No, I don't have any black rifles. My fascination for those went away some time ago. I had a couple of Colt SP-1's and a DPMS, but they are gone. In bolt guns, I've had first a Winchester Model 70 Featherweight, which was a wonderful gun. I sold it to raise money for some reason or another. Not long after, I missed having it but couldn't find another like it so I bought a Ruger Model 77 Mark II. I think I like the Ruger better, as I made a point of buying the lightest weight model they offered and it has a shorter barrel. I still have this rifle.
Picture: Ruger Model 77 Mark II, .223 Rem. Fitted with an old Weaver KV 2-7 variable scope.
In my battery of weapons, I have a number of New England Firearms (NEF) single shot pieces and one older Harrington & Richardson. Of the NEF's, I have two with rifle frames. They have had an accessory barrel program for quite some time, so both of these rifles have multiple barrels. One of these was originally fitted with a .45-70 Gov't barrel. Since I have owned it, I bought accessory barrels for it in .357 Mag, .44 Mag., and recently another in .223 Rem.
The .223 barrel did not come from the factory; I bought it from a GBO member. It did not have open sights on it, but was equiped with a Weaver-style scope rail. Since I already had the Ruger Model 77 with a scope on it, I didn't want another scoped .223. What I did about that was to buy one of those inexpensive red dot sights. I bought the open ring style, not the scope-tube style. The one I bought was an NcStar Red/Green Dot Sight. The dealer called it a "Black Rifle Reflex Sight." Online it cost about $20 plus shipping. The NcStar sight (made in China, of course) arrived early in the week and it was easy to install. Today, I took it and the rifle out to the range. I fired on the 50 yard range, as that's about the range I might be using this rifle at. It zeroed easily and once sighted in, held its zero. I had bore sighted it already - pretty easy with a single shot. The new barrel and the red dot sight did their job together very nicely and nice, small groups were achieved.
Picture: New England Firearms "Handi-Rifle" with .223 barrel and NcStar red dot sight device.
Picture: NcStar red dot sight device on NEF.
The NEF single shots aren't fancy or sophisticated, but they are very reasonable in price and versatile. They live up to their name of "Handi-rifle".
