Accuracy International Early History

[ik_surrey]

I've had an interest in Malcolm Cooper's shooting history for a while now and a few members at my smallbore club were friends with him well before his small Accuracy International Ltd shop in Portsmouth turned into what it is today. 

Before AI started building centrefire actions, it used to be a small target shooting shop in Portsmouth run by Cooper and his wife, most notable for being the importer of Walther products. If you search Accuracy International on ebay, you can find a lot of their old brochures. 

A lot of the backstory can be found in Dave Wall's autobiography, but without getting into all that, the early timeline (as far as I'm aware) of Accuracy International rifles begins this way:

Cooper used to use a Walther hunting rifle-based centrefire action for 300m and this got damaged (if I remember from the book correctly), so Dave Walls and David Caig were tasked with either just repairing or coming up with a new design. Through Cooper's Walther connection, they were able to get hold of 9 Walther Jagd blanks, which they used to develop, using different combinations of barrels, triggers, etc. A photo of the very first one features in Walls' book, but I have attached some photos below from other older media. 

(Photos with sources that I have noted down, will be cited for credit, but the rest, I don't remember. If the original publishers find this and want them taken down, please let me know.)

 

Round action being used by a 300m shooter, in an AI standard rifle stock inspired by the Walther KK Match UIT stock:

(Some old magazine)

Early round action using a trigger that is similar to or is a Karl Kenyon or Kelly trigger. These round actions are denoted "C&W", meaning Caig and Walls:

(Some old magazine)

Malcolm Cooper with what I think might be a round action in a Walther GX-1 stock. If it's not a round action, then it's a later actual Accuracy International branded action:

(Some old magazine)

 

Once they ran out of round blanks, they started using square bar stock due to availability and ease of machining. Below is their first mainstream target action. Cooper was well known for bonding aluminium blocks into his stocks for rigidity and the few I have seen in the flesh have this feature. They are visibly similar or more likely identical to the early PM sniper rifles which were developed very soon after. The very early square-shroud target actions had serial numbers starting "CWC" for Caig Walls Cooper, and the later ones were simply AI. I can only speculate, but I wouldn't be surprised if the bolts, or at least the boltfaces, on these are interchangeable with those on the later AWs and AEs.

(Some old magazine)

Malcolm Cooper shooting an Accuracy International 300m Free Rifle in Walther GX-1 stock in the kneeling position. The rearsight is a period Walther:

(From NRA Journal Summer 1988)

Malcolm Cooper shooting the same rifle in the standing position:

(From NRA Journal Summer 2020)

Accuracy International target action with serial number starting CWC SS:

(NRA Facebook)

Accuracy International target action with serial number starting AI S/S:

(An old blog article)

Lones Wigger's Accuracy International given to him by Malcolm Cooper. This was recently up for auction in America with some of Wigger's other rifles. I've been told that this particular AI has a quick barrel switch mechanism by a US gunsmith:

(Gunbroker)

Advert for Accuracy International target rifles:

(Some old magazine)

 

Alongside these came the PMs, later on some other mainstream sniper rifles like the AT and also the Coopermatch Series, which are also denoted AT in their serial numbers. These were designed in collaboration with the British target rifle gunsmiths AE Clarke. They came in a few guises such as: Palmamaster, CISMMaster, Swissmaster, and possibly some other rarer and fewer made variations. The CISMMaster was magazine fed for ISSF CISM military shooting and the Swissmaster is (likely) just the same thing but rebranded for the Swiss market where they shoot 7.5x55. Coopermatches have an early AE style round bolt shroud and tang, but a normal square action design otherwise, and a 6-lug bolt. An AX bolt is compatible with a Coopermatch, so the general dimensions of the short-action 6 lugs have likely just not changed over the years. The Coopermatch Series don't really interest me and I've been told they crater primers easily. The archived AI website <https://web.archive.org/web/20160427193424/https://www.ketmer.com/ai/sport/palma/index.htm> also suggests the existence of a Perrymaster which unfortunately has no archived page, but does have a page on the extremely rare Varminter which came in .223.

 

[Roy W]

I have several Coopermatch Series Rifles, including a 10rd Magazine version. 

The pressed steel Magwell is affixed to the action with a small bolt. The magazines have a sprung metal clip at the front to engage the Magwell.

Mine is currently fitted into a McMillan McHale stock (a la M85 ) and wearing a 6.5CM barrel.

Four stock bolts and two trigger bolts and it fits straight back into the original laminated stock.

Photos attached. Work carried out by Dave Wylde.

 

[Roy W]

I can confirm that the early square action target rifle 3 Lug bolts are identical to the PM/L96A1 bolts and will fit.

[Ronin]

Fascinating information - Thank you for posting  

[Akeld]

12 hours ago, Roy W said:

I have several Coopermatch Series Rifles, including a 10rd Magazine version. 

The pressed steel Magwell is affixed to the action with a small bolt. The magazines have a sprung metal clip at the front to engage the Magwell.

Mine is currently fitted into a McMillan McHale stock (a la M85 ) and wearing a 6.5CM barrel.

Four stock bolts and two trigger bolts and it fits straight back into the original laminated stock.

Photos attached. Work carried out by Dave Wylde.

 

Thats a lovely rifle👍

[bluey6600]

Thanks for sharing this, have an AI AX and fascinating to hear/see more of the history of it's predecessors! Have the autobiography but more period pics are great!

And that converted rifle is very nice!

[RobinC]

My wife was in the GB national squad with Malcolm in the 70's and early 80's, and we were friends with him during his start in 300 mt, both the wife and I also shot 300 mts at the same time.

