BSA “Sportsman Fifteen” .22LR Bolt Action Rifle

BSA “Sportsman Fifteen” .22LR Bolt Action Rifle

BSA “Sportsman Fifteen” .22LR Bolt Action Rifle. BSA began in June 1861 in the Gun Quarter, Birmingham, England. It was formed by a group of fourteen gunsmith members of the Birmingham Small Arms Trade Association specifically to manufacture guns by machinery. They were encouraged to do this by the War Office which gave the BSA gunsmiths free access to technical drawings and to the War Office’s Board of Ordnance’s Royal Small Arms factory at Enfield. New machinery developed in the USA installed at Enfield had greatly increased its output without needing more skilled craftsmen. This new machinery brought to Birmingham the principle of the interchangeability of parts.

The first ‘Sportsman’ rifle, introduced in 1947, was single shot, and the Sportsman Five repeating model came onto the market but one year later, in 1948; this was the five-round box-magazine version.

BSA Sportsman 15 rifles were only manufactured for five years, 1950-55, but proved very popular and at least 53,247 are known to have been produced.

Production of the Sportsman range as a whole ended in late 1956 but the guns were retailed as new old stock for some time afterwards; the 1957 Parker-Hale catalogue noted that “while stocks of their five-shot model are completely exhausted, our purchases of the two remaining models [the single-shot Sportsman and the Sportsman 15] are adequate to enable us to provide supplies for some time to come”. A 1956 UK ad for the Sportsman 15 lists the price as £9/10

This is a nice original rifle in excellent condition and full working order.