Hello all from cold England! Although a "newbie" to this section of our Forum I have been on here elsewhere for a good few years.

And whilst my African experience is restricted to spending time in Nigeria where guns are effectivley prohibited I'm hoping for some advice.

So...here goes:

The Musgrave Model 90, in calibre 270 Winchester or calibre 7x57. Has anybody, please, any input good or bad on these.

I've always used Parker-Hale or CZ rifles, for the most, and never seen or handled a Musgrave.

So what are they like in terms of build quality and, most important, and in those two calibres ACCURACY?

Also is the front sight ramp screwed on to the barrel, like on a Remington 700 or some Parker-Hale rifles or is it like some CZ rifles brazed on?

Any known faults etc?

Many thanks in anticipation of your replies!

A hell of a lot of folk around here use them. If they are not shot out, they should be good. There are stories that claimed that when the older artisans were replaced by "previously disadvantaged types," specs went to hell and the factory did not last too long after that before closing down.

Thanks! I guessed that as they are a true Made in Africa that I'd get true "hands on" opinions.

Keep 'em coming!

Look carefully at what you're buying because there were 2 Musgrave companies.

The main one that Scriptus refers to made good, workmanlike rifles but there was also a guy called Benny Musgrave who was in the same family but had a falling out with them and set up on his own not too far away from th main factory if I remember correctly.

Benny is dead now but he made some tip top rifles and shotguns and if you can ever get your hands on one of them, you'll have a good looking tack driver.

FWIW, Benny was also a great host and every Friday lunchtime, all the locals would come in with a bottle of booze each and Bennie would sit down with everyone, including any stray customer that happened by and no-one would get out there until all the booze was gone.

I have a few fond though often hazy memories of Fridays at Benny's!

There were a few Musgraves.

There were the OFS rifles which were fine and accurate, but the action was pretty bulky and clunky, and I haven't personally seen or handled one, so I can't really tell you much - just seen out-of-focus photos.

Then there were the Santa Barbara actioned ones - they were made on Spanish Mauser actions (as, I think were Parker Hales from the 70's and early 80's). There was a special model there called the LP1000 (I want one of those). My brother had one and it was an extraordinarily accurate rifle. It would even group army ammo into about 1.5 MOA. That same army ammo (the same batch) had some bullets pulled and the powder weighed and it varied by up to 3 grains.

Then in the early 80's Musgrave started with the model 80, which was a push feed, and the model 90 was a refinement of that. Believe they were fine, accurate, reliable rifles.

During that period Musgrave also produced their M98 rifles, which were made with K98 actions from all over. My father has a CZ actioned 7x64.

That's basically what I know about Musgraves.

Hope it helps.

The model 90 was built by Musgrave in Bloemfontein when Musgrave was no longer a private family owned company but fell under the DENEL umbrella. At the time of the design Daan Els was manager of the Musgrave (sporting arms) division of Denel.

The design idea was to manufacture a Mauser M98 derived clone that would be modern but still hold on the M98 features worshipped by SA hunters ( because at the time it was becoming very difficult to obtain Suitable M98 actions)

The reciever was an investment casting basic Mauser clone sance the military features design with solid side wall made by the Atlas Aircraft Company in SA. The bolt was CNC machined from solid barstock.

The bolt had the basic Mauser not rotating bolting and Mauser type extractor claw without the third lug nor the Jam Stopper rib.

The Bolt handle root acted as third lug.

The bolt shroud and safety was modernized and the trigger was an "in house " Timney copy.

The barrels were in house made, bore cut and polished. The bore ploishing was measured by a sophisticated air meauring device used by Denel in the manufacture of their military weapons.

These rifles were extremely accurate out of the box with stocks cut using CAD driven stock making equipment.

I have a model Vrystaat in 308, a model 90 is 7x64 and 375 H&H as well as a lightweight model 98 in 7x57. The lightweight has a BRNO Pushka Jelena M98 action