Diana 24 T01 (pop-up breech)

Diana 24 T01 (pop-up breech) 

With thanks to a collector. He says: "Here we have a Diana underlever rifle with an interesting pop-up loading port. The cylinder is stamped Model 24 T01. The stock has been made by scarfing together two donor stocks. The wood is covered with inletting and filled holes....all beautifully done. The cylinder clearly began life as a 24, but was then fused to an experimental breech. The Diana logo is faint and broken and probably suffered when the rifle was re polished and reblued on completion. The HW77-style foresight/underlever clasp block appears to have been hand filed from a solid block of plastic or resin. There is provision for an open sight to be fitted, but the scope rails are not deep enough to hold mounts....perhaps enlarging/deepening these rails came at a later stage in production, which this cylinder did not reach....an interesting experimental piece from M&G."