Hello All,

I've recently acquired another Dangerous Game rifle that has an interesting story.

Back in June, this rilfe was originally posted on Gun Broker as follows. I've abridged the ad and pictures below.

As you can see, it was a "no reserve" auction with a buy-it-now of $5,500, and an opening bid of only $4,000. I was somewhat surprised that nobody had bid, as I thought a Magnum Square Bridge Action alone, would be worth well over the $4,000 opener.

The photos in the auction were not the best, so I emailed the seller and asked for additional photos. Of those he sent, one showed the left side receiver was marked as "MAUSER-WERKE ASTORIA ^C". Although I'm not a Mauser expert, I consider myself more knowledgeable than most, and have a lot of Mauser reference books.

I had never seen such a marking. Although there are many different Mauser stampings, the standard marking for Mauser-Werke was "Mauser-Werke A.G.OBERNDORF ^N" like shown below.

I searched through every single Mauser book in my Library. And after all the searching, I was unable to find any such marking in any of the books. This was a real puzzle.

The seller also told me that the top of the barrel was marked; "S.KING - E.ATKINSON ASTORIA, OR". Searching the internet for these two names and similar barrel marks, also proved fruitless.

I was now convinced that this was NOT an original Mauser Square Bridge action, and related this opinion to the seller. I indicated I still had interest in the 416 Rigby rifle, but only as a "shooter" and not as an original Mauser, and surely NOT at the expected asking price he had. I made a significantly lesser offer for the rifle - and that offer was quickly turned down.

"End of Story".