Question for the South Africans.
What is the level of accuracy and quality with the current (post 2012) Musgrave rifles ? I believe they are built on VZ24 actions with barrels made in house.

I cannot answer the question but will get the ball rolling with information that you probably know already:
Older Musgraves were often of dubious quality, such as dicey safeties, but had a reputation for accuracy.
They do not seem to feature much in SA hunting circles at present, but I look forward to more feedback from others.

I have handled and shot a few but in medium bore. Good solid working rifles in my opinion. There are a number in Zambia and I cannot recall anyone having a problem with them.

I have seen a left handed Musgrave in 458 Lott is use by a Zimbabwean PH. It was a nice rifle. Very good looking with perfect function - perfect fit too for the PH who had it built.

JPK

The current version: http://www.musgraverifles.co.za/

They seem to be rather well put together. The butt design appeals, good action if machined properly, long and slightly heavy barrels which for me is a personal preference. They seem to have made an effort on selecting the wood (not just stained hardwood) even if the laminate stocks look like the design originated with Boyds.

If they work in Africa then they will work in Oz due to the similar environment.

What is Black ivory? !!

It is pricy at about US$1500 !!!

Recently in SA I shot a 40+ year old rifle on a similar action in 7X57 & it was accurate.

Good working rifles i used several ,and never have a problem .I saw several in the Karoo .

Musgrave's are good honest hard working rifles. When the factory closed down in Bloemfontein years ago a guy by the name of Frikkie du Plooy from Ermelo in Mpumalanga had the fore sight to buy all the remaining Musgrave actions and parts and later on also bought the right to keep the name Musgrave.

Musgraves rifles was basically born during South Africas time when the whole world had sanctions against us and we started making our own Africa proof rifles that are still going strong today.

Are these VZ/24 actions new? INteresting..

quote:

Originally posted by JPK:
I have seen a left handed Musgrave in 458 Lott is use by a Zimbabwean PH. It was a nice rifle. Very good looking with perfect function - perfect fit too for the PH who had it built.

JPK

i ve seen some in France in LH in 9,3x62 dont know the kind of action used.

A fellow l used to compete against in rifle 3 position matches had one and its the only one l have ever seen or handled.
It shot very well and seemed well made this was in Canada in the late 70's.
His was a 308 win hvy bbl match rifle.

quote:

Originally posted by Nakihunter:
What is Black ivory? !!

It is pricy at about US$1500 !!!

Recently in SA I shot a 40+ year old rifle on a similar action in 7X57 & it was accurate.

Years ago Black Ivory referred to slaves from Africa.

I think that Black Ivory refers to a form of nut from from a palm tree, but a question the the supplier may give you a better answer.



LATER - I wasted a whole phone call to them - it's basically an African Ebony. I've never heard it called that before, but there you go .... Nothing to do with ivory palms ....

Black ivory is a bad attempt at English translation by South Africans for the wood known as African Blackwood or more widely known as Mpingo in East Africa. The Afrikaans for this is Swart Ivoor ( directly translated as "black Ivory" this is not a true ebony.

The terms ebony is reserved for the Diosperos species and in Africa the Diospyros Mespiliformis or African ebony also known as the jackal berry. Very nice examples of these can be found on the banks of the Kwando River in the caprivi strip. These trees are very popular with baboons and their droppings can be found in abundance under these large trees.

The African black wood is the wood from the Dalbergia Melanoxylon

There is a Red ivory tree (Afr = Rooi ivoor ) this is the wood from the Bercheamia Zyeheri
There are numerous fine examples on the banks of the Limpopo river and in the Kruger National Park.

Anybody had experience with the latest Musgraves ?

quote:

Originally posted by ALF:
Black ivory is a bad attempt at English translation by South Africans for the wood known as African Blackwood or more widely known as Mpingo in East Africa. The Afrikaans for this is Swart Ivoor ( directly translated as "black Ivory" this is not a true ebony.

The terms ebony is reserved for the Diosperos species and in Africa the Diospyros Mespiliformis or African ebony also known as the jackal berry. Very nice examples of these can be found on the banks of the Kwando River in the caprivi strip. These trees are very popular with baboons and their droppings can be found in abundance under these large trees.

