Building a 280AI on a BSA Monarch 270. Pt 1

[Brithunter]

A few years ago was offered this BSA 1st Pattern Monarch is quite poor shape, knocked about with worn bore, for £25. At that time I did not have any Monarchs in my little collection so I brought it gave the barrel a good clean and tried it out at the range and was surprised to find that it shot about MOA still with ammunition it liked so I cold blued the barrel as it had none left from for tip to foresight.







That is after the cold blue on the barrel and as you can see through much use the blacking of the bolt handle has worn away. The barrel had be cut back a touch at some point and the foresight was not on quite straight so when at a Bisley show I was approached by chap with a much better rifle of the same model I was immediately interested .

After a bit of thinking I offered him £100 for it which is low but .270 Winchester chambered rifles do not sell well. One chambered in say .243 Winchester would sell for about treble that. This is the replacement:-




As you can see the blacking is pretty much pristine.


Not much signs of wear.

The drawbacks are that the gold enamel has come out of the stars on the bolt and the stock has some compression marks/dings


I fitted the new Redfield sight to it.

Anyway this left me with the worn Monarch so after much thought and a discussion with the licensing folks a temp permit to possess the .270 was issued and my licence varied to obtain a .280 rifle. I had decided that as I could not find a .280 Ross that I could afford I would make a modern sporting rifle of suitable performance. While this was going on a stumbeld upon a BSA Majestic Featherweight in 270 Win with what appeared to be a worn out barrel. The Majestic had a better more classic "Ross" shaped stock so plans were altered slightly and it was obtained for a modest price of £75:-




The fore tip of the schanble tip had been professionally repaired at some point in the past but a previous owner after that had ruined the bedding and barrel channel in a poor attempt at free floating the barel .

For the .280 AI build an original new in the white BSA barrel chambered in 7x64 for the later CF2 model was obtained. I chose the CF2 barrel over the Majestic/Monarch one due to the heavier profile and larger reinforce at the chamber more suited the Ross's profile which also meant I could probably salvage the Majestic stock. Later it was found this would not be the case as the forestock had been sanded down so much .