Resurrecting a Purdey rook rifle
After searching for a decade, the writer finally acquired a now-obsolete rook rifle. But could the Purdey, formerly the property of a 19th-century playboy, be adapted for muntjac?
Neil Cross explains how a vintage rifle – formerly the property of a 19th-century playboy – was adapted for muntjac
The British rook and rabbit rifle enjoyed its heyday between 1880 and 1910, when these elegant little weapons were produced by virtually every gunmaker in the country. Most of these rifles were crafted by the Birmingham trade and many fine examples were retailed by the leading London names, where they provided a useful source of income to supplement the production of best guns. For example, in 1887, Holland & Holland sold 371 rook rifles, compared with 186 shotguns and only 30 full-bore rifles. The popularity of its rook rifles was clear and they accounted for 11 full pages of Messrs Hollands’ catalogue that year. The craftsmanship and finish of these miniature rifles was carefully controlled in
The writer found this rook rifle in the Midlands; although converted to .410 it was in good condition, so he snapped it up. Following renovation, the rifle is now in .222 Stief calibre order to ensure that they lived up to the name on the rib. Holland’s ‘Royal’ model was a hammerless ejector that happily earned its place in the gunroom next to the Express rifles of the same pedigree. Examples of these top-end rifles in their original calibres are now scarce and highly sought-after.
The story of the rook rifle is the story of late Victorian society. Rook-shooting parties became popular at this time when members of the rural elite would sally forth to their rookeries in May to cull the young ‘branchers’ from the tops of the estate elms. This sport was especially popular with the ladies and
it became increasingly fashionable for the fairer sex to wield a lightweight miniature rifle in the pursuit of fledgling corvids. Fed by this trend, the trade in rook rifles flourished and no country house gunroom was complete without a dainty little rook rifle or two. However, by the outbreak of World War I, the story of the rook rifle was largely over. As Colin Greenwood puts it in his seminal book, The Classic British Rook and Rabbit Rifle: “The decline and demise [of the rook rifle] happened in the period between 1910 and the 1930s, when they were largely displaced by the cheap but efficient .22 rimfire rifles.”
As the sun set on the Edwardian era, so a brief but important chapter in the history of British gunmaking closed. By the 1960s, rook rifle ammunition, which was usually produced in .300 (Rook) was almost impossible to procure and many of these fine old pieces were either scrapped or bored out to make suboptimal .410 shotguns.
By 2016, I had spent a decade in the pursuit of a London-quality hammerless ejector rook rifle. I finally happened upon a pretty little Purdey side-lever ejector in the Midlands and snapped it up. Purdey sold very few of these rifles and although converted to .410 it was otherwise unmolested and in very tidy condition. A quick chat with the everhelpful Nick Harlow at Purdey revealed that the rifle was produced as a .300 single hammerless side-lever in 1889. It was delivered to South Audley Street with two others from P Webley & Son in Birmingham and was sold to the Greek millionaire playboy Pantia Ralli, who had just been given Ashtead Park in Epsom as a wedding present. The estate map clearly shows a large covert called Rookery Hill. Ralli became famous for inventing an off-road driving buggy (the original Ralli car) and living a very grand life, “keeping eight cars and an army of servants”. He paid 11 guineas for the rifle, which came cased and regulated with 1,000 rounds of Eley ammunition. The rooks must have been troublesome at Ashtead at that time.
The other two rifles in this trio both followed Purdey’s typically glamorous patronage, with one going to King Milan I of
By the
1960s, rook rifle ammunition was almost impossible to procure
Serbia, who abdicated at exactly the time that his rook rifle was delivered and took it into exile with him. The other rifle was bought by the 1st Earl Farquhar, who was a colourful friend of the Prince of Wales and became Lord Steward of the Household. He entertained lavishly at his Grosvenor Square home and when he died in 1923, he left large legacies to his friends, including members of the Royal Family, but was subsequently found to be £400,000 in debt and an undisclosed bankrupt. Burke’s Peerage describes him as: “a cavalier financier and conduit for subscriptions to party political funds (both Conservative and Lloyd George Liberal) by aspirants to titles. As the full extent of his irregular business life became apparent after his death, he was considered lucky to have escaped prosecution for fraud while alive.” One would imagine that rooks were the last thing on the errant earl’s mind in 1889.
