Welcome to Westleton Airgun Club

These are both BSA Merlin's. The top one is a mk1 made around 1963-64 and the lower one is a mk2 made around 1965.

They came in to production as a junior underlever with a very interesting loading port by way of a pop up breach. There are a couple of subtle differences between the 2 mostly around that loading port. I have owned these for 3 or 4 years but the mk2 was a basket case due to the loss of

This is how this rifle has been for the last 3 years at least, in bits, but after finding a new old stock, stock on fleabay recently, my interest has been given a kick in the pants. Oddly enough, you come across the nicest people on some of website forums. More on that to come.

There in the middle of the picture is the elusive part which held this job up for so long. The breach block is the bright shiney part with a hole in it. The original parts are no longer made and I contacted everyone I knew who had obscure parts to locate one, to no avail. It was a comment I left on an article on a airgun webite that lead to a  conversation with a chap known as GRRR, who suggested 

And there it is, in place, doing the job perfectly. I cannot thank GRRR and JULES enough for their time and advice.

Here you see the breach closed and exposing the rear sight.

On the MK1, the rear sight and breach are one part. It does the job.