Quote:

---

The quote below from Pondoro Taylor provides an example where the Vicker's 404 bolt action rifle was used but I cannot imagine native game scouts were armed with genuine magnum Mauser's when most of the other manufacturers of the day used standard M98 Mausers opened up for the 404 cartridge except of course Rigby who was the sole, and by all accounts expensive, agent for the Magnum Mauser in England until Mauser released the big action to the general trade. I had always imagined when reading references to the Vickers 404 Mauser that it was a standard M98 action but admittedly I have seen no evidence to confirm either way.

“The Game Warden of Tanganyika (now Tanzania) who started his hunting career shooting buffalo for their hides in Portuguese East (now Mozambique) with a rifle of this caliber, found it so entirely satisfactory that he has armed all of his native game scouts in the Elephant Control Department with Vickers’ .404 magazine rifles.”

---

The rifle has London proof marks which I would expect to see on a Vickers rifle. It has a four digit serial number which again I would expect to see, on a Vickers rifle.
I have only personally examined one Vickers branded - I say branded as they did not actually make them as such – rifle, and this was years ago before I was really interested in them. So I do not know for sure if they hand engraved the serial number on the trigger guard. This seems to be something a gunmaker/ retailer would do if they wanted to apply their own stock or serial number to the rifle, such as Wilkinson’s and other firms. I am not sure Vickers would need to do this as they were more of a wholesaler and manufacturer, selling guns to the trade.
If Vickers did sell the rifle I would have thought it would have “.242 Vickers” marketed as the calibre rather than the more generic “.242 Express”.
The marking of Cogswell & Harrison’s name and address on the barrel would seem to imply it went through their hands. The address indicating sometime between 1932 and 1939, so within the Vickers rifle production of 1920 to 1940. However, I do not see Cogswell’s buying off Vickers as they were selling a lot more centre fire sporting rifles than Vickers ever did.
Its interesting that Cogswell say they used a five digit serial number and not a four digit number. I have been keeping a data base of the brass one inch signal pistols made in the Great War by the trade, including, W.W. Greener, Webley & Scott, Chubb, Wolseley and Cogswell & Harrison. All of them started at S/N 1, except C&H who started at 50,001 for some unknown reason!

So there are more questions than answers really, lets hope some new information comes along one day.

Post Extras