Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Parker Hale 1200

Thinking of picking up a clean model 1200 in 30-06. They sound like a quality commercial M98 built rifle. Anyone owned one? I'd like to hear your thoughts.

41

I had one for years as an only rifle. It was a great shooter and very reliable. I gave it to a family member. Hopefully he still has it. You could do a lot worse for a hunting rifle.

Agree. Had one in .300 Win Mag. It was accurate and a good rifle. It was light, kicked pretty hard. It went down the road for that reason.

DF

Those are usually a good rifle. I have used that action to build several customs.

41rem;
Top of the morning from the slightly cool south Okanagan, I hope this finds you well.

With the understanding I'm not a gun writer, just a gun writer reader who fools with our own and sometimes other people's rifles.

The later Parker Hales were made on Spanish made Santa Barbara actions and were quite popular up here so we saw a fair few up into the '80's.

When the company went under a local shop up the valley ended up with a bunch of the parts and I picked up 3 unfinished bottom metal sets and a .308" barrel which was contoured but not threaded. That barrel is now on a .308 Norma on a Ruger 77 Liberty Model and seems to shoot okay.

Also I had a .270 Featherweight contour barrel on a 98 action for awhile. The Parker Hale Featherweight was quite close to the Winchester Featherweight contour but not identical.

While that barrel shot okay, it turned out that it had a bit of a slower twist than I prefer and it got taken off.

Over the years of working on Parker Hale rifles for friends, I remember one .308 that had a bit of an issue feeding, but after a wee bit of polishing the chamber mouth and tuning the extractor just a smidge it was fine.

They made a detachable mag model and if one happens to misplace the detachable mag, they are proverbial hen's teeth up here. I want to say the last one I saw was $200CDN at a gun show.

On at least two of the different Parker Hale rifles I've worked on, the trigger housing cracked so that made for a dangerous situation.

It's been a good while since I've had one apart, but in my mind the backside of the trigger housing has a tube under it and is sort of part of the rear bedding as well.

Again this is going back years but in both of those instances it wasn't a huge deal to install an aftermarket 98 trigger on the rifles, likely a Timney as they're usually easy to get up here, but it might have been a Bold that went into one of them, sorry I'm not sure anymore. If memory serves there was a wee bit of chisel work to make the other triggers fit, but not too much.

One of my fellow Canucks on here - greydog - is a retired gunsmith a few valleys east of me whose work was very well respected. If I'm not recalling wrong, he suggested to me that the Parker Hale barrels were okay but a bit softer than some other makers, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

Off the top of my head that's an overview of my recollections of the ones I've either worked on or had a close look at.

All the best and good luck with the rifle purchase, whichever way you decide.

Dwayne

Morning Dwayne wondering if , when you had any of your Parker hale out of the stock , did you notice s proof stamping on the bottom of the action, Proofed at 18 British tons ? I purchased a Parker, I would guess in the late 60’s in 7mm trim mag, I always preferred the Mauser action over push feeds, like rem 700. So went with the Parker cause, price break, they are a very pretty rifle , and I liked their contour. At any rate mine walked shots as barrel heated and since it was evident it had pressure point on the forearm I figured if I free floated it might come around, which it did, but like I said I immediately saw that proof stamp, and being the hillbilly I was figured damn they only proof this rifle at 36k? Long story, I kept the gun and shot alot critters with it, until one day I walked into a pamida store in Rawlins wy were they had a sako in 7mm and we made a trade. Always wondered about that proof stamps? any comment?

Mohall57;
Good morning back at you sir, I hope the day's bright, fair and warm out in your part of Wyoming this morning.

While I've got a wee bit of a full schedule today, I will go through my used barrel bucket in the shop to see what the .270 barrel and a .308 Norma barrel have stamped on them.

The .308 Norma by the way is also that Featherweight contour that they made and if I'm not remembering wrong, this one had a bulged chamber and was rebarreled to a .257 Weatherby.

One day decades back I was working on a project that needed a ramped front sight and a now long passed on smithing mentor had this in his barrel bucket, so I bought it for a couple dollars.

