Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Early Forbes Rifles

I think I may have scored an early Forbes 24B. Was browsing gunbroker and saw a NIB Forbes 24B listed for 1250 so I rolled the dice and bought it. Figure worse case I end up sending it to Melvin and have a NULA for $2k vs $3k and just maybe I have one of the earlier good ones that needs zero work. Serial number is 24B13-00044

I could be wrong, but I think that's the 44th rifle he built in 2013.

Yes, thats an early one. It was built somewhere in the same period as mine. Nice grab.

A good rule of thumb is the if the bolt is jeweled or fluted. You want a jeweled bolt.

That’s what I was thinking 44th of 2013. It’s still in the plastic so no way to know on jeweled or fluted.

With that serial number it should be jeweled. Bet it's a shooter out of the box.

FWIW I also have a fluted bolt Forbes and it also has been trouble free. As far as I can tell, most were pretty good, but the early jeweled bolt versions seemed to get more attention in production that the later ones as Forbes began to run into problems.

I have an early jeweled bolt 24B in 25-06, which was a rare caliber for them. The person I bought it from was the original buyer and bought it for a “once in a lifetime” pronghorn hunt. He fired exactly 9 rounds through it to sight it in, and shot his goat with the 10th round. He said it was very accurate and he was very happy with it, but decided that he wasn’t a big fan of hunting and it just sat after that hunt until I bought it.

Since I bought it, I fired the remaining 10 rounds of the original box of ammo he had into little itty bitty groups and it has sat in my safe not doing much. I’ve been kicking around the idea of selling it so someone who is going to use it more than I will can kill some stuff with it, but really like it quite a bit. Looks like they are going for around $1,200 and compare well with both the ULA/NULAs and Fieldcrafts (I’ve had both) for less $$ $ if you get a good one, which this one is. It’s a tough call whether or not to let it go, as folks above have confirmed. Guess I’ll think about it a bit.

The Forbes stock fits me extremely well, that’s the big issue for me. I’ve owned one CLR that had been sent to Melvin and reworked. It was the finest example of a light weight bolt action rifle I could imagine. I’m hoping this one is the same if not I’ll send it to Melvin and still have saved money in the long run.

I have a 20 B that has 13 and 52 in the serial number. It has a fluted bolt. Was 308 but got crazy and let Melvin change it to 284 . It was a good 308 but I had a wild hair.

I have 24B13-00100 and it’s jeweled. Heckuva shooter. Don’t imagine I would part with mine unless I could trade for a proven shooter 20B or short action Fieldcraft. You should be good to go.

I have 24B13-00120 and it’s jeweled. Great shooter........one of the last rifles I would part with

I have a later one with a fluted bolt. It’s the best shooter I have...literally one ragged hole most of the time if I do my part. But it had some issues and still does, frankly. It’s serviceable and a joy to carry, but I don’t really have the pride in ownership of it that I should with a rifle that costs that much.

Curious to hear what issues you’ve had.

Bolt handle poorly welded and came off. A chamber that gets sticky if anything other than starting loads are tried. Finish that looks like something off of an early 1990s 870 Express instead of a $1,500 rifle. Poorly bedded with tension in action that caused accuracy problems until I figured it out. And a few other things.

They are really great rifles. Mine is a pretty rare early production 25-06 (SN 12-003XX) which is a great shooter (has only a box of Ammo through it and is in great shape).
I’ve been going back and forth about selling it because it just isn’t being used and I’d rather see it go someone who will use it. I guess I could use the funds for my seemingly never ending boat restoration project.

Anyway, may list it in the classifieds over the weekend. If anyone is interested in it, shoot me a pm.

Mine works well and is accurate. I ordered one the first day they would accept orders, and it has been hunted a lot. I saw some later versions and they were not the same quality.
Hope you enjoy yours!

I had 24B13-00009 was told it was the 1st 06 to be shipped to the west coast, it was a great shooting gun.

Picked it up today and I’m a very happy camper. Everything is great on except the bolt is very tight. I’ve read that this is due to the parkerized finish and that it will break in with repeated cycles. Some even used a fine polishing compound. If anyone has done the compound trick and wouldn’t mind walking me through it I’d love to hear about it.

Mounted a Vortex LH HD 1.5-8x32 looking forward to getting it to the range soon.

I have 2 LH Forbes one 7-08 and one orig in 06 sent to Melvin now a SS 280 AI both are great and LH.

On mine I just put some flitz on the recoil lugs and cycled it up and down while pulling rearward on the bolt. Once the lugs were shiny I worked the action as you would normally cycle it. Periodically I would wipe out the race way to inspect and to put more fresh Flitz on. I stopped when it was fairly smooth but before I took all the Parkerizing off the rails. Flushed everything with carb cleaner and used over sized patches to clean out the flitz. I did the barrel too as part of the prep for Dynateck Bore Coating. I used the Gun Koat on the action rails too and that smoothed them up a little more, then I greased the back of the lugs with an anti-seize engine assembly Moly grease and things were pretty smooth. You can use valve grinding compound to do it faster but it will take all of the parkerizing off the rails and bolt.

Interesting information. My 20b, if the year/production schedule system rings true, is in the 4xx range of 2015. Obviously a fluted bolt. I paid way, way too much money for it, even after the guy from Forbes told me in 2014 (maybe?) that there "was no way in hell we'd be chambering them in 260 Remington!" Initially, my only issue was a complete lack of feeding from the magazine - tweaking the follower spring a bit seemed to help, though occasionally the bolt will still ride over the rim. Mounted a Leupold 3.5x10 on it, hits 6.4lbs on the bathroom scale, after you subtract my fat arse out of the equation. Haven't done a lot of reloading for it yet, but haven't found a load yet that it absolutely dislikes - most shoot quite well, in fact....unless I get in the way.

Kaiser Norton