Does anyone here have personal experience with this rifle? Accuracy, bullet weights, that kind of thing.

I have no personal experience with the Musgrave rifle, however I knew CP Donnelly quite well. Musgrave was trying to change their barrel making equipment back in the late 1970s to button rifling and was having problems getting the groove and bore to end-up being the size they wanted. CP had been a student of PO Ackley and was very skilled at making barrels that were button rifled. Musgrave hired CP to go to Africa and show them what they were doing wrong and how to do it right. Following CP's instructions Musgrave started making some very accurate barrels. That been nearly forty years ago and there may have been changes to the system or procedures, so I can't speak to recent production; but I can say this: barrels made prior to late 70's would be suspect; barrels made during the 20 years or so 1980 - 2000 would be very accurate; if barrels made in the last fifteen years are made to CP's specs, they could also be counted on to top flight accuracy.

Musgrave used to belong to Trevor and Bennie Musgrave and the factory was in Bloemfontein in the Freestate. In November 1985 I bought an RSA Target rifle from them and it was very accurate. It was chambered in 7x57 and had a very slow twist rate at 10".



In about 1987/8 they sold the factory to Denel and Denel carried on making rifles in Bloemfontein. In mid 1995 The Musgrave factory at Bloemfontein closed and inventory and some equipment was moved to the Denel factory in Pretoria. I bought 13 7x57 barrels from the Musgrave factory in 1993 and quality was so bad at that stage that I returned 7 of the barrels as unusable.

Denel carried on making Musgrave rifles for a couple of years and then closed the entire operation.

The Musgrave RSA target rifles were always built on Lyttleton actions, a loose copy of Mauser 98 actions. Lyttleton Enginering was in Pretoria and was also acquired by Denel at some stage. Denel carried on with making sporter rifles on Lyttleton actions with magazines. The RSA Target action was closed at the bottom for rigidity and was a single shot rifle.

The Musgrave name was bought by Frikkie Du Plooy of JJ Arms in Ermelo and he ressurected the Musgrave name in 2012. From 1997 to 2012 the Musgrave name was dormant and I am not aware of any RSA rifles made in this period.

The Musgrave RSA was a good target rifle, capable of winning competitions in the early 1990s and the National Bisley team was kitted out with these rifles and they always did well.

Gerard, the 1:10 twist in a 7X57 is quite puzzling -- unless the rifle was designed for close to midrange competition.

Danie Joubert has resurrected the RSA action by building custom high precision hunting rifles on Boyd laminated thumb hole stocks. As per the new SA Hunter magazine.

Bill/Oregon,

Yes, I called the man in charge of their competition rifles and asked the same question. The rifle also has an 18" barrel and he said "do you want to hunt with it or win competitions?" Well, I won a few competitions with it but, as a hunting rifle, it did not do well until I designed an HV bullet for the 1:10" twist. I used the rifle on a couple of night shoots (culling game for the meat market) after that and it did very well.

Alf, that is good news, Danie Joubert is a good rifle builder. Are the rifles single shot or with magazines?

To add to the replies....

The RSA Target is popular here and whilst not a modern action they are still used today as the basis for many F-Class rifles by some top shooters here and some Bisley shooters still use them. There are superbly accurate rifles built on these essentially "old style" actions.

Yes, Danie Joubert will build on them, but that is not new here in SA. Danie does rework them quite extensively, however. Gerard, Danie is building rifles on the RSA's, not making the actions.

The single shot still uses a CRF action (so guys here on AR should love it! ). It is a fairly stiff action with a small ejection port. Flat bottomed with integral recoil lug. The trigger is not great and some guys can rework them, but the Davies from Australia is the best solution for a trigger.

The standard 308's were as I recall 1 in 13 twist, and some 1 in 12. They were designed for shooting Bisley matches. There was talk that some had Ferlach barrels but I am uncertain as a chap who worked in the original factory seemed to refute this as being anything other than custom. This I cannot comment on.

The actions were used on some one-offs or "specials" by Musgrave so you do see them with more sporter type factory stocks (not converted) and in 30-06 for example and Magnum Magazine tested one in 22-250 many years ago from the factory etc. I've only seen 308 and 30-06 that I am certain were ex factory in the flesh myself though.

They are gaining a cult following here as they become less available and as the cost of custom actions keeps going up and our currency going down . They are sort of considered Africana...

The same action with a magazine box was used ot build a rifle called the President and the Vrystaat. The former was a higher grade factory gun in the 70's type style with nice wood with forend tip and grip cap of different wood, white line spacers, vented recoil pad, skip line chequering and monte carlo stock and a 26 inch barrel. Inletting for a factory rifle is probably the best I've ever seen. Mine is 1/2 to 3/4 MOA accurate as it came and not bedded. Truely in my opinion a great looking rifle to this day and I have a few of these, one in .308 which used to be to my father's hunting rifle.

The Vrystaat was a more mundane rifle, plain stock, some unchequered, solid recoil pad and matte finish. Action etc. the same as the President.

I really like them and now try to buy good examples in the sporter type configuration if I feel the price is right.

Just to reinforce what Gerard has said the current Musgrave built by JJ Wapens is in my opinion a Musgrave in name only. It is my understanding that these are all built on VZ24's. As I have no interest in them I have not investigated this in detail.