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Good to hear that the paint stripper worked, the wood underneath looks good.
Just remember that the stock will have flat top checkering so if you want to keep it original, then that will have to be kept that way. Lots of people re-cut it to diamond checkering but that spoils the gun in my opinion.

As to the barreled action, I spoke to Mark Crudington of Gibbs regarding those guns and he informed me that the guns were indeed stocked and sighted on barrel actions. The barrel which was military profile and longer was removed and then turned to that common straight taper and shortened to 25" or 26" and then refitted.
A barrel with that length and taper is actually needed on that action as because of the magazine box which extends downwards preventing you from carrying the rifle with your hand on the floor plate like most rifles. However with the correct barrel length and profile which puts the weight in the correct position, the rifle can be easily carried perfectly balanced with the hand just in front of the magazine. A 22" barrel with reduced taper would casue the gun to tip backwards.

Bertram does make brass with the correct headstamp if you don't wish to form your own. If you form your own just remember that you will have to chamfer the outside edge of the rim as otherwise it will foul on the inside radius of your En-Bloc clip.

The cartridge was officially designated as 6.5x53R but it was known as a 6.5 Mannlicher by Kynoch and was headstamped as such.
The rifles were known as 256 Mannlicher with the 256 being the bore diameter of the barrel while bullets are of course 0.264". I don't believe that any cases were ever headstamped 256 Mannlicher.
( Its the same situation as the 7x57/275 Rigby scenario which has been much spoken of on this forum)

Check the headspace as they are always excessive as in around 0.018" so if you are forming brass you will need to open the neck up to case diameter and then form a neck and shoulder to suit your headspace. If you have a factory un-fired round checking headspace is easy with packing tape.

Woodleigh did make 160 grain RNSN projectiles but due to the factory fire won't be making those again for a little while.
I use the Hornady 160 grain RNSN projectiles with great success.

Hope some of this helps and thanks for the pics of the sight.

Matt.

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