Drache; You have a fine rifle there, and with history accompanying it!! May I suggest you measure the barrel length? Many of the early models had 22" tubes. I have owned at least one 308 Norma Magnum Rifle continuously since 1967. I bought one brand new that year in Salmon Arm for 179.95 + Taxes. It was one of the first ones built on the Santa Barbara Actions. I believe H4831 has seen me use this rifle in Rifleman's rodeo in Salmon Arm at least once. I shot a lot of game with this rifle. The only thing that I disliked was the 22" barrel, which made it quite loud. As H4831 pointed out, the early Norma Mag ammo was loaded plenty hot, and often would chronograph over 3100 fps in a 24" barrel. Norma has since tamed it a bit, down around 3000 fps. I have not shot any factory ammo in any of mine for aeons. I make all my brass from 300 Win Mag and trim to length. My pet hunting load is 75 grains (+-1.0 grain) of Norma MRP with the 180 Partition, depending on the rifle. (I think Reloder 22 would work similarly) This will usually develop about 3050 in a 24" barrel, and slays game like there's no tomorrow. [If anyone has a notion to try these loads, please work up safely from at least 3 grains below] My second & third 308 Normas were also Parker Hales [Safari Deluxe] All these rifles would shoot <MOA with this load. Then I got adventurous and had one built on a Remington 700 Action with a 25" Shilen 1-10" twist heavy sporter barrel. This was a wonderful shooting rifle, good enough to shoot a group at Burns Lake 1000 yard shoot that measured 8½". Anything's for sale if the price is high enough, so another guy talked me out of it a couple of years later. I then acquired another Parker Hale, which I kept and shot a fair bit. More recently, I bought one from a fellow gunnut on the board here, and it was a great looking example, with a refinished stock and a Limbsaver pad on it. This rifle fooled me, because, unlike all the others, I could not get it to shoot under 1¾ MOA with my favored recipe. I tried several others that had worked in previous rifles, without success. Finally came up with a load that performed they way I expected, this time with a caseful of H1000. More recently I acquired the Parker-Hale I have been looking for for about 2 decades. It is a Model 81 "Classic" 308 Norma Magnum.[Classic Stock design, plain barrel, steel bottom metal with floorplate, British rounded buttpad] This one appears to have fired very few rounds. P-H made only a few of these for the North American Market, and after seeing one, I had to get one. While I have not shot this one yet, I'm sure it will be just like all the others, accurate, Hard hitting and effective. I have always regarded the 308 Norma Mag as the epitome of 30 cal Magnums. Regards, Eagleye.
