Good Old Days - An Excellent Rifle for Rs. 300

[miroflex]

There was a time when India was the destination market for many well made guns. A .404 for around Rs. 350......

"Mahomedally Noorbhoy" are they still around?

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My Mauser made around the same time i.e. early 1920's, no complaints about the quality of this gun for Rs. 300, it still functions flawlessly after nearly a 100 years.

Herb

It is surprising that all the three calibres popular at that time viz. .280, .318 and .404 have almost vanished from the scene today.

Regards.

[Vikram]

It is surprising that all the three calibres popular at that time viz. .280, .318 and .404 have almost vanished from the scene today.

Regards.

The .404 has made a remarkable comeback with African safari hunters. It is used a good bit by those Australian buffalo/pig hunters too.


Best-
Vikram

[miroflex]

Hello Vikram,

I agree that the .404 Jeffery has made a remarkable comeback, especially in Africa. The other two cartridges are still languishing far behind and have almost vanished from the scene. The reasons for the fall in their popularity are not very clear although the break up of the British Empire was certainly a major contributing factor. This, coupled with the introduction of equivalent American cartridges, resulted in the decline of once popular European cartridges. A case in point is the sharp decline in the once popular 9 mm Mannlicher Scoenauer rifle cartridges.

Regards.

[winnie_the_pooh]

Rs.300 was a LOT of money in those days.I am sure not many had the spare cash to buy a rifle.

[shooter50]

Very few had the cash and fewer were allowed a license. BTW that 404 in the Mantons catalogue is built on a single square bridge M98 Magnum Mauser action, a rare piece, more common being 404s on opened up standard length M98 actions. I wonder what the Vickers model is and why it costs double?
All the best

[miroflex]

Very few had the cash and fewer were allowed a license. BTW that 404 in the Mantons catalogue is built on a single square bridge M98 Magnum Mauser action, a rare piece, more common being 404s on opened up standard length M98 actions. I wonder what the Vickers model is and why it costs double?
All the best

Hi Shooter50,

I too wonder at the difference in prices between the Mauser, Manton and Vickers brand names at Rs. 300, Rs. 350 and Rs. 625 respectively. Could it be due to better sights and stocks being fitted to the more expensive models? I would welcome any thoughts on this.

Regards.

[miroflex]

Hi,

Does anyone in this forum own a .404, apart from Herb?

Regards.

[dr.jayakumar]

okay,i'll double the amount,wil you give me the rifle...joking
beautiful gun.
dr.jk

[Sakobav]

herb

280 winchester is making a come back as a good deer hunting rifle now it could be different from original 280 by brits and 7mm x 08 has same characteristics I am looking into the latter since it has great load variety and acceptable recoil
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.280_British
Cheers

[timmy]

Based on Pritam's assumption of gold being the best factor to correlate prices and Bowman's tabulation of gold prices, a rifle costing Rs.350 in 1925 would cost Rs.2,96,000 today. So, would a new rifle cost 3 lakhs today?

Gold is a reasonable indicator, but now that the world has gone off of the gold standard, gold prices are driven by a combination of demand and speculation, rather than international finances, as they were before. Also, closing the Indian economy to imports does have the effect of driving up prices, as was noted, but this must be compared to the Raj economic situation of British goods having preference to anything else: In other words, the Indian market was more free with regard to firearms in 1925, but not completely free, as British policy had built-in protectionism from non-British goods.

A third skew I'd like to mention regards demand in the market, which was alluded to: The goods in 1925 (speaking of fine firearms only) were high priced goods that would have certainly been a luxury trade, given the economic situation of the great bulk of the population. So there would have been a number of British manufacturers of guns who were chasing the rupees of a very few well-heeled customers in India. This would tend to depress the prices of goods, I think, compared to today, where a larger segment of the population would have the disposable income needed to purchase a firearm.

So, to summarize my last point, 1925 would have a number of British gunmakers, and to a lesser extent, some non-Empire gunmakers, chasing the rupees in the pockets of a few well-heeled customers in India. Today, there is a much larger potential market for guns (many more people could afford them), but far fewer sources of guns, and practically only one source for new ones. These factors depress 1925 prices and inflate 2012 prices, I think.

Having expelled all of that hot air, you have a beautiful rifle there, Herb! Thanks for sharing those pics! You say it functions perfectly -- stuff was certainly built to last in those days!

[TwoRivers]

herb

280 winchester is making a come back as a good deer hunting rifle now it could be different from original 280 by brits and 7mm x 08 has same characteristics I am looking into the latter since it has great load variety and acceptable recoil
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.280_British
Cheers

.280 Winchester? No such animal around. What cartridge did you have in mind? .280 Remington, perhaps?

[Ruari]

Herb,

That's a very fine rifle and congratulations to you and those that have looked after it over the years.

Great catalogue too, any chance of some more from it, especially British arms?

[herb]

Herb,

That's a very fine rifle and congratulations to you and those that have looked after it over the years.

Great catalogue too, any chance of some more from it, especially British arms?

Ruari - Few pictures that might interest you...



Some pictures from the Charles Lancaster catalog...









Herb

[miroflex]

Hi Herb,

The Lancaster-Mauser rifle supplied to HM King George V and to HRH The Prince of Wales seems to be chambered for the path breaking .280 Ross cartridge. The round seems to have achieved more popularity than the Ross straight pull bolt action rifle for which it was designed. I wonder why it has faded from the scene after achieving remarkable popularity and success as an all round cartridge particularly for deer sized game. It seems to have been largely supplanted by a variety of 7 mms and the .308.

It is unlikely to see a revival although the Russians had tried to popularise the .280 cartridge after the Second World War for big bore rifle shooting in international competions. What a pity as it is a fine and versatile cartridge even if the rifle it was designed for was flawed.

Regards.

[shooter50]

That 280 is for the 280 Ross on a Mauser action, a great Canadian design originally intended to replace the military .303 rifles with its straight pull action. The design was flawed in that it enabled the bolt to be reassembled in a wrong configuration with the result that when such a rifle with a wrongly assembled bolt was fired the bolt came straight back in the shooters face !!!
Nothing wrong with the cartridge though, it were the bullets that were to blame. The cartridge had great case capacity enabling upto 3000fps with 140 grain bullets. But bullet technology was not prepared for these velocities in the first decade of the 20th century. The bullets simply fragmented when they hit the animal causing a large superficial wound. It was ok with deer and antelope class animals but when it came to hunting the thin skinned dangerous game like lions and leopards that the cartridge acquired a bad reputation. The nail on the coffin was when in 1911, George Grey brother of Lord Grey the then British foreign secretary on a hunt in Kenya fired 5 rounds from his magazine 280 Ross (Similar to the one shown) into a charging Lion. The Lion did not stop and George Grey died in hospital.
The arrival of the 270 win in 1925 practically ended the 280 Ross, though with modern bullets there is much that this cartridge could achieve
All the Best