A late post, to answer 470Rigby’s request for details of my .400 Jeffery.

The serial number is 25589, and the 4-digit number on the barrels is 3362. There is also a small letter ‘A’ obscurely stamped on the barrels near the forend-loop, and I have been told that Andrews may have made the barrels or indeed the entire rifle. It is chambered for the .400S, or Jeffery’s .450/.400 3-inch cartridge.

Seeking more info on the provenance of this double, I sent off a request to Paul Roberts some time ago, and he duly forwarded it to the US owner of the Jeffery records with the next batch of enquiries. Some time later, I received an e-mail from the US informing me that the information had been copied from the Jeffery records, and could I please provide a postal address for the extract. My return e-mail containing the postal address encountered fatal delivery errors!

I informed Paul of these developments, and he undertook to chase it up, but I have heard nothing more. Repeated attempts to reply-email the US party have received the same ‘undeliverable’ error. It just kills me to think that the info on my rifle has been extracted from the records and was actually sitting in an envelope waiting to be posted! Perhaps its time I chased this up again.

Regarding the ‘Maharajah gun’ nick-name, it has been universally applied to all Jeffery guns with the ‘prowling tigers’ engraving for as long as I can remember. It is clear that these guns were intended for India, and although often regarded as ‘working’ box-locks, many (including mine) have chopper-lump barrels, moon sights, Southgate ejectors, fully-engraved trap grip-caps, doll’s-head with third bite, bushed strikers, etc etc. It is clear that they are a level above the normal No.3 Pattern guns, more in line with the No.4 'Best quality' Pattern, and the speculation is that they were intended primarily as the ‘working guns’ within a Maharajah battery. On an organised tiger-shoot, for example, all visiting dignitaries would be given a double rifle, and assigned to an elephant, in order to participate in the hunt.

My own example bears the number ‘29’ boldly engraved on the oval, and Paul Roberts agreed that this is most likely a Maharajah rack-number. I’d like to have seen numbers 1 through 10!

Originally it was thought that the naļve engraving of the tigers (ie their-‘boof-headed’ appearance) was due to the fact that British engravers had not seen a real tiger, and were modelling them on pussy cats! There is now apparently some evidence to suggest that they may have been requested in that style, reminiscent of many of the carvings and engravings on Hindu temples etc.

If anyone can shed factual light on the origins of Jeffery’s ‘prowling tigers’ engraving, I would certainly be pleased to hear it! I only have the 1910/11 catalogue, owners of a later version may have more to add on these fascinating doubles.