Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Karamojo Bell's rifle for sale

Oh, how I wish I had 10 grand sitting around!!!

https://www.gunsamerica.com/9271499...ey-Richards-by-Thomas-Bland-and-Sons.htm

Valued at 100 grand if restored?? I smell a rat...only 10 k...humm
Why would you restore it..wouldn't you want every battle scar..

I thought it might be a 7 X 57 of his!

Well it is a double rifle.

Once when I was in a collectors firearms store, a beautiful Pre '64 M70 in my hands the clerk said "this rifle once belonged to the actor Clark Gable". Does that effect the price I said as I handed it back to him. I feel the same way about any celebrity's rumored property.
I wonder how much an autographed piece of paper would be worth?

Thought Bell used a bolt action .318?

Also,isn't the ammo for the .318, a 250 gr bullet?

I thought it was a 215 gr. bullet....

No matter, the 180 grainer, especially for a man who like " Long parallel sided bullets" raises a little red flag...


That plus the seller didn't know how to spell 'provenance'...

Don't be too hard on him Ingwe, he does know how to spell 'bullshit'.

From the link:



I have my copy of "Wanderings" to hand. In Chapter IX, Bell tells of his hunting in Liberia in 1911. "Here I landed with my little camp outfit and a decent battery, comprising a .318 Mauser and a .22 rook rifle."

More references to the .318 Mauser follow. The next chapters concern his hunting along the Bahr Aouk river between modern Chad and the CAR. "I had a .318 and a .22." One could suppose that the Bahr Aouk hunt took place directly after Liberia, but I don't see a date in my quick scan of the pages.

Bell recounts having double rifles in calibers above .40 in Africa, but says that he seldom used them after discovering the usefulness of, first, the .256, then the .275 (he sometimes called it a .276) and then the .318; all in bolt actions.

Bell may have once owned a .318 double, but I don't see a reference to it in "Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter." Maybe a closer reading could find it.

Bell didn't fully explain in his books a lot of what he did. In chapter XIII of "Wanderings" on "Buffalo", he wrote: "On one occasion when in want of meat I hit a cow buffalo in the lungs with a .22 high-velocity bullet."

Was it a Swift? He doesn't say. Doesn't say when he did it, either.

If he has a letter from Thomas Bland and Sons that shows WDM Bell took delivery of this rifle, then it's likely good. The old English gunmakers kept very good records. When W. J. Jeffery's was acquired by Holland and Holland, I asked H & H to research my Jeffery's. Not only did they oblige, but they produced the orginaly build ledger complete with the craftman's signature and gave me a copy of it. If they have something similar for the Bland, I'd be good with it.

The "$100k if restored" statement I'm sure was just a casual observation, as in "if this gun were built new today it would be a $100k gun". That's a bit inflated, but the price of H & H Royals and Purdy's aren't that far off.

On the other hand, $10k for ANY classic English double rifle in an over .30 caliber is a good price.

Think the 215 gr was used in the .303 British.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.318_Westley_Richards

Be damned,there was a 180 gr load for the .318.

318 from the Kynoch site:

318 Rimless Nitro Express

Developed by Westley Richards around 1910 for use in their Mauser type bolt action rifles this has been and still is a very popular round for use against non-dangerous game.

180gr2700 fps
250gr@ 2400 fps.
-------------------------
It is a rimless cartridge, so it would be unusual. Thomas Bland & Son no longer exist, but their records are kept by Woodcock Hill. They are on the net.

Also, a bespoke Holland or Purdy (sidelock) will run north of 200K...and quite a long waiting list.

Jorge I beat me to it, I owned a 318 W-R and 180 and 250 gr .330 dia bullets are what you use, its pretty much a hand loading deal now! At the time I thought it would be kind of cool to shoot and hunt with, that was short lived, you can get the same thing pretty much out of a 338-06, I just when back to my 338 winchester, less of a problem with finding or making ammo!

Woodleigh makes a 250 gr .330" soft and solid for the .318 WR.

Buyer beware...I'd like to see the letter of provenance.

180 grain bullet would be the proper "express" loading of that cartridge.

10k is a little over-priced for that rifle without provenance. With solid provenance, 10k is comfortably under-value for that rifle.

So since it seems to fall somewhere in the middle, it makes me wonder about how solid the provenance is.

Always buy the gun, not the story.

If indeed its Bell's rifle and regulated for the 180 Express loading, its highly doubtful it ever got used on elephant....would make a good meat gathering rifle, and he did plenty of that.

The provenance would be something very easy to verify by serial number and Bland's records that are readily available as I posted above. That said, according to the seller there is a letter with a supposedly very clear trail, that and the fact Taylor's RIDICULOUS idea of ejectors making noise so he had them disconnected in his doubles lends credence.

Bell didn't have a lot of love for doubles.
he complained of dirt and dust getting into them and vegetation preventing them from being snapped shut.

Those Brits know how to put a double together, don't they?

Beautiful.

Seems to now be sold or removed...

I remember in one of Bell's books him talking about a 318 double that he discontinued using because it would split cases. Turns out later, when checked, one of the chambers was oversize.

I could totally be misremembering though.