c-g-designs

THE C.G VENTURE.

          I came to the Long Range in 1973.

          After having shot at Bisley on various borrowed rifles, in 1975,I acquired a Swing (#102) who rapidly showed the problems and weaknesses still little know at this early stage :

          --Trigger going out of adjustment, letting me down in the middle of the Argentina competition of the 1975 Imperial after a few shots,only following passage at the zero range.

          --Firing Pin breaks, this starting a serie of modifications :I got rid of the original multiple parts FP,of the too strong spring and made a one-piece FP of the right material and treatment. It is always in its bolt and it never failed desite the strongest fire-formings and Match Rifle heavy loads.

          --Multiple extractor problems of the radial model, leading me to realise a bolthead of the self-gripping system who was afterwards adopted in 1999 for the Paramount and subsequent models and remain same for all the C.Gs and derivates. This model was simply enlarged from 4 to 5mm, as the design allowed.

--Wear at the primary extraction ramp level, necessitating re-adjustment.

          --Wear in the sear pin guide slot necessitating re-machining and a new sear pin with guide flats. This was adopted for the Paramount.

          Although modifies as hereover,I considered the action as not reliable following my standards and, having started a few years before the Match Rifle with a rifle built on a modified (sleeved) Mauser action,I decided it was time to improve my equipment.

          I started to work on the project of an action in 1983 and the first C.G was realised in 1984 and first shot in this year’s Imperial Meeting.

          It revealed immediately its qualities . Specifications were :

--Receiver of asymetric octagonal shape. The lower part being higher to increase rigidity and the height of tapped bedding hole and give a generous rear face recoil absorption surface. 3 Bedding screws .

--Large diameter bolt with bolt lugs of same diameter as the bolt body with the 4 lugs of the Schultz-Larsen M62.

--Floating and interchangeable firing pin tip . Sear with roller bearing on the cocking ramp . Nadella thrust bearing between the compression sleeve and rear plug to reduce bolt lift effort.

--Grunig-Elmiger trigger.

          From the start, I decided to reduce to the maximum the firing pin fall and, after calculations and testing, I ended to 4mm as being the shortest possible travel and this never varied for all C .G models, except for the Delta to 59 and66,  to be increased to 5mm for sprcific reasons .

Few exemplaires were built. In 1987, the C.G was converted to Belleville spring discs to power the firing pin to replace the conventional coil spring.This was patented, together with the sear roller and use of a Nadella thrust washer in 1989. This spring system was an old idea of mine, the spring discs delivering greater energy than coil springs for a lighter mass and smaller dimensions.

          In 1989 also, Freddy Payne took one in TR version to New Zealand to enter the Trentham National Championships where it was evaluated by the partners of H&²H Enterprises, Tony Halberg and John Hastie.

          Same year, the C .G action was also evaluated by Churwick (the makers of the Swing) who were to build the Paramount and several of the C.G features were incorporated   in the Paramount who was to be launched that year.

          The first C.G trigger (model 19) appeared in 1991. It was intended as a two-stage for a C.G action who was produced by Imperial (Paramount successors),principally for Germany.This trigger equipped, and still equip the RPA actions.

          Imperial disappeared in 1993.

          Beginning 1994, Mark Jiskoot, Managing Director of the RPA Precision Engineering,created  over the ashes of Churwick,Swing,Paramount and R-P Arms,asked me to design an action, first named ‘the Pinpoint Project’ to become the C.G-2000-RPA to finally become the Quadlock when  the action returned to its original octagonal C.G shape.

          Whe have with RPA worked on several other projects,that RPA that RPA pursued on their own account after the 1996 rupture. Cooperation was difficult and RPA broke unilaterally the agreement.

          In 1994,I participated to the Trentham(NZ) Meeting and met John Hastie and Tony Halberg who, a few years earlier, inspected Freddy Payne’s C.G rifleand were since trying to contact the designer. Inspecting my C.G, they found it entirely compatible to their revolutionnary Flexibed bedding system. They ordered  octagonal C.G2000 actions,specially adapted to their Flexibed system.

