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On the copy of the Jeffery records I have seen at Champlin Firearms, almost all of the barrelled actions were acquired from Leonard. Page after page listed Leonard.

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the firm also built many guns and rifles for Daniel Fraser, whose guns often exhibit the several variations of the shaped boxlock action found on Jeffery rifles

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Assigning makers by vitue of the shape of an action is somewhat problematic. For example, here are what I would call fairly typical Dan'l Fraser double rifles;

Firstly a BPE;



and a pair of typical .303 doubles;



None of them look like the so-called typical Leonard/Jeffery/A.Hollis rifles shown elsewhere in this thread!

Now, here is a Jeffery rifle attributed to Leonard, from your source, "Birmingham Gunmakers" by Douglas Tate;



Note that flat action back - a bit different to Rusty's typical Leonard rifle??? In fact, I once owned a Jeffery rifle that was identical to this rifle, and it was also a dead ringer to a Wilkes .470 that I believe is currently in the possesion of another poster on this forum.

Upshot of all this?? IMO - attibuting "gunmakers" on the basis of the shape of the action is fraught with danger.

BTW - Donald Tate was born in Newcastle-on-Tyne, England and worked in the graphic arts industry in London, Sydney and New York until he was 40, after which he became a Seattle-based Gundealer. A knowledgeable man he might be, but I would have liked to see more acknowledgements of his source material in his book, rather than simple regurgitation of some "urban legends" that have been put about, particulaly by some US based "gunwriters"!

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Since Jeffery used a lot of Krupp barrels for his double rifles, it could be assumed that few were bought in as barreled actions, which would seem to excude Leonard as a major source.

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I too am used to seeing a round doll's head with no third fastener on Jeffery rifles.

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the 333 being built, say, on the same frame as a 450/400

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the shotguns are said to have come from John Saunders

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Here is an entry from Jeffey's 1908 Order Ledger that lists nine 12 bore shotguns and one 10 bore, consecutively numbered.


A few intersting observations;

* All are shown as made by "Leonard".

* The ten shotguns were made over a period of nine months(from 28 Jan - 15 Sep) - little more than one gun per month. Doesn't seem enough? Perhaps he sourced from other suppliers and kept their records in a different ledger?

* Shotguns were still being made with Damascus barrels as late as 1908!

* One 23/4" gun was made with a "plain" dolls head (i.e no 3rd fastener) - obviously to handle the heavier charge, but not others! And the same approach would have been taken with double rifles, with some rifles of the same chambering being given a third fastener, but not others. Perhaps it depended on what actions were in stock at Leonard's - or maybe on the buyers chequebook! Whatever, there were probably no hard and fast rules to this!

Is has to be realised that the British Guntrade just didn't pump these guns out like Winchester rifles. Each gun was hand-made - and how it ended up probably depended on what was in the parts bin.

Maybe - one day, someone will write a book about the real story behind the British Guntrade?

In the interim, do any other members have any Jeffery shotguns with documentation that they could report on?


Edited by 470Rigby (10/01/05 12:23 AM)

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