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Thank you for your comments. The .280 Ross is certainly on the lighter side of what we typically expect to see in cartridges for double rifles, as compared to the 9.3X74R and larger Nitro Express rounds. Being the first 7mm magnum cartridge supposedly breaking the 3000 ft/sec mark the .280 Ross was really something at the time. Winning the famous Bisley international matches in 1908, 1912 and 1913 (King's Prize) plus many other prizes in different competitions on both sides of the Atlantic made it all the rage around the time the subject double rifle was probably being ordered. It wasn't long before the .280 Flanged was introduced to be used in double rifles. British doubles in .280 Flanged show up now and again. One showed up for sale on the Internet a week or so after I bought my .280 Ross. The problem with the cartridge was the bullet manufacturing technology at the time was behind that of the performance capabilities of the new smokeless powders. As Chuck Hawks put it "even with the relatively fast burning burning smokeless powders available in 1906 it was possible to drive bullets at speeds beyond their ability to provide reliable terminal performance. In other words, hunting bullets fired at high velocity from .280 rifles would sometimes fragment and fail to penetrate into a vital area". Today with the high quality bullets available for the .280 Ross from Hawk Precision Bullets, Horneber cases, modern primers, and powders such as IMR-4350 I should do just fine. Finding the right load to get both barrels shooting to my satisfaction should make for a good time on the range. As the .280 Ross was a "reach out and touch someone" cartridge I'm not at all surprised that the subject piece was fitted with a scope. For me it's one of those good and bad situations to deal with. The bad side of having the scope mounts is the rear mount covering some of the inlay work on the barrel breeches. Then again, what does one do when he has ordered a rifle chambered for a round that was originally designed for mountain hunting as a "stalking rifle" combination for the red stag of the Scottish crags which is much the same as our western sheep and goat hunting (note the sheep engraved on right side panel of the subject rifle). We're talking a round that when configured with a 180 grain was claimed to have a trajectory height of 3 1/2" at 300 yards and groups of only a bit over 4" at 500 yards were claimed in a 1910 .280 Ross Match Rifle. The word "claimed" is used quite often in articles about the .280 Ross cartridge and rifle but then again one has to go back to the international matches of 1908, 1912, and 1913 to figure much of it had to be fact. It's still a double rifle and not a single barrel match rifle but I have the feeling most of us can imagine what the guy who had the subject piece made was thinking, and it's pretty too!

If I do take it hunting some day the first thing I'm going to do is harvest some Russian boar loins the way the early German gunsmith's would have wanted me to.

Best regards,

Marcus

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Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call today his own:
He who, secure within, can say,
Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.

- John Dryden

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