The African black wood is the wood from the Dalbergia Melanoxylon

There is a Red ivory tree (Afr = Rooi ivoor ) this is the wood from the Bercheamia Zyeheri
There are numerous fine examples on the banks of the Limpopo river and in the Kruger National Park.

Thanks Alf, A pal of mine used 'African Blackwood' in the manufacture of the Drones and Chanters of his his Highland Pipes.
I made a Drumstick for my Bodhran with a piece he gave me. Beautiful wood to turn.Now i can tell the folk that ask me 'what kind of wood is that?'if i can pronouce it. jc
Sorry silkyoaks off topic!

Picture from a visit to the Musgrave factory. In the basement there is many many old guns waiting to become new Musgraves

When Delta lost my rifles a couple of years ago, I hunted plains game with a friend's musgrave '06. It was well made, accurate and reliable.

quote:

Originally posted by ALF:
Black ivory is a bad attempt at English translation by South Africans for the wood known as African Blackwood or more widely known as Mpingo in East Africa. The Afrikaans for this is Swart Ivoor ( directly translated as "black Ivory" this is not a true ebony.

The terms ebony is reserved for the Diosperos species and in Africa the Diospyros Mespiliformis or African ebony also known as the jackal berry. Very nice examples of these can be found on the banks of the Kwando River in the caprivi strip. These trees are very popular with baboons and their droppings can be found in abundance under these large trees.

The African black wood is the wood from the Dalbergia Melanoxylon

There is a Red ivory tree (Afr = Rooi ivoor ) this is the wood from the Bercheamia Zyeheri
There are numerous fine examples on the banks of the Limpopo river and in the Kruger National Park.

Alf,

You are a font, as usual

Now for the Musgrave:

So the seventies roll in and South Africa is on the verge of burning, The townships were brewing ready to boil over, the world and the UN were having a full go at Rhodesia plotting it's demise and sanctions against South Africa was having its toll on our availability of sporting arms and ammunition.

There was some innovation and back door dealing by arms importers and gun dealers.

Some products and brands were becoming increasingly difficult to buy .

The SA Government were very innovative in countering the effects of sanctions. It could be said it was in fact a good time for our arms industry because by having given a whole sack full of lemons some were producing very good lemonade.

For sports hunters this meant home grown powders for reloading ( although limited in selection) cheap home grown ammo in most popular calibers by PMP) equally cheap bullets and primers and then the Musgrave rifle.

My First Musgrave was a Vrystaat ( Free state) field model ( Veld model) in 243.

This gun cost me a whopping SA rands 90 ( today about 8 dollars and some cents whilst a new SAKO Finnbear cost 236 South African rands. (This was around 1973)

I bought my Rifle from the late Andrew Swan 's GF Perrins in Pretoria ( this was was one of the old time guns shops that hailed from the Boer war era )

This first Musgrave was quite accurate but suffered a fatal flaw, the bolt stop and ejector blade was a problem.

If you pulled back on the bolt to hard on opening the bolt stop and blade would bend or worse come undone and this led to some problems for many shooters.

Mine failed me when I was invited to hunt Springbok with my late father on the famous and historical De Beers conservancy called Rooipoort

This was a very prestigious event, very colonial. The Springbok were driven past rocky outcrops where hunters were waiting, shooting was fast and furious and sadly for me my 243 failed me when the bolt got stuck on opening it hard during shooting.

To boot my 243 had a very tight chamber and cases were getting stuck so i carried a little mechano rod in my pocket that i would drop down the barrel to knock the case out....... this could not do so I sold my Musgrave and bought as Krico 243 in stead.

Some of my friends had better luck with theirs.
A very good friend of mine at the time had a Veld model in 308 and he still shoots that gun today some 40 years on.

The 308's were very popular with farmers.

The various farmers co ops were selling them and if you were a farmer who belonged to the military's commando system you could buy 7.62 147 gr Mil hardball for a mere 11 SA rands for 1000 rounds! yes a dollar for 1000 rounds ( packaged in cardboard boxes of 20 for the FN FAL) in brown military plastic carry bags)

These could be found behind the back seat of many a farmers pick up truck with the brown plastic bag of mil hardball ammo in the glove compartment.

