ID of Parker Hale can be interesting - Apparently when USA company Gibbs bought out Parker Hale, all the PH corporate records were burned - so all gone as far as their history of production. Is a few of us trying to reconstruct that via ads in various Canadian retailers - old SIR catalogues, old Parker Hale catalogues, etc. What we are finding - they seldom used photographs in their ads - was "sketches" - that may or may not match up to the words used in the ad, at that time. If you do up pictures, is it a hinged floor plate or a detachable magazine? - most models made with either - and some early ones had fixed floor plates. From parts lists, absolutely identical part numbers for most any part for PH Models 1000, 1100 and 1200 - except for the stocks - three different part numbers for replacement stocks.
What you describe was pretty a common sporter style made from Mauser 98 action - so over the years, the stock could have been replaced or "dressed up", barrel could have been replaced, chamber could have been reamed out to something other than original. All of those things can be done in North America without consequence - some of them will require "re-proofing" in Great Britain or some other European countries. For your information, remove that barrelled action from the stock - somewhere on the barrel - often below the wood line - near the chamber - an original Parker Hale barrel will have various proof stamps from Birmingham Proof House - will give the name of the cartridge (as it was called then, in Great Britain - which might be different than what we call it in North America, now-a-days) and the coding in the stamping - the letters to each side of the crossed pennants, give you the year that it was "proofed". Should be a "BNP" stamp on the receiver and bolt (often on the bolt's handle) - with luck you will find matching serial numbers on them - that would normally mean that all were "proofed" together, back whenever.
I think the 300 Win Mag cartridge might have been introduced circa 1963 - your rifle could easily be older than that - with either a replacement barrel, or one that was originally chambered in something else - like 30-06 - and then reamed out to 300 Win Mag. The serial number that you gave, suggests it started out as a "Magnum" of some sort, though. Was not terribly uncommon, "back in the day" to have a rifle chamber re-cut for commonly available ammo - so can find former 7x61 Sharpe and Hart rifles that were re-cut to use 7 mm Remington Magnum ammo. I did not look if similar is possible, say from 308 Norma Magnum to 300 Win Mag - but was a viable option in some cases, when factory ammo to buy simply was not available, or stupendously expensive to buy, in particular locations.
At some time, Parker Hale (and other makers) used the word "Safari" as part of that model name - there has been "Super" Safari and Safari De Luxe versions here - roll stamps with those names on left exterior wall of the receiver. After those (I think), they morphed into Model 1000, 1100, 1200 - I have never found that ID on those rifles, although a particular rifle - a Model 1200 TX that is here - says so, on it's barrel. Another one, chambered in 308 Norma Magnum, has no indicator what Model it is at all - all the clues point to a Model 1200, but it does not say that on the rifle. Was not uncommon in those days for a particular rifle to have a model name that was used to sell it in Europe, and then the exact same rifle would be sold under a different Model name in North America, by a specific distributor. Or, the North American distributor may have commissioned companies like Parker Hale (and others) to make a particular type of rifle to their specs - usually sold to North American market.
From dark corner of my memory, the name "Westwind", or perhaps "Tradewind", comes up as a USA importer that might have sold guns that had the word "Safari" in their name. I think Browning (or at least what is now Browning) also sold a "Safari" stamped rifle model??
What is confusing to some - Parker Hale also made and sold components - so, for example, front sight ramps. So, you might see a rifle with the name "Parker Hale" on the front sight ramp - is not a Parker Hale made rifle - but that ramp was made by Parker Hale - someone - a basement guy, a commercial producer - used those parts to make their product, and sold the rifle to someone else.
