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Here is a couple of fotos of old Barella double rifle. It has quite interesting history because it´s proprietary owner was a man named Ernst Edvard Rosengvist, birth 1869 in Helsinki and dead 1932 in Kuopio, both cities in Finland. He engaged in Finnish shooting team in 1912´s Stockholms Olympics. This team got bronze medal in one-shot team running target shooting match. The running (red-)deer target was shot at a range of 100m then. There were both event for firing a single shot per run and two shots per run, additionally individual and team contests.

So you can see the rifle has two pair of barrels; the original one and an another which were made later in Germany by E. Schmidt & Habermann. The original caliber was marked as 118,35 which is a gauge number like german makers use only for shotguns now, number of lead balls to the British pound. According to the 1893 German proof law it was used at the proofhouse for the bore diameter, not rifling or bullet diameter, of the barrel. Marked "118,35" means that a cylindrical plug of 8.64 mm passed the bore, but a "108,49" = 8.89 mm one did not. As these old gauge numbers were replaced by mm measurements in 1912, these barrels were proofed before 1912. These barrels were certainly the ones used by Mr. Rosenqvist in the 1912 olympics.
It seems that 7x57R case fits to these original barrels chamfer so the real caliber probably is 9x57R or 9,3x57R. The later made pairs caliber is 7x57R and the owner said that it shoots with light bullets quite well.

The stock what you can see in these pictures was made here in Finland about 15 years ago. The original was ruined because nowadays owners father was left handed person and he had converted the wooden parts quite too much.

It seems too that those sights in 7 mm barrel were made later by some local gunsmith here in Finland. In 9 mm barrel the most high one rear leaf was assisted later too.

I and the rifles owner want to thank mr Kuduae and mr Lancaster for help to solve the mystery of original barrels caliber markings.

(Those barrels in the first foto seems to bend but it´s only fotografers mistake)

Original barrels markings

...and it´s sights

7 mm barrels

...and the sights

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Edited by CptCurl (23/04/12 09:35 PM)

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