Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Single Shots The Field's Patent falling block...

Had a Rodda Field's Patent some years ago, and foolishly let it go.

I've now added another. .303 British, made by Holland and Holland. Despite the massive action, it maybe weighs 6½ lbs, and is maybe the best handling rifle, I have ever held. I am pretty damn pleased with it.

Well done!

Range report, Patrick! Please?

I'm envious!

Ed

Superb!

Very jealous. Where did you find it? Fields are not common at all.

Gunbroker - stumbled across it; did not even realize that H&H made Field's patent singles. Apparently, they only made 24 of them. This one was made in 1895. It has very nice wood, but no engraving at all, and was obviously intended as a working rifle. The Farquharsons seemed to be more popular at the time.

Dang! That’s really something.

Nice snag.

Very cool. Sure would like some more pictures. Interesting rifle for sure.

One of the first issues I've encountered is the chamber was designed for thinner rims. The modern .303 brass I have is by Winchester, and it looks like I will have to do something about thinning the rims, to get them to chamber. Any suggestions on sources for "thinner rim" .303 brass?

The "bad" news is that a few years ago a discussion on an Enfield forum identified a batch of Winchester ammo as already having thinner rims than other modern brands and was currently thinner than the published specification (https://enfield-rifles.com/303-rim-thickness_topic10315.html). So that doesn't look promising.



Since it's an older rifle, you may have to go onto a place like GunBroker and try to find some older ammo (possibly mil spec) to see if you can find something suitable. The problem with this option is the random hit-or-miss nature of blindly trying potentially expensive options. I have four types of .303 British ammo: 150gr Hornady, 150gr Federal, 150gr S&B and 174gr Graf & Sons (which was loaded by Hornady but uses PPU brass). If you send me a PM with your address, I can send you a sample of each for testing if that would be helpful.

Otherwise, to my way of thinking, I would probably look at getting a gunsmith to determine if milling the chamber to fit modern rounds was an option. This of course might be an unacceptable option based on cost or an aversion to modifying a historical rifle. That is obviously a personal judgement call if it's even doable at all. Another option might be to send a PM to Steve Redgwell and ask him. He runs https://303british.com/ and comments on this caliber in other posts here. Maybe he has some useful insight.

I have a nostalgic affinity for the .303 British ever since I shot my first deer with one. I currently own two falling blocks in this caliber. Here's another Holland & Holland that sold for $2,588 a few years ago. That's a pretty rifle!





Last year I was looking around for some scope mounting blocks for an 1885 I was mounting a Malcolm scope onto at Steve Earle's website (https://www.steveearleproducts.com/index.htm) when I saw that he was producing a similar Fraser action. I already have too many projects I'm juggling but I couldn't help think it would be cool to build a custom rifle in a classic caliber if I had several thousand dollars laying around that I didn't know what to do with.





The fact that the action came in a left-handed version made it even more intriguing (and expensive!) to me.

That's a good point, re: altering the chamber. I think if I were in this situation I wouldn't alter the chamber, per se, but I would consider deepening the rim recess a skinch with a cutter, not a chamber reamer, to accept a batch of brass dedicated to the rifle. (It could be done in a lathe even without pulling the barrel off, I should think, tricky but do-able.) Of course an initial chamber cast would reveal whether or not a given case will still fit in there if allowed to penetrate a couple extra thousandths deeper - or take a case and lathe trim a couple thousandths off the leading edge of the rim and drop it in for a fit check.

Obviously the rim thickness can't be simply trimmed off the face of the rim because that would screw up the primer pocket depth. Worth noting for a newcomer just starting out on the learning trail!

I've lathe trimmed the leading edges of case rims to solve this exact problem too. It was for a .310 Martini Cadet with an original chamber which wouldn't accept altered (shortened and re-sized) .32-20 brass because of the egregious rim thickness compared to a .310 rim. I'm here to tell you it was a tedious exercise, but by the time I finished the 50th case the procedure was down pat and the cases fit, and life was good.* If it weren't a PIA to have pulled the barrel off and lathe-deepened the rim recess I probably wouldn't have gone to that trouble. (Impossible to get at it with the receiver still attached, picture a Martini action. I'm assuming such isn't the case with a Field's Patent?)

* One instance where having a Unimat lathe was a godsend.

Thinking some more about this, I wonder if the disparity in .303 case rims vs. rim recesses wasn't a result of British military protocols "back in the day"? The local early British sporting rifle makers may have cut their chambers to fit the very consistent hunting/sporting brass made by local British ammo companies (Eley and Kynoch for example) but the military Enfield chambers were cut more generously to allow for deleterious field conditions and gov't ammo was spec'ed accordingly, and then worldwide commercial ammo makers followed suit with those dimensions ever after - and the early commercial rifle chambers and their cartridge case requirements got lost in the shuffle? It's a scenario the popped into my head as a possible explanation for this Field's Patent situation, because those craftsmen who built that rifle wouldn't have overlooked an important detail like that.

Hardly a newcomer, but I am likely to try it The breech will close "with difficulty" on these cases, and I think another .001" to .002" off the rim face might do it. It goes without saying that the primers will have to be checked VERY carefully, that they don't protrude after seating!

Easiest solution! Thought: if LR primer height can't be overcome, LP primers could be a solution because they're shorter than LR primers, but only if light loads are employed.

This action is just plain nice. Beautiful SS rifle, and a 303 British would make it even nicer. Like many I have a soft spot for this round. My 303 British loads are probably tame enough to use LP primers, but this would only be done if truly necessary.

Checked a few more cases, from different lots, and there is a fair difference in case to case rim thickness AND diameter. Some of my brass is 20+ years old, and then I also have a couple hundred cases from a newer lot. All of them are Winchester made. Also some brass fired in a #4Mk1 - which I won't try to use in the Holland.

Out of the newest lot, I found a couple of cases that easily fit the chamber, with the breechblock closing, with almost no effort. Some cases also appear to be too big on rim diameter to fit the chamber. Guess H&H did not use Enfield reamers

So I will have to sort through the 250+ new cases on hand and figure out which ones fit with no problem and which ones will need attention. Once the brass is fireformed, it will only be partially resized, so it is headspacing on the shoulder, which will tend to negate rim thickness issues. Of course the rim has to be thin enough to actually allow chambering!

I would not mind finding brass that is a mite more consistent, and also have thinner rims!

Gorgeous Yours has a longer barrel than mine, which measures 24¼"

Great info, thanks!