Some the best field shooting I have very seen was done with these rifles, usually topped with a Tasco scope and lynx mounts out of Australia.

The Musgrave Vrystaat also came in higher grade models, there was a mark one and mark 2 ( the presidents model) offering better blueing and higher grade stocks. The 30-06 was likely the most sold calibre of all.

The Musgrave operation was then moved to Pretoria to Lyttleton where different models were offered over the years, some were not good ( for a time they were offered on Santa Barbera barrelled actions, then later the model 80 and 90. ) their semi custom offerings were used by many famous hunters and shooters of our time.

The most accurate Musgrave I have ever shot was a model 80 in 7x64 that belonged to my hunting partner. Off the shelf this rifle was capable of very tight shooting.

My late father hunted with a Musgrave 7x57 up to his 80th year. A lightweight model 98 built on a surplus Brno 98 action. I still have this little gun today.

Very nice story, thanks Alf. THE Musgrave name is on many fine shotguns too.

I have a LP1002 ("limited production") in 308 ... this is a highly finished 308 with a heavy barrel and it is superbly accurate. I don't know how many were made but I think about 20. I bought it while I was in the army in Kroonstad from the local gunshop, circa 1980. There was also an LP1001 which did not have the same high grade of finish but was basically the same thing. The action is the well known Lyttleton target action but with a magazine. I have shot springbok, reedbuck, impala and some prairie dogs with it. But mostly it sits in my gun rack as it's a little on the heavy side for a carry rifle. That, the Weaver V4.5 scope that was on it (now replaced with something more modern), and a box of Nosler solid base 55gr bullets are pretty much the only tangible things I still have to remind me of the "good old days" ... thousands of miles away and decades ago.

Musgrave briefly tried to break into the American market and exhibited at just one SCI convention in the mid- to late-1980s. Their rifles were not well-received because their wood and metal finish was not quite up to Winchesters, Remingtons or Rugers, and their retail prices were about 40% higher.

ALF: My first experience in hunting in South Africa was in 1983, when I was a guest of DeBeers on Rooipoort for a afternoon shoot. I shot my first gemsbok and springbok that day. I hunted there several times after that as a guest of Ted Sweetnam, an executive for the company. I also spent a few days along the Vaal, collecting birds and small mammals for the SCI museum in Tucson.

Ted had a Musgrave that seemed to have a better finish than those the company took to Reno. It shot and functioned well, but he did not seem entirely happy with it.

This was before South Africa enacted what I call its Outfitter Protection Act and I was able to hunt by myself on Rooiport as well as land owned or managed by friends. Among those places was another huge estate adjacent to Rooipoort that was owned a German consortium. I've forgotten its name.

Unfortunately, the days of a foreigner driving out with a farm worker and hunting alone in South Africa are long gone. I consider myself fortunate to have experienced it.

Bill Quimby

This is all ancient history guys. Interesting info but off topic.

It seems no one is 'up to spend' on the latest renditions.

With the safari season closing down I was hoping for some SA input. Obviously that is not going to happen.

Dead thread.

I get this question all the time "How accurate is xyz rifle" ...

First, each rifle is unique. I have had Ruger no 1s that are tackdrivers, and others that I could not get to shoot a respectable group.

Second, the accuracy of a modern rifle depends as much or more on the load than the rifle. I have had rifles that won't shoot load A, but will cloverleaf with load B.

Third, most modern rifles are way more accurate than the average shooter can hold in the field.

Fourth, if it wont shoot it can usually be made to shoot with a little attention to the bedding and the trigger.

I have not had any of the new rifles.

My main target rifle and that of many others was the musgrave RAS single shot action.

Used it for about 6 years and 2 barrels. A good solid action as every thing else was customised.

Only just sold it as I don't use it any more. Not enough time.

Would have no issue getting another one based on past history.

It was use out to the distance of 1,000 meters.
If I posted some of the grope size it would get the antis going on me.

Good solid rifle.

OK, I'll bring it up... :-) PHC had a Musgrave he raved about. I'm surprised the current owner is not one of, or connected to an AR member. I would like to see that rifle close up; same goes for the Continental Arms 375 he had.