Category: The Gun Thing

Once more, that Evil Purveyor Of Death Steve Barnett shows us this (albeit misspelled) offering:

I talked a little but about the joys of single-shot hunting back here, and honestly, the rifle above touches all my buttons:  history, heritage, challenge, and peerless reliability.  Also, it looks wonderful.  (Here’s the whole story on this rifle and action type, and looking at this particular one, the “NP” — No Patent — stamp means it’s most likely a Gibbs-made rifle rather than an original Farquharson.)

The Farquharson action has been much copied, most recently by Ruger for its No. 1:

…and subsequent models of the same ilk.  But if you do a side-by-side comparison, the older rifle has it over the Ruger by a country mile.  Is that difference worth about $12,000?  Maybe not, but then someone who wants to buy a different rifle (that “history, heritage, challenge, and peerless reliability” thing) isn’t going to worry about such trifles.

Me, I’ll stick to my Browning High Wall — Chuck Hawks compares the Ruger and Browning here — but were I to venture into single-shot-dangerous-game hunting, I’d have to get something else, because the High Wall was never issued in anything larger than .45-70 Govt, and certainly not in the monster .577 NE.  (I suspect that the High Wall could handle the larger cartridge, but I’d only test it on someone else’s gun.)

Not that I’m ever likely to want to shoot the .577 NE, of course.  The Winchester .458 Magnum is about as high as (and maybe even a bit higher than) I would care to handle, according to my shoulder.

But for the collector, this Farq is lovely and in my opinion, worth every penny.

I knew I shouldn’t have done it, but there it is:  scarcely had I finished writing the last GGP when I continued down the rabbit hole that is Collector’s Antique Rifle department, and happened upon this H&H double rifle:

Ah, for heaven’s sake.

As for the chambering:  the .450/400 BPE (in the Gospel According To Frank Barnes) is akin, ballistically speaking, to the typical .450 black powder cartridges of the late 19th century and will put anything down at the shorter ranges.  Calling it the “400 Express”, however, introduces an element of confusion, because no such cartridge exists.  The .400 Nitro Express is the smokeless version of the above, and no doubt the rifle would be capable of handling it (always supposing it fits in the chamber).

Whatever:  this is a collector’s rifle, and as it’s been restored by H&H themselves and (assuming the cartridge confusion can be resolved) is a lovely gun worthy of any collection.

You can expect a lot more of this kind of post in the near future… somebody stop me.

As any fule kno, I am not an aficionado of the black-powder firearms genre, but that doesn’t mean I am averse to pics of same.  This particular beauty was made in the late 19th century — which is very definitely a period of history in which I am interested if not actually addicted to — and I love it.

As the action suggests, this is not a muzzle loader — by then, we’d definitely moved on to brass cartridges [snort of derision from Reader Mr. Lion et al.]  even though smokeless powder had not yet become a thing.  Had I access to a friendly reloader who could make me the ammo necessary, I would jump at it just for the historical sense alone.

Here’s a thought, however, if you didn’t want to shoot this fine old gun.

If you were looking for a piece of wall art — say, for over your house’s mantle piece — and you had a budget of around $12,000 for such an indulgence, would you consider this rifle over a contemporary painting?  Here are a couple of examples of what I’m talking about, by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot:

I have to tell you, I would be torn.

And I apologize if this discussion makes you want to run to the nearest gun store (or art gallery) and buy something.  (See the above two posts for the implication.)