Not so much an AI but I remember he initially used a Wichita action rifle (I think?) I think also it was in a GX1 stock, but I'm not sure on the stock (it was 50 years ago!!). My wife and I were using Sportco 7.62 barrel and actions in Walther UIT style stocks for both 300 mt (with Hart free triggers), and with the Sportco 1500 gm trigger in for TR, she made the Queens final with hers in 1979.

"Around" the same time, Malcolm built her a Wichita action 300 mt in a copy GX1 stock which I had made. I have no knowledge of any AI other than the very first one, that he built from a Walther Jagd blank for himself, I never shot that one at the time, but certainly handled it and saw it, and discussed it with him

Roll forward to 2011, the wife and I, after a break returned to initially TR then 300 mt, she wanted to return with as close as she had back in the day, and rather, as then when we had replica GX1 stocks made I looked for her to find a GX1 stock that I could put some thing in, she wanted initially another Sportco action in it.

My first port of call was old friend Bill Welch, Bill had run as a Walther importer for years, and he had also been a good friend and sales manager for the now late Malcolm. Oh, and Bill certainly had a GX1 stock!!

It was the original stock from Malcolm's very first Jagd special, the very first AI!!!!  When Malcolm built his second one, the original action went into a Walther UIT stock for his wife Sarah, (that complete rifle is now in a museum in New Zealand, Sarah's, now home) and the stock sat first in the shop at Portsmouth, then much later when it all closed it ended up in Bill's loft! Where it had sat for very many years'

Bill was getting older and he wanted to preserve the history, but also did not want it to go to any one, especially to end up with a scope and  bipod, and sprayed black! He had already given it to one person who turned out to be not what he thought, and managed to rescue it back just as the guy was taking off the EC stickers!!!

As my wife had been in the squad with Malcolm, and we both knew him well,and my wife had actually won her firsts International medal in a GB ladies team with Sarah, we were deemed to be worthy holders of it, and promised to honour it. Bill passed away before I finished building it

The stock and bedding were just as Malcolm had taken that first action out, and it was a glass bedding upon an alloy block deeply bedded into the Walnut stock. I wanted to rebuild it as a full shooting rifle, and the search started for an action, no chance of getting one of the genuine early Jagd based AI ones, so I looked for some thing similar.  I by luck fell upon a very early round Keppeler, Hmmm? The action diameter was identical to the bedding, and the action screw holes similar, not exact, and the recoil lug was different,  but it was from around the same time,  and a very low number and early Keppeler.

It was rumoured that Dieter Keppeler who was a Walther designer at the same time, so he would have known Malcolm well, had started building his own full bores in his home workshop whilst still employed at Walther around the same time!!  Coincidence? The plot had certainly thickened! The action needed a lot of work to make it safe and working (entrusted to Mik at Dolphin) with a new Bartlein barrel as we wanted to shoot it, we chose 6 mmbr calibre for that reason not Malcolms favoured 7mm 08, although I remember he aften switched barrels and shot 7.62 at times, and I fitted it into the original stock

Both the wife and I both shot 300 mt (and still do) and at that time we both used modern Keppelers, and we had close ties with the then new Keppeler buisness, Dieter Keppeler had long gone. I took the action the next time we went there to Keppeler in Fichtenburg in Germany, I was struggling with extractor issues, and wanted some help and parts, and........ they said, we don't have any, its not a Keppeler what ever its stamped! Its a Walther, made from a Walther jagd blank!!!!! 

We'll never know if Malcolm and Dieter Keppeler discussed it,  but I bet they did, and both thought, Hmm that's a good idea!! Later on the same trip, we took it to Walther at Ulm, where we also have friends and history (the wife again!), and they confirmed , yes its not a Keppeler, it's built from a Walther Jagd!!! They would have liked it for their museum as they did not have a Malcolm Rifle and he won so much with them including two Olympic golds, so may be a place for it later.

We used it several times, my wife shot it at local club TR shoot at 300 yds, shot a 50.10 and hit the marker disc wire with 8 of the ten shots so was not popular with the markers, the rifle and the lady can shoot, and we both shot it on the odd 300 mt shoot at Bisley, where the late Malcolm set several of the British records with that rifle.

But it was spending too much time in my security cabinet, we are getting older, no way could I sell it, I was haunted by how so many people have no understanding of history and dreaded what could happen to it, so we decided it was bound for donation to a museum, but which one?

Walther wanted it, BUT, their museum was a private one, and with brexit travel with firearms was not so easy, or the NRA museum, its in the UK and its Bisley where both Malcolm and it set so much history. So after discussions with the curator and agreed some conditions, such as it will never be sold, and must be on display, we donated it, and there it sits today, the museum is open on Tuesdays, go and have a look, its not the original action, but the stock is, its as used by our old late friend, and sits there as a tribute to him.

The Rifle in the NRA Museum & My wife testing it at TR at 300 yds.

 

[Ronin]

Thank you Robin for that detailed update into your own history and that of Malcom Cooper and AI 

 

Here is a link to Robins article from the NRA journal with some further images 

https://nra.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/NRA35.Summer2020d.pdf

 

[Gandy]

V interesting thanks for posting. 

[Roy W]

The attached photo shows a selection of Accuracy International Target Rifle stocks.

The top is from an AI/SS ***** serial numbered square action.

The others are all from Coopermatch PalmaMaster rifles from 1995 & 1996.

Except the bottom one, which is from the 10rd Magazine fed action, now in the McMillan stock.