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A few things have changed along the way as the project 2A1 'Rascal' develops.

For starters the barrel is a tad shorter than first envisaged. I was always unhappy with the sight radius even through the rifle was to be fitted with a target rear sight and the proportions looked odd so I chopped a bit more off and ended up with this look. The upper wood is now one piece, I will need to let in a block where the rear sight protector used to sit to tidy things up and loosing the original rear sight helps me no end as I always wanted a slightly heavier barrel profile which would mean building a completely new replacement for the original rear sight bracket.

The original cross screw was a pig to remove and the wood chipped slightly as it came out which left me with a dilemma, how to repair it, after a bit of head scratching I decided to cut two finger grooves which effectively removed the damaged wood and added a feature. The cross screw was replaced with two brass cups locked together with a stainless M5 and snake wood caps in the ends so no fear of splitting and it adds a small detail.

Today's jobs included machining the one piece replacement upper wood, adding the detail for the small front metal cover, I anguished over how to do this neatly and accurately and ended up machining a mandrel to match the diameter of the barrel channel and placing between the centres on the lathe then clamping the upper over the mandrel and finally machining it to the correct diameters. Whilst I was on the lathe I reduced the diameter of the upper to just above what is needed which saves a lot of time with a plane. Right now it is about a 1/4" too long which is deliberate.

One thing I must do is cut some channels for the two rear keeper clips on the upper and I have no idea how to do that right now, all I can say is it will be interesting.

The front of the lower wood is not profiled yet.

Vital statistics:

Donor rifle: 1968 Ishapore 2A1 with trued and blue printed action
Trigger: Shed custom 2 stage adjustable set at 5 lbs/2.3Kgs
Barrel length 13.5"
Cartridge 9mm-08 (9mm Rascal)
Rifle length: 31.5"
Weight: 7.25 lbs/3.3Kgs

The eagle eyed amongst you will notice the bayonet lugs have been removed and the nose cap tidied up. It took some serious work with a file to get it to this level and it still needs the rear shadow lone adding. Right now I am leaning towards a traditional rust browne finish for the shiny bits.

Interesting looking good keep us up dated.

Don't know why, but I love that!!!

Definitely "open" class in LERA competitions!

Looking forward to a post shooting report on this.

The butt is off to the dishwasher this morning and after that I can start on the final shaping and sanding ready for finishing the woodwork. I am going to narrow the front of the rifle down however quite how much remains to be seen, I have a few sketches of how I would like it to look.

The one thing I would like to add now is a rear battle sight of some form, something low and easily utilised and ideally set only to 100 yards, without adjustable windage is fine, the problem is where to locate it. It cannot be tang mounted, nor off the charger bridge, front of the receiver or rear of the barrel is one option with a small flip up like an express sight, it will need to be as far back as possible to give a reasonable sight radius.

Thoughts anyone?

What about a flip up sight like on the erma .22 rifle maybe cut a dove tail on the back or front of the receiver or silver solder some thing similar on the rear of the barrel.

Look at the sights the German Police used on their issue M1 carbines...a nice aperture on the front receiver ring

I reckon I can fit a small express with a fixed and rising blade on the flat of the barrel major diameter. This proves the principle even though it is a bit clunky and I have added a windage zero. This configuration gives me 100 yard zero and the flip up gives me 340 yards so the optimal range is covered.

The express gives quicker target acquisition in lower light conditions and the target sight can be added for accurate paper punching. Of course this does leave another question, should I fit tritium inserts to the express sight, if I could keep the look in keeping with the rifle it might be fun to fit them to the 100 yard sight.

Any plans for some sort of QD optic ... ... scope/red-dot?

Rob, the Viking did mention something similar today however now I have built a one piece upper I am loathe to cut it up to get a decent fixing for a red dot plus I am not sure it would be in keeping with the rifle. I am trying to keep the rifle looking like it could have been built any time between 1915 and 2015 so a modern red dot does rather go against such a look.

I am just working on the Mk2 express rear sight design to try and keep it a bit cleaner and simpler.