Sportco was an Australian manufacturer of

rifle A rifle is a long gun, long-barreled firearm designed for accurate shooting and higher stopping power, with a gun barrel, barrel that has a helical or spiralling pattern of grooves (rifling) cut into the bore wall. In keeping with their focus o ...

s and

shotguns A shotgun (also known as a scattergun, peppergun, or historically as a fowling piece) is a long gun, long-barreled firearm designed to shoot a straight-walled cartridge (firearms), cartridge known as a shotshell, which discharges numerous small ...

Adelaide Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

, from 1947 until the early 1980s. Founded by Jack Warne, also known by its full name Sporting Arms Limited, began by manufacturing single shot 22LR rifles. Sportco purchased ex military Martini Cadet rifles from the Australian Government and converted them to both rimfire and centrefire calibres as well as rebarrelling

Lee–Enfield The Lee–Enfield is a bolt-action, magazine-fed repeating rifle that served as the main firearm of the military forces of the British Empire and Commonwealth during the first half of the 20th century, and was the standard service rifle of th ...

rifles to .303/22 and .303/25. Soon they began producing their own designs of

bolt action Bolt action is a type of manual firearm action that is operated by ''directly'' manipulating the turn-bolt via a bolt handle, most commonly placed on the right-hand side of the firearm (as most users are right-handed). The majority of b ...

and 'Sportomatic'

semi-automatic rifle A semi-automatic rifle is a type of rifle that fires a single round each time the Trigger (firearms), trigger is pulled while automatically loading the next Cartridge (firearms), cartridge. These rifles were developed Pre-World War II, and w ...

s as well as single shot shotguns followed by

semi-automatic shotgun A semi-automatic shotgun is a repeating shotgun with a semi-automatic action, i.e. capable of automatically chambering a new shell after each firing, but requires individual trigger-pull to manually actuate each shot. Semi-automatic shotguns use ...

s and

pump-action Pump action is a type of manual firearm action that is operated by moving a sliding handguard on the gun's forestock. When shooting, the sliding forend is pulled rearward to eject any expended cartridge (firearms), cartridge and typically to co ...

rifles. They also started to export to

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New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

and the

United States of America The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguo ...

. Sportco supplied the British military with a blow-back action self-loading training rifle with a ten-round capacity. Sold in Australia as the Model 71S the British dubbed it Rifle,L29A2. An example is to be found in the Enfield Pattern Room collection. Sportco also supplied Winchester with actions for their Model 320 10 shot bolt action repeater and Model 310 single shot. Sportco also sold ammunition under its own brand name that was manufactured by Riverbrand and

Winchester Winchester (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs N ...

Australia. Their longest lasting model was the Model 44 target rifle which would later would be known as the Omark Model 44 and would be produced by MAB Engineering when Sportco would close its doors. Sportco was sold to Omark Industries and shut its doors in the early 1980s. Jack Warne would later leave Australia for the United States and found Kimber of Oregon.

Models

Caliber .22 LR *ss Sportco Martini *sa sportco 2 *sa Sportco 2A semi automatic box magazine *br sportco 10 *br Sportco 10A bolt action box magazine *br Sportco 15 bolt action tube magazine *ss Sportco 40 bolt action single shot *ss Sportco 43 bolt action single shot *ss Sportco 46 bolt action single shot *ss Sportco 50 *Sportco 61 bolt action box magazine *Sportco 62 bolt action box magazine *br Sportco 62A bolt action box magazine deluxe *br Sportco 62S bolt action box magazine *br Sportco 63 bolt action box magazine *br Sportco 63A bolt action box magazine deluxe *br Sportco 63B bolt action box magazine *sportco 64B bolt action box magazine *br Sportco 66D bolt action box magazine deluxe *br Sportco 66S bolt action box magazine *sa sportco s71 *sa Sportco 71A semi automatic box magazine deluxe *sa Sportco 71S semi automatic box magazine have2 one is deluxe model *sa Sportco 72A semi automatic tube magazine *sa Sportco 73 semi automatic box magazine *Sportco 73A semi automatic box magazine deluxe *sa Sportco 73B semi automatic box magazine *Sportco 74 semi automatic box magazine *sa Sportco 87A semi automatic tube magazine *pa Sportco 90 pump action box magazine *pa Sportco 90A pump action box magazine *Sportco 90S pump action box magazine *pa Sportco 93 pump action box magazine *Sportco 93A pump action box magazine deluxe *Sportco 93B pump action box magazine *Sportco 93S pump action box magazine *sa Sportco carbine semi automatic box magazine *ss Sportco Martini Clubmaster single shot target rifle *br Winchester 320 bolt action box magazine Calibre .22 Hornet, .222 Remington, .222 Rimmed *br Sportco Hornet bolt action box magazine *br Sportco 33S bolt action box magazine *br sportco 33 bolt action box magazine deluxe *Sportco Martini

Shotguns A shotgun (also known as a scattergun, peppergun, or historically as a fowling piece) is a long gun, long-barreled firearm designed to shoot a straight-walled cartridge (firearms), cartridge known as a shotshell, which discharges numerous small ...

*Sportco 54 single shot *Sportco 55 single shot *Sportco 80 single shot have 2 *Sportco 81 bolt action box magazine *Sportco 83 bolt action box magazine *Sportco 88 semi automatic *Sportco 103 type 1 semi automatic *Sportco 103 type 2 semi automatic chromed barrel *Sportco 103 type 3 semi automatic deluxe *Sportco 103 type 4 semi automatic deluxe chromed barrel *Sportco 103 type 5 semi automatic 30" barrel 7.62mm

Target Target may refer to: Warfare and shooting * Shooting target, used in marksmanship training and various shooting sports ** Bullseye (target), the goal one for which one aims in many of these sports ** Aiming point, in field artille ...

Rifles * Sportco Model 44 bolt action single shotTSE

References

External links

*{{Official website, http://www.sportco.org.au/
UK NRA Historic Arms Resource Centre
Firearm manufacturers of Australia Defunct firearms manufacturers Australian companies established in 1947 Manufacturing companies based in Adelaide Defunct manufacturing companies of Australia

Models

See also

References

External links