doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Rook & Rabbit Rifle.

Many thanks for all your help. Lagopus.....

Old Farmer, Based on the research carried out by Colin Greenwood,[See his book, Classic British Rook and Rabbit Rifles] the most likely source for rook rifles with side lever action and octagonal barrel was; Richard Ellis,13 St Mary,s Row,Birmingham, 1879-1920. Richard Ellis was purchased by Webley and Scott, Circa 1920.Webley and Scott also produced rook rifles with side lever opening,From their wholesale catalogue it can be seen that they featured a round barrel.

I have Colin Greenwood's book. It's a pity that he didn't get to one of our annual Rook rifle target shooting days as he would have had a lot more material in the way of unusual actions and examples to illustrate. Useful book non the less. Lagopus.....

Difficult to tell if mine always had half hex and half round or if it was rounded off when converted to a shotgun to improve handling - seems like a great deal of work to do on a relatively inexpensive gun when it will always be a conversion?
John

Old farmer, I have a splendid.410 H.&H.[Unfortunately] converted from a.25 rook rifle.A period H.&H. catalogue shows that this rifle had a full length octagonal barrel.On my gun the octagon has been turned off from the muzzle to finish at the breech end octagon similar to that seen on your Perrins.The purpose was of course to reduce weight and improve balance.
Nicholas Mackinson, a gun maker now resident in Canada,formerly with a shop on Price Street,Birmingham,told me that one particular U.K. dealer would bring "bundles" of Rook Rifles to his Birmingham shop,for conversion to .410,using same method as that seen on our guns!What A shame!!!

Roy
It probably seemed like a good idea at the time!!
John

That's exactly it. Rook rifles went for giveaway prices in the 70's as the messing about with having it on a Firearm Certificate and trying to justify it was just more trouble than it was worth when ammo was unavailable. Then they were declared as antiques which meant that there were no restrictions at all if they were not intended for use and now they cost an arm and a leg if original and in good order. I have an Ebrall Bros. RR converted to .410 around 1939/40. That is half octagonal and half round. I have handled a full octagonal .410 and it just did not balance right. Lagopus.....

I have a friend that has a Gibbs Farquharson that someone was thoughtful enough to fit with a Browning 20 gauge barrel. :-(

The rook rifles sure are cool. You rarely see them here in the US.

I note that Lagopus correctly identified his as having an "Octagonal" bbl. I can't recall that I have ever seen any gun with a "HEX" bbl. Well that is unless you count the "Bore" of a Whitworth, but I am speaking of the outside. A "Hex" bbl would look sorta odd no matter whether you turned the points to top & bottom or side to side.
For the record Hexagonal is 6 sided & Octagonal is 8 sided.