Restoring a classic Palma rifle: Bringing back the G&E

Among other relics that I received from Mac Tilton when I acquired the assets of MT Guns was a Grunig and Elmiger Palma rifle. I do not know the history of the rifle but from the looks of it the rifle had been in many matches since the 1950’s. Upon examining the throat with a bore scope I found that it was eroded quite severely indicating over 6000 rounds had been fired from the old war horse.

The outside finish of the barrel was left rough turned.

The stock was in need of replacement because of the various cracks and lack of adjustments of its outdated style.

The firing pin measured .083 in diameter and the firing pin hole was severely oversize. I bushed the firing pin hole down to .063 and reduced the diameter of the pin to .062 on the surface grinder using a rotary head.

A new Bartlein 30 caliber 1-11 twist barrel was installed with a .308 Palma chamber. This chamber works well with the 155 grain bullets but also with the 185 Berger match hybrid.

The small and unattractive bolt handle had to go and was replace with a Barnard pear shaped handle.

I also received from Mac a Palm stock made by Chris Wilcox of Cherryville, B.C.

The new stock pillar bedded and with the Anschutz recoil lug installed.

Next, I installed the MT Guns adjustable butt plate hardware. The adjustable cheek piece was already installed by Wilcox.

The old Anschutz sights were worn and had a lot of back lash. They also were mounted at an angle so that the rifle was meant to be held at a cant.

The odd thing was that the front sight was mounted straight.

A new Riles front sight with 60 minutes of elevation adjustment and a Gehmann adjustable aperture replaced the old setup.

For the new RPA sights I had to drill and tap the receiver (which was like drilling and taping a coke bottle) and make a set of picatinny 24 MOA scope blocks that work with sights or scope.

The trigger is an older style Anschutz two stage but it had a four pound pull and a lot of creep. I disassembled the trigger and altered a few of the parts to bring it down to a very crisp 5.2 ounces. Due to the two stage design even at this low weight the bolt can be slapped shut without a slam fire.