          H&HE suffered from RPA numerous delivery problems and quality did not matched our established standards.HHE then asked the manufacturing rights os a C.G action who was to become the C.G Millenium.

          Before the rupture,I had proposed RPA 2 majors improvements of the C.G, that they refused. I then incorporated them in the Millenium concept,in fact creating a new generation of the C.G action model.

          H&HE wanted on the start use american triggers based on the Remington fitting with an interface (hanger),but this revealed non-satisfactory and we quickly improved the C.G model 19 trigger to create the model 20 specific to the ‘Millie’.

          The C.G Millenium was build from 1997 till 2004 and have won, and still win all the major competitions of the world’s Long Range. Its greater successes were the Commonwealth Games, Bisley Queen’s and the splendid 3rd place of the modest New Zealand Team in the 1999 Palma,of which all members were equipped with an absolutely similar Millenium rifle, beating prestigious Teams : Australia,USA,Canada,Germany …..

          That year (1999)H&HE asked me to design a precision Long Range rearsight that they started to produce and of which the licensing was finally granted to Centra Visiertechnik who still manufacture and market to day.

          In 2005,discussions on several forums on the subject ‘rear locking actions’ led me to conceive such a very compact and robust mechanism who was named the ‘INCH’ (C.G model 41) who quickly revealed to be the most intrinsically accurate of all the Long Range actions . Despite its still relatively scarse diffusion, it already possed an impressive palmares. The INCH was initially produced in Australia by Woody Engineering/Action Clear, and now in South Africa,but always under the aegis of Action Clear.

          Still in 2005 appeared the trigger model 21,designed for, from an common mechanism, be adapted to a variety of makes and models of actions. A small batch was made in Australia by MHE, but soon also by Jackson rifles in UK.

          The Jackson’s objective being primarily the US market, and the import difficulties in this country led them to transfer the production to X-Treme of Cincinati (Ohio) who manufacture the C.G22 for the Remington and clones .

          Centra is preparing to offer all models of demand .

          It is to be noted that the C.G model 22,in its tactical version,was adopted after intensive testing under all conditions, by Remington for their MSR rifle who was in turn choosenn from 10 competitors, by the  SOCOM to become the PSR to equip all the US Special Forces.

          New adaptations of the C.G model 22 are in the course of development, notably a bottom safety  (inside the trigger guard) who is a simple addition and can retrofit for models already in service.

          In 2011 was developped a Tube stock (C.G modèle 75) intended for the INCH action. This model of chassis is innovative,with accessories to adapt to all Long Range disciplines. Points to note :

--One-piece tube ensuring maximal rigidity.

---Stock quickly and easily removeable, with multiple adjustments.

---Can be equipped with a damper reducing noise, vibrations and felt recoil.

It was also intended,in a specific variant but using all the same accessories,for a new C.G action then under development.

This project saw light in 2012 under the form of a range of front locking actions with a light metal receiver (7075T6) sharing the same specific 3lugs bolt in Delta shape :

--The C.G model 59  DELTA, single shot (LMT) or repeater (LMR) under Remington footprint.

---The C.G model 66 DELTA ,single shot (LTT) or repeater (LTR). This is a totally different approach to the concept of Tube Rifle in which a commercial action is fixed in a chassis-tube. The 66 receiver represent also the centre part of the Tube Chassis. This concept allow a considerable reduction in wheight and cost.

Both repeaters using AICS 5 or 10 rounds magazines. Problems of Chassis/Receiver adaptation are therefore inexistants.

          2014 saw the development of a Tube stock for the Barnard ‘P’ action.

          In project for beginning 2015 are an INCH short repeater (C.G model 80) and an INCH Magnum (C.G model 79) en .338LM and other Magnums accepting indifferently the normal and CIP AICS magazines. Both the 79 and 80 will have their Tube Stock of the 75 range.

          And since, on the demand of Geoff Kolbe (founder of Border Barrels) I had started different studies of smallbore actions as Long Range training alternative. This has evolved in a more elaborated model intended also for the BR50 (C.G model 71) . This model, designed in collaboration with Matjaz Svetek and his asociates, is actually prototyped in Sloveni a.

          R .G.C

10/2014