I have just finished reading Charles Sheldon's Wilderness of Denali but could not find many reference to the rifles he carried in the Alaskan wilderness back in 1906-1908. I read it was an open sighted bolt action. He wrote about raising the 200 yard sight when shooting at distant game. Does anyone know what make and chambering he used? He also had a .22 rifle and a shotgun with him when he spent a year in what is now Denali National Park but gave no details about them.

"Prominent users of the .256 Mannlicher rifle were Sir Edmund Loder, Sir Alfred Pease, John G. Millais, Maj. R. L. Kennion, P. H. G. Powell-Cotton, Maj. C. H. Stigand and Blayney Percival, all of whom evidently regarded the .256 Mannlicher as their favorite arm. Denis D. Lyell, Charles Sheldon, Hesketh K. H. Prichard, Capt. H. A. Wilson and the adventurer and big game hunter Denys Finch-Hatton.........."
Link to above

"I always had a .22 rifle to use for shooting grouse and small animals, but for large game my Mannlicher, .256 calibre, is the only rifle I have used in the North.�

Link ........

Thanks. I will have to go back and read the Preface.

edit: My paperback Derrydale Press The Wilderness of Denali does not have a Preface. It also has no pictures. I have misplaced my Premier Press copy. I did find a reference to using exclusively a .256 Mannlicher in the Preface of a Premier Press The Wilderness of the North Pacific Coast Islands.

I also thought Sheldon used the 250/3000 also at some point, but perhaps it was another explorer.....

Anyone know who?

I always thought that he used the 6.5x54 Mannlicher-Schoenauer.

There is a quote from Chuckhawks about it here:

Over the years I have read that he used both the .250 and the 6.5.

I can't remember where though.

Roy Chapman Andrews...

I could frame that pic of the M-S.....nicely done

Thanks Brad, perhaps that it, or they both used them.

Roy Andrews is likely the man. He famously used the 250 Savage in both the 99 and Model 20. IIRC, the Indiana Jones character was based on his life...

Dude..that's classic.

Get a pic of it laid across a nice Yukon Moose, and w/o binos in view and it would put you back in time

.275 Newton?

YEP.

Sorry I confused them.

From:

THE WILDERNESS OF THE UPPER YUKON
Charles Sheldon
1911

Page xiv:

"I always had a .22 rifle to use for shooting grouse and small animals, but for large game my Mannlicher, .256 calibre, is the only rifle I have ever used in the North."


Page 33-34:

"My rifle was a Mannllcher, 256 calibre�the same one that I had already used for big game during the three previous years. The cartridges were jacketed with nickel, split at four places, and the lead was exposed at the tip."

-------------------------
Download the book here:
http://www.archive.org/details/wildernessupper01shelgoog

Bruce

Wonder what men of those days like Sheldon would think of the rifles/cartridges/scopes some use today? Would they say WOW?

Or.....WHY????

I haven't read the book yet, but just skimmed through the pdf book searching for "rifle," but it seems misses, wounding, and multiple shots with poor hits, and misfires were common. It made me wonder just how much better his shooting would have been with the same rifle and a modern scope.

One example:

"The ram was now in the lead and at length stood one
hundred and fifty feet directly below me as the ewes
came up around him. Pointing my rifle down over the
cliff, the barrel was almost perpendicular when I fired
at the centre of his shoulders. He dropped to a lying down
position, panting and apparently about to roll over.
The ewes, not in the least alarmed at the report, looked
up, but none saw me, and some even continued feeding.
Thinking the ram was dying, I stood up, when seeing
me at once, they all ran across the steep side of the basin,
where it did not seem possible for even a sheep to find
a footing. The lambs easily followed, and in some way
all climbed over the crest. I was greatly surprised to
see the ram, which saw me as soon as the ewes began to
run, jump up and run downward in a diagonal direction.
Four shots were fired without hitting him, but when distant
about eight hundred yards he stopped and lay down
under a large rock.
(large clip about ram's movements)
The only chance of getting him
was to leave him undisturbed so that he might die in the
same spot. My bullet must have struck him on the side,
too far back to make a quickly fatal wound. Then and
there I made up my mind to keep shooting at a wounded
animal in the future until assured that it was vitally hit,
rather than to take chances, as in this case."

And ammunition trouble"

"Before I could realize it, they were within
a hundred yards, on a level with me. Aiming at a ram,
my rifle misfired twice, but the third pull of the trigger
sent a bullet which killed him."

about ten pages later:

"With rifle pointed, I rose
and could just see the ivory sight which was held in a
line with the centre of the bull's chest when I pulled the
trigger. Click! A miss-fire, and almost simultaneously
Selous' smothered expression of disappointment! The
bull had stopped as I rose, and when the trigger fell, he
jumped to one side and disappeared in the brush. I
sent three shots after him, but could only guess the direction
as he was not In sight. After the first jump there was
a crashing In the willows�and then not another sound
was heard. ... Later, I learned that the caps in
some of my cartridges, then four years old, had deteriorated
and were apt, especially in cold weather, to miss
fire.

Roy Andrews used the .250 Savage. St. George Littledale and Sheldon both the 6.5 Mannlicher. There is a really great book on Andrews called "Dinosaur Hunter"; get one!

He used a 6.5X54 MS in Wilderness of Denali. He used the same rifle when he was shooting brown bears and used it with great efficiency and deadliness.

Cap Hubert who was probably one of the most famous big game guides in the Upper Chitina Valley and the White River Valley used a model 99 savage in 250-3000.
Don Dehart- a famous Wrangell Mt. Grizzly guide who guided Jack O'Connor, Elmer Keith and Warren Page used a 250-3000 model 99 as his guide rifle for backup.

Many dude hunters during this period would have 3003 and 3006 Springfields that were set up right.
Others actually used 280 Ross like G.O. Young. This was also one of Andy Simmons guns.

Sincerely,
Thomas

When I was a kid, I read all of Roy Chapman Andrews' books. I really wanted to be a paleontologist. Unfortunately, by by the late 1950s and early 1960s, I had discovered that there was not much need to fight Chinese bandits nor to shoot all kinds of Asian ungulates to feed the members of the scientific expeditions. That took a lot of the glamor out of it for me. So, I opted for pre-med.

Fortunately, I had to take a field ecology course from H. Gray Merriam and found out that there were ways to make a living working in the out of doors. Changed my whole life...

"I always thought that he used the 6.5x54 Mannlicher-Schoenauer"

That was the impression I got when I read Denali fifty years ago.

Damn, you suck so much. One of these days, you'll tire of that rifle, and it will be MINE...

Steel, when my daughter grows up and gets married, you are on the list of photographers.
I truly look forward to your pictures.