ishapore's turned up on the U.S. surplus market. There was a lively debate on the internet as to if they were refurbed or newly made.

[Rearlugs]

Latest date so far seen on an Ishapore .303" No1 MkIII* is - 1987...!

There is no public domain information about any of Ishapore's post-independence production, but current thought in the collector community is that Ishapore made a final run of No1 rifles in 1986/7 in order to use up stocks of new and refurbished parts. Certainly most of the 1986/7 receivers appear to be re-dated.

Possibly of more interest to milsurp shooters is that the Indian Ordnance Corporation still lists .303 MkVIIz ball ammunition as a current product. I've several times sent enquiries to see if they will do exports to commercial users, but so far never had a reply.....