Modern Rook rifle

[308Jeff]

Love it!

[TexasGrunt]

That's sweet. If I had the ability I'd do one in .22 Hornet.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

That is a beautiful little rifle, and should be highly practical for its intended purpose. I'd much prefer it to a .22WRM or the .17 rimfires. I think the reference above to weak break-open firearms was to break-open revolvers, and you would have no difficulty at all with SAAMI maximum pressure and any sound .410. So with slower than pistol powders you could get slightly higher velocity. It will be easier to reload, with inexpensive tooling and components, than the heel-bullet original rook rifle rounds.

The lightened stock takes me back to the first firearm I ever handled, a light Belgian .410. It might have benefited with slightly more wood around the hole, for how heavy is wood anyway? An inch or two more in the barrel wouldn't have made its folded length any greater, but those abodyre just details.

For me pistol and even Scout scopes are too far forward. Jeff Cooper's concept of open left eye doesn't work at all for me, as I don't have binocular vision. But for it to work really well for anybody, I think it has to be close to unitary power. If it doesn't, you just have a small picture.

I have a 2.5x Tasco Bantam scope, now discontinued but appearing occasionally on eBay, which was available in versions both tube-diameter and wider at the front end. It was inexpensive but one of China's better efforts on quality, and although it has a 1in. tube is short enough not to dwarf a small rifle. The great thing is that it has a 5½in. eye relief, which for me makes it about ideal for a small Martini or break-open rifle. I've seen apparently identical scopes on the market without the Tasco name (a thing about as common as it used to be in Birmingh am and Liège, but I don't know about the eye relief.

A couple of things about scope mounting become easier with this gentle little rifle. If you are lining an existing .410 barrel, you could drill all the way into the bore for scope mounts first. Or if a one-piece mount fits well, soft solder alone should hold it. This isn't a rifle you are going to get overheated.

[nekshot]

Looks great, a personal dream brought to completion! Boy do I want a bunch of those scopes!!!! Check book says NO.

[Buckshot Bill]

That is a beautiful little rifle, and should be highly practical for its intended purpose. I'd much prefer it to a .22WRM or the .17 rimfires. I think the reference above to weak break-open firearms was to break-open revolvers, and you would have no difficulty at all with SAAMI maximum pressure and any sound .410. So with slower than pistol powders you could get slightly higher velocity. It will be easier to reload, with inexpensive tooling and components, than the heel-bullet original rook rifle rounds.

The lightened stock takes me back to the first firearm I ever handled, a light Belgian .410. It might have benefited with slightly more wood around the hole, for how heavy is wood anyway? An inch or two more in the barrel wouldn't have made its folded length any greater, but those abodyre just details.

For me pistol and even Scout scopes are too far forward. Jeff Cooper's concept of open left eye doesn't work at all for me, as I don't have binocular vision. But for it to work really well for anybody, I think it has to be close to unitary power. If it doesn't, you just have a small picture.

I have a 2.5x Tasco Bantam scope, now discontinued but appearing occasionally on eBay, which was available in versions both tube-diameter and wider at the front end. It was inexpensive but one of China's better efforts on quality, and although it has a 1in. tube is short enough not to dwarf a small rifle. The great thing is that it has a 5½in. eye relief, which for me makes it about ideal for a small Martini or break-open rifle. I've seen apparently identical scopes on the market without the Tasco name (a thing about as common as it used to be in Birmingh am and Liège, but I don't know about the eye relief.

A couple of things about scope mounting become easier with this gentle little rifle. If you are lining an existing .410 barrel, you could drill all the way into the bore for scope mounts first. Or if a one-piece mount fits well, soft solder alone should hold it. This isn't a rifle you are going to get overheated.

That is an excellent observation. The barrel was initially 19" but I had an "oops" and had to set the barrel back to 16.25". I could have actually made it 20" but at the time it still had the wire stock on it which was shorter. When I drew up the wood stock I added about 1" to the length of pull for a better fit and so the barrel started looking shorter and shorter! Luckily I was able to salvage the project while staying legal and not having to purchase another $100 barrel!

