[onthepaper]

I just came across the spitting image of a Parker Hale rifle I owned back in the mid-70's on GunBroker.com (I didn't bite though). These were a special run made exclusively for J.C. Penney and had the fluted fore-end and no contrasting tip just like the one pictured. They were stamped "Made exclusively for J.C. Penney" on the barrel and chambered in 30.06 and .270. Mine was a .270. Normal production Parker Hale rifles of that period had rosewood tip and grip caps w. maple spacers, square fore-end profile and skip-line checkering.

I bought mine at a J.C. Penney Outlet store and the stock finish was dinged and scraped. It had a nearly opaque orange shellac finish on it. I stripped it and refinished in Tru-Oil and added a Pachmayr recoil pad just like the one shown. I could be wrong but this may very well be my old rifle as the figuring in the wood is very familiar. Also I stained the grip cap ebony instead of leaving it rosewood and remember being very pissed off that the stain bled into the maple spacer just like the one pictured. I had never refinished a rifle stock before but was otherwise delighted with the grain that showed through once the old finish was off.

I also glass bedded both the action and barrel with "Bob's AcraGlas". Back in the day, that was the product and the kit contained stain pigment you could mix into the epoxy resin. If you look at the last pic you can see the glass bedding around the receiver and down the sides of the barrel channel. As I recall, it wasn't all that great a color match as the pigment didn't really dissolve but just floated in the resin like fine colored specs. There were a couple identifying marks I accidentally made in the barrel when I had to chip away a bit of errant Acraglas to get the barrel to release. Unfortunately, the rifle pictured was rebarreled to 338.06 at some point in it's life so those identifiers (a pair of faint 1/4" chisel marks just below the J.C. Penney barrel stamp) are long gone.

Given the rarity of the J.C. Penney model, the familiarity of the wood figure, particularly the "feathering" in the fore-end and receiver areas, the refinish and the glass bedding, I'm thinking this is my old rifle. What are the odds?

 

[rando]

Nice rifle for sure. Amazing how they were Mauser type actions. Did you drill and tap yours for a scope back then or were they done by the factory?

 

[onthepaper]

They were already drilled and tapped from the factory.

When I came across mine at the J.C. Penney Outlet store, I really wanted a regular Parker Hale (which looked like a Weatherby at that time). I also remember being disappointed that this one had the polished bolt handle and shroud rather than blued like the regular production Parker Hales, but I could afford this one. It was a good shooting rifle in .270 and the full length glass bedding improved the accuracy as the barrel was originally free-floated and was a very thin sporter profile.

I didn't know a lot about rifles at that early age but had read that skinny barrels liked a full bed or slight upward bearing at the fore-end to enhance accuracy. I tested it free-floated (factory), fully bedded and then sanded the barrel channel for a dollar bill gap from receiver to about 1-1/2" from the tip of the fore-end. It shot best that way. Mine would shoot 5 shot groups around 2" at 100 yards. 3 shot groups were about the same, 2 almost in the same hole and always a 3rd shot flyer that opened up the group.

It really was a good rifle though I could always outshoot it with my Remington 700 in 25.06.

 

[onthepaper]

On the other hand, the recoil pad looks awfully good for a 45+ year old rifle ... so I have to think that was done more recently and is not the one I originally installed.