Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Lion gun

This it?

Interesting.. Style seems to be a cross between C and D, and with a lion rather than deer/buffalo. More info, anybody's?

I kind of got a chuckle when I saw the caliber. What was up with Savage, big cats and the .22 HP? Just kidding...

S99VG,

In the pre-WWII era some really unlikely quarry was taken by the ,22 Savage Imp. (The .22 SAV is known as the 5.6x52R in Europe.) = One skilled lady tiger hunter (whose husband was a COL, Indian Army) took MANY leopards & tigers with her little rifle by shooting them in the ear.

Author Robert C. Ruark (who was then a LT, USNR with the Armed Guard) was "frequently entertained by the COL & her" when he was on liberty, near their retirement home in the UK.
Ruark later said in a newspaper article after WWII that, "She was a dead shot with her rifle & saw no reason to use any heavier caliber."
He later said, in one of his books on hunting, that if a person shoots that well they can take big game with most any firearm.

Also, W.D.M. "Karamoja" Bell reportedly took several Cape Buffalo with his rifle in that caliber. Of course, COL Bell routinely took many elephants with a .275 Rigby (the same as a 7x57mm Mauser) bolt-action rifle.

yours, tex

Yes sir that is the rifle! So the fest was 2007?

Any more pictures of her?

Sticky my nose in where I have little experience... but looking at the simple lines engraving between the double ovals (which seem spaced to much) and on the rear edge of the receiver I would not think it was Tue's work. I think he paid more attention to that type of detail. There also appears to be some small areas engraved where he normally would not do any. This opinion is based only on having seen pictures though.

I'd be happy to add that rifle to my collection with whatever information comes with it, then, go on the hunt, search, verify, etc.
Serial number/time period? Letter? would be helpful.

I'm not an engraving expert either, but learning as I go. The devil is in the detail.
The beauty here is, we can pop open Calhoun's other thread and do side by side comparisons rather easily.
Understanding there are variations in patterns and styles sometimes within the same engraver's own works.
Tue's style of engraving was a very light "British" style. Lines are typically pretty fine and not deeply engraved.
Tue's scroll patterns are pretty distinctive as well. There are variations with grapes, stippling, etc, but "lion" rifle scrolls are very different in quantity, much more deeply engraved with many stem like features vs. Tue's.
Unfortunately engravers rarely signed their works so the sum of circumstantial evidence is usually applied and it can be done pretty accurately by a professional eye/magnifier.

IMO if this rifle is factory Tue I would be surprised. But I could certainly be wrong.
It may indeed be factory and a factory letter may confirm.
Then the question is by who. That's where things can get fuzzy.
Both Tue and Gough were Savage factory engravers over time, they both operated independently and they both had family member engravers during the same periods possibly at Savage and/or as independents. Or it could be a totally different non-related engraver possibly in a different time period.

This is the first time I've seen the "lion" and not trying to be a skeptic, just applying my amateur eye and that's what I see.

I think the rifle is a beauty! The factory ledger would speak volumes, surely the rifle has been lettered since.

That is exciting! Conjures up imaginations of hunts in Africa stalking lions with a 22!

The style is extremely Tue like in my eyes. Just because it's not an exact match to a standard style doesn't make it wrong, I'm sure Savage would do new styles for the appropriate price. Heck, for that matter Enoch did commission stuff on his own. There are multiple rifles that are in the ledger as having been sold to Enoch Tue, and are engraved.

Same with the B style with moose. Very possible somebody wanted to commemorate a special hunt and asked for another critter on the gun.

No one said it was "wrong". And as stated previously there are known variations of patterns/styles within a single engravers works, so we agree on that point.

What is being pointed out is that scrolling of the "lion" and the scrolling of some Tue works appear fundamentally different which may indicate different hands did the work.
The expanded lion and some expanded Tue scrolls are below. Pics/expanded aren't pro quality. Judge for yourself.

Lion


Tue






No definitive claim is being made, just observing and thinking (typing) out load in lieu of definitive information, s.n., ledger info, tribal knowledge, etc.

Someone have some info? Feel free to chime in.

I know it's a bit off the wall, but the largest Alaskan Grizzly killed in 1953 was by an Indian girl with a 22 Long. One put it down with 6-7 to follow. Proper placement means a lot. Imagine if she had a 22 Hi-Power! The thought of shooting big game with a small calibers just give me the willies. Beautiful rifle! It just screams for express sight on it for me.



Read more: https://www.ammoland.com/2014/11/wh...ld-record-grizzly-in-1953/#ixzz5KOLitDoZ
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Bella Twin, an Indian girl, and her friend Dave Auger were hunting grouse near Lesser Slave Lake in northern Alberta. The only gun they had was Bella’s single-shot bolt-action .22 Rimfire rifle. They were walking a cutline that had been made for oil exploration when they saw a large grizzly following the same survey line toward them. If they ran, the bear would probably notice them and might chase, so they quietly sat down on a brush pile and hoped that the bear would pass by without trouble. But the bear came much too close, and when the big boar was only a few yards away, Bella Twin shot him in the side of the head with a .22 Long cartridge. The bear dropped, kicked and then lay still. Taking no chances, Bella went up close and fired all of the cartridges she had, seven or eight .22 Longs, into the bear’s head. That bear, killed in 1953, was the world-record grizzly for several years and is still high in the records today.

I'm no expert on engraving either, but comparing the above pic to the "C" engraving on pg. 35 and the "D" engraving on pg. 36 of my book it looks like it was done by a different person. David

Wondering what close up of special rifles look like? Special rifles or special order rifles The dodge rifles or not sure what others.

Looking at the blow up detail posted by S.WI.Savage I am still bothered by the the apparent lack of any color in any of the engraving lines no mater what direction they are orientated to the light source, I had kept looking at the full picture and in that it looked to me that it was possible that none of the engraved lines were blued? Is it just the lighting? There has to be someone here who was at that fest & has some more information.

Wanting to keep this thread alive. Like Gene says someone here knows. I have not had time to bring up other one of a kind for comparison the dodge rifle are the first to my mind.

While talking with Fug, he said it hadn't crossed his mind that this wasn't an Enoch Tue gun. He says the engraving isn't as deep as the picture shows it to be. And the flash I had to use in the dark barn is likely bleeding out any signs of bluing on the side.

It's obviously Tue-inspired. So is it a one-off design from Tue (or even one of his apprentices/family members) - or is it somebody else?

Here's a tiger engraving to compare (brightened up a bit to see easily), obviously the engraving style that inspired the lion gun.

The scroll work on the tiger rifle among other details appears to be Tue's and has similarities to the other higher grades in this post.
The lion rifle is uniquely different in several ways. Still a beauty.
The moose rifle in the other post not only looks like Tues work, but it is well documented per Fug.

Curious:
Lion - What is the serial number? Any special notes in factory letter?
Tiger - Same questions.

Not trying to poke holes, just try'in to learn.

goes back to the old saying "never say never"

IF.... the rear sight is original to the gun, a No 15WG, I believe that sight was introduced sometime in 1913 and listed as "furnished on all 1899's" through catalog No 61 which dates to 1919~1920. The elevator is the later type with the small hook over tabs on the top which would put it toward the end of that time period (again, if original to the gun).

When I first looked at this I had the guns from NY on on one side of the screen and the Lion gun beside them. Here is another detail I noticed -


Added - I noticed the notation on this picture is hard to read, it says 'typical Tue', all of the guns recently shown, other than the Lion gun, have swirls without the extra lines.