There are a couple different loads in my manuals, with the max charge increasing by up to 2 grn. I tried the hottest unique load given (for S&W hand ejector) and the action began to loosen within 10 shots so I stopped, tightened the action and went with the lowest max bullseye load in my manuals. The bullseye was more accurate than unique in this gun anyway and it hasn't rattled the gun apart in 500 shots so I think we are good to go. Velocity is still in the 825 fps range with a 98 grn wadcutter boolit, that should be more than enough to crack a cranium out to 50 yds or so.

[sharps4590]

Gotta love a Rook & Rabbit rifle. My W.J. Jeffrey relined to 25-20 WCF stands next to my bed ready for lawn and garden vermin. The bore was a sewer pipe and someone had already cut the 255 Jeffrey chamber to 25-20 so the collector value was pretty much gone. I wanted to go back to the 255 Jeffrey but that was immensely cost prohibitive....for me. Loaded down the 25-20 WCF was easy to match the 255 Jeffrey ballistics.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Gotta love a Rook & Rabbit rifle. My W.J. Jeffrey relined to 25-20 WCF stands next to my bed ready for lawn and garden vermin. The bore was a sewer pipe and someone had already cut the 255 Jeffrey chamber to 25-20 so the collector value was pretty much gone. I wanted to go back to the 255 Jeffrey but that was immensely cost prohibitive....for me. Loaded down the 25-20 WCF was easy to match the 255 Jeffrey ballistics.

My Army and Navy rook rifle went just the opposite way. It had been converted into a .410, and I lined it to .255 Jeffery. It is easily done with the standard .25-20WCF reamer about a tenth of an inch short, if you cut the rim recess separately, and grind the same amount off .25-20WCF dies. It uses any standard diameter .257in. bullet, inside lubed if it is cast.

[BAGTIC]

Yes but the head area for the .32 is greater so the breech thrust will probably be higher too. I have often thought the 32 ACP would be a good caliber and its brass is designer for higher pressures.

[Buckshot Bill]

yes thrust is higher that's why I stay with factory pressure loads

[PerpetualStudent]

No lathe or mill intrigues me. Drill press to cut the chamber?

[Buckshot Bill]

Chamber was cut by hand, as was the crown

[1989toddm]

How is the liner attached? Epoxy? It looks like maybe held by set screws but I find that hard to believe..

[Buckshot Bill]

green Loctite and two hidden cross pins (factory method of attachment) I went with set screws in the factory drilled picatinny rail holes as well but accuracy suffered so I got rid of them.

[Outpost75]

My Army and Navy rook rifle went just the opposite way. It had been converted into a .410, and I lined it to .255 Jeffery...

My Army & Navy was originally a .255 but had a badly pitted bore. John Taylor relined and rechambered it to .32 S&W Long and Lucas Geiger did the exterior restoration after the relining was done.

Attachment 194225

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Ah, the hammer ejector, four pounds ten shillings in their 1907 catalogue! Mine is the hammerless with top lever and tang safety at £8 or £10 according to finish, but I can see no advantage in use, and it doesn't have you beautiful refinish. I don't know if there are any competitions for rifles like these in the US, but I believe the presence of an external hammer, under as NRA Black Powder Cartridge rules, has the unusual property of changing the colour of the powder.

Both rifles were available as .250 or .300 (.295), and am sure the .250 was the .255 Jeffery. Cartridges were both black and smokeless, at four shillings (a fifth of a pound) and four shillings and threepence per hundred.

The Army and Navy Co-operative Society didn't make its own guns, but bought them in from the Birmingham trade, just as many genuine gunmakers did for part of their stock. Many were probably made by Webley. I don't know whether anybody could walk in and shop there, but it was a cooperative society of its shareholders, who received a dividend. They could be officers, warrant and non-commissioned officers, plus a fairly wide range of British and Indian civil servants and their dependents. About thirty years ago I was walking in Bombay and passed the then headquarters of the TATA industrial conglomerate, and saw the Society's name still engraved in the stonework. They recently restored it, and re-stored it into a department store again.

I dream sometimes of a really good English double .410, with the bore bad enough to be relined without vandalism, and cheap enough' to be worth replacing the short boy's stock most of them have. You would have to take a chance on barrel regulation, but a 2½in. .410 recoils very little, so it might be right. They aren't common, as it was more usual to start a boy with a 20ga. or eliminate your rats with a single. It is a hard fact that nobody really needs a .410.

[GARD72977]

Love to see the 32 cal rifles. Nicely done!