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As a collector of Mauser Rifles for over 45 yrs I have owned many FN Brownings.
I presently own a .222Rem Mag Medallion and Safaris in 7mm Mag,.300 Win Mag. .375 H&H Mag and .458 Win Mag.
Browning Hi-Power rifles were made from 1959-1974 in Belgium.
They came in Safari, Medallion and Olympian grade.
The calibers available were .222 Rem,.222Rem Mag, built on Sako Vixen action and marked made in Finland. The early .243 Win, 284 Win and .308 Win were made on small ring FN Mauser actions.
Later, they were assembled with Sako Forester actions and the .22/250 Rem was added .The standard calibers .270Win, .30-06, and a few .257 Roberts were made on Standard FN Supreme actions. The magnums were: .264 Win Mag, 7mm Rem Mag, .300 Win Mag, .300 H&H Mag, .308 Norma Mag .338 Win Mag, .375 H&H Mag, and .458 Win Mag.In 1967 a "New Magnum" was introduced no doubt to curb manufacturing costs.The magnum calibers were made on a push feed action that had a Sako type extractor (.270 and .30-06 kept the Mauser claw extractor). The front of the bolt with the locking lugs are attached to the main bolt body and you can see a visible line where they join.
At this time several metric calibers were added but few made it to North America.
Also around 1965 Morton salt convinced American stock makers that wood blanks could be cured more quickly and at a much lower cost by packing them in salt rather than drying them in a kiln.
Rather than drawing the water out of the wood the salt dissolved to form a brine which penetrated the wood.The salt cured stocks resulted in rust and pitting damage to the metal in contact with the wood, mostly below the stock line. The majority of stocks during 1967-1971 were affected to varying degrees.
The higher the grade of wood the more likely it was "salt wood". Silver Nitrate can be used to test the wood.
Pre 1967 are recommended and command higher prices.

Edited by Wanabebwana (18/01/14 04:26 PM)

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