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I've owned a total of four Parker Hale M85s over the years, though not all at the same time! I don't have any of them now. I've always thought the M85 is a particularly smart-looking rifle and it is certainly comfortable to shoot, owing to the McMillan "McHale" stock. My first M85 was in urban camouflage and was seriously accurate. The rest were all pretty good for accuracy, though if you shot the M85 alongside a more modern rifle with a good barrel, the M85 couldn't match the more modern rifle. There were however two things in particular that really irritated me about the M85, which is why I ended up selling them. Firstly, apart from the very first one I had, I discovered that the barrel didn't line up properly with the receiver. Consequently, you could use up most of the windage on your scope trying to centralise the shot. Secondly, the magazine didn't feed properly unless you operated the bolt very fast indeed. Certainly it was a very quick rifle to fire if you operated it like that, but it seemed over the top when firing in deliberate competition. There is also the point that if for any reason you had a misfeed and operated the bolt very quickly, you would detonate the first round with the tip of the next.

Although I'm sure this will be controversial for some, in my mind there's no question that the Accuracy International AW is technically a better rifle than the M85. The AW will feed even when the bolt is operated quite slowly, and best of all the barrel lines up with the receiver!

The AI does prefer a fairly firm bolt operation in order to feed the next round successfully, either that or a very deliberate operation, there has never seemed to be a halfway ground for them.

Welcome to FB-UK Mike 01!

Why not introduce yourself on the New Members forum?

Get yourself a good Enforcer, with original scope, superb rifles and going up in price quickly so a good investment, though as rearlugs said, make sure its a genuine one!