Quote:

---

Phil, that is a cool rifle. Looks great! A brother to my own, but I think better looking stock on this one.

Now, not to come across as an azz, just a student, but I ran a quick search for .404 Jeffery cartridge and came up with 1909 as the intro date. I wonder if this was an early Jeffery rifle in another caliber and was rebarreled to .404 by Jeffery later?

Neat rifle, no matter what.

---

The date of introduction of the .404 cartridge by Jeffery has been a topic for discussion for some time with confusion of what was the true date.

What seems to be the accepted facts now is that 1905 was the date of introduction of the first rifles in the then new cartridge designed by Jeffery made up on a standard M98 action, this is coming mainly from a copy of a page from an early catalogue that has been posted on this and other forums before, advertising "The New .404 Rifle - Jeffery Mauser Magazine Rifle 1905 Model".

It seems generally accepted that 1909 was the date when Mauser made magnum actions available to the general trade instead of exclusively through Rigby as had been the case up until then and was possibly the same date that the Type A Oberndorf Sporting Mausers in .404 were introduced by the Mauser factory. Hence once these rifles hit the market the date 1909 was the one commonly referred as the introduction of the .404J.

Some other research on development of the cartridge has backed up the true date more likely being 1905, making the .404J the first of the true big bore dangerous game nitro cartridges made for the bolt action.

Post Extras