Apart from Mausers and Mannlicher Sporting rifles, quite a few Belgian made DB rifles were sold in in India. I know this because I have seen such rifles that have been imported into Australia from India. Also, as you will see from the 1926/27 Manton catalogue, they were selling Over and Under rifles of obvious Continental origins. This rifle is very reminiscent of Merkel rifles.

Now, I can't vouch for how many were sold, or whether many found their way into "Maharaja's" Armouries, but the British certainly did not have the market to themselves.

As for Anglophobic Rulers, it is true that the British did subdue the recalcitrant rulers after the Mutiny of 1857, but I don't recall them being univerally converted into English lackeys! Even dear old Duleep Singh, who was virtually raised by Queen Victoria, and who features in all the books on Pre-Edwardian Game Shooting, eventually turned against the British and left in the late 1880's to conspire with the Germans, the Russians, the French or whoever would help him in his ultimately futile attemt to regain the Kingdom that that he was stripped of by the British.

In the context of that time, European politics was extremely volatile (Germany was even in alliance with Britain!), and much of this had a knock-on effect to the British colonies.

As for boycotts on buying British guns, I did read this somewhere, but being of advancing years, I'm afraid my diminished mental faculties cannot remember where! Probably in "Lives of the Indian Princes","Plain Tales of the Raj","Princely India", or some such. When time permits, I shall trawl through my library to see if I can find it.

Regards,
470R