My intention when I bought the Purdey was to return it to its rightful configuration as a rifle. However, the original calibre is somewhat purposeless in the modern age as nobody fires rifles into the sky to knock young rooks off their perches nowadays and the ammunition is both scarce and illegal on deer. What I wanted to create was a bespoke muntjac rifle that I could also take to Africa in pursuit of the ‘Tiny Ten’ miniature antelopes. The question was over which modern calibre would suit the rifle and deliver legal and lethal kinetic energy against muntjac (which are notoriously robust) and the small antelope (which are even tougher). The answer came from Darren Hartshorne of Midcounties Blacking in Lichfield. This innovative stalwart of the Midlands gunmaking trade pondered my issue for all of 30 seconds and then suggested an up-gunned .222 round, loaded specially for the job. He set about the challenge like a true enthusiast, relishing the uniqueness of the project. An excited Hartshorne telephoned me shortly afterwards to tell me that he had sourced a quantity of rimmed .222 Stief brass in Germany, which had been obsolete since before the war. He bought the lot. The joy of this discovery was that the original ejector could be retained in the
Purdey, rather than having to fabricate a new extractor system to grip rimless .222 cartridges. A beaming Hartshorne later told me that he was actually quite looking forward to that challenge as it would have been akin to clock making and a truly thorny little job. With a new barrel insert ordered from Walther Arms, the conversion began. The rifle was stripped, the action re-colour hardened and the furniture re-blacked to Harthorne’s impeccable standards. It was with a heightened sense of anticipation that I drove up to Lichfield on a glorious spring day to bench-fire it on the chronograph and devise an entirely new load for the little rifle.
Hartshorne had worked his magic on the Purdey, which looked like a brand-new rifle. The colour hardening had a period feel but gleamed with rich hues of cobalt and bronze. The original octagonal barrel now housed a 21st-century .222 insert and balanced beautifully, as it would have done in Ralli’s hands back in 1889. Like a pair of excited schoolboys we went to the test-bench and began loading cartridges, grain by grain to achieve the legal muzzle energy of 1,000ft/lb for muntjac in the UK. After about 10 rounds, Hartshorne hit the sweet-spot and we settled on a charge of H4198 propellant, driving a 50grn ballistic-tipped bullet. This was gentle to shoot and suited the feel of the old rifle but delivered enough punch to do the job legally and cleanly. Hartshorne loaded 100 cartridges, “to be getting on with”, and recorded the ballistic properties for future reference. It was a scene reminiscent of Scaramanga visiting his armourer in Macau to have his golden bullets loaded to suit his Golden Gun.
The rifle was fitted with a two-leaf Express-style rearsight, which I retained because it felt criminal to scope this elegant little rifle and the woodland stalking for which it was intended would be mostly up-close and personal. The sights were optimistically engraved for 100yd and 200yd, but Hartshorne crafted a new foresight blade to tally with the 100yd leaf. This proved to be perfect and with a little needle-filing, the rifle shot true to a 2in group at 80yd. What impressed me most was the sheer pointability of the rifle. Weighing in at under 5lb, it handled like a dream and felt ideal for quick shots in woodland glades.
When the time came for the rifle’s first outing on muntjac, the spring foliage was bursting mint-green into the Suffolk woods and that smell of the new season rose from crushed ramsons underfoot. The joy of woodland stalking in April and early May is that the cover is sufficient to mask an approach but not too thick to spy and shoot through. The second wood we entered always held muntjac and a good buck had been seen patrolling it recently. After a silent and deliberate stalk along the main ride, we glassed the open glade and there he was, in burnished chestnut, facing away from us at 40yd. The Purdey was up on the sticks and the safety was slipped off on a live target for the first time in perhaps a century. A low whistle brought the old buck instantly round to show his flanks and the ivory tips of his wickedly curved antlers. The little rifle rested easily behind the buck’s shoulder and the picture was perfect over the shallow V of the rearsight. As with most shots out stalking, it was barely perceptible as the trigger bit and the muntjac performed that telltale lurching leap that speaks of a round in the engine-room. The ballistic tip had done its work and the buck dropped dead after a short dash through the bluebells. The satisfaction of grassing the old buck with the Purdey on its first outing as a rifle again was immense.
Back in the larder, a full inspection of the carcase revealed almost faultless performance from the .222 round. This deadly little bullet had proven its mettle in textbook conditions on the quarry it was designed for. With minimal meat damage and good penetration and energy transfer, the round had performed exactly as I had hoped it would. With a summer of woodland stalking ahead and a trip to Africa planned for the autumn, the little Purdey should earn its keep as it did on the rooks of Ashtead Park back in 1889.
The satisfaction of grassing the old buck on the first outing was immense