Currently I don't have any Parker Hale rifles, but that said, the local gun show is next weekend and one can never say never.....

But I will do my best to take a look at the two take off barrels, see what I can see and report back.

All the best.

Dwayne

Dwayne: thanks for the come back, it’s not a big deal, I was as much curious to that pressure figure as anything, as in my mind they surely would have proofed those at higher pressure than my calculations, likely a British ton more is materially different than our yankeeton of 2000 lbs. We are being blown away down here, extreme winds, closed the highways in some sectors due to it, oh well that’s Wyoming, if you don’t like the weather just wait a bit it will change (for the worse). Have a good day

M

Interesting stuff, thank you Dwayne.

DeHaas' book 'Bolt Action Rifles notes that Parker Hale released those in '67 and called them the 'Super Mauser'. They are in fact the 'Santa Barbara' actions.

Al,

That's what I understood as well--which in my limited experience weren't bad actions.

The last Parker-Hale I had was a 7x57, which grouped pretty well--but weighed too damn much for a 7x57....

John

John, I'm redoing an Interarms Mark X in 30-06 right now. That thing is a tank....especially the milled bottom metal.

I may do the unthinkable and make it an ADL.

Ha! I haven't made one of the Mark X actions into an "ADL," but did with one of the CZ-produced G33/40s which had the sheet-steel bottom metal of the G33/40 of the "mountain rifles" used by the German Alpine troops. Stocked it in a piece of New Zealand walnut, and fitted a Shilen 7x57 pre-chambered barrel. It shot great--and then somebody talked me out of it. If I ever run across it again....

Got my new 260 shooting today. Rem 700 ADL with a lilja barrel. Finally found some powder seems to work. Stabull 6.5. Outside to outside 5 shots and four of those in 1/2". Three make a tiny clover leaf. I'd never heard of this powder before but was something like $38 for a pound so though I'd try it, worked! Really wanted to find some Varget I could afford but $60 a pound I can't afford! Varget seem's to be my new H4350, just shot well in everything! Bullet'sI'm using are Speer 140gr Hot Cores.

I should have used mine as donors, but it wasn't in the cards. I had several in the 1980s and early 1990s, but they all had those ugly stocks with shiny, white spacers and odd looking forend caps, etc. For example, this wasn't my rifle, but I had this same stock. It makes me queasy just looking at it.



I tried (and failed) to find the stock pictured below. This is what the Brits used on their M82s before plastic stocks and accessories became de rigueur. These fit any Mauser, but were unobtanium at the time. After realizing that I couldn't get the stock I wanted, I liquidated the three I had.

StaBall 6.5 isn't a surprise, because it was pretty much designed for the Creedmoor, which is basically the .260 with a slight different-shape case.

When I was into the .260 the best all-around powder in my rifles was Reloder 23--but just try to find some now!

I bought several of the Parker-Hale unfinished receivers when they were selling dirt cheap. They're investment cast (like Ruger) supposedly EN-9 alloy. Some use Mauser bolts and bottom metal, while others use 03 Springfield bolts, also with Mauser magazines and trigger guards. Once the finish machining is done, the bolt lug area and front receiver ring needs to be heat treated.

The Santa Barbaras Were a decent action. I didn't love the bolt handle and replaced many. The trigger, though fully adjustable, was a turkey.. The trigger housing, an alloy casting, was sandwiched between the tang and the stock, which complicated bedding. I must have had a dozen, in magnum chamberings, come into the shop with jugged chambers. These were with the featherweight contour barrels.
The actions were strong and not badly finished.
I had one come in, a 7mm Rem Mag., in which the owner had fired a 303 British round (I know, it seems weird, but it happened). Escaping gas blew the magazine follower and floorplate out the bottom, the extractor to parts unknown, and split the stock. The barreled action was fine, except for the missing parts. They were replaced, the stock was repaired, and the rifle was fine. As Dwayne mentioned, replacing the trigger was always a good move.
As a commercial Mauser, I don't consider them to be the equal of the FN but they are equal to the MKX. GD