Pretty & Classy rifles. Lets see them!

Great thread. I much prefer nice furniture and bluing but have stayed in recent years for the durability of synthetic and stainless. However, the nostalgic portion of me has been putting a coat of Renaissance wax on my wood rifles and braving the elements.
 
Here are some medium frame Colt Lightnings in 44-40 and 38-40. I also got a SRC in Cody last summer and didn’t realize it was a “baby” carbine until I got home. I will have to get a picture of it later...


View attachment 163947
I have a 32-20 that is about 90% and a 38-40 about the same as the one on the left. These are fun to shoot, shot a prarie dog with the 32-20! These were pretty cheap 30 years ago,no one seemed to care now they seem to start around $1K AND GO UP.
 
I have a 32-20 that is about 90% and a 38-40 about the same as the one on the left. These are fun to shoot, shot a prarie dog with the 32-20! These were pretty cheap 30 years ago,no one seemed to care now they seem to start around $1K AND GO UP.

Today 1K won’t get you much of a Lightning. They don’t bring what many Winchesters might with the same condition, but it has been awhile since $1,000.00 would get you a Lightning that would even function...
 
Today 1K won’t get you much of a Lightning. They don’t bring what many Winchesters might with the same condition, but it has been awhile since $1,000.00 would get you a Lightning that would even function...
Today 1K won’t get you much of a Lightning. They don’t bring what many Winchesters might with the same condition, but it has been awhile since $1,000.00 would get you a Lightning that would even function...
I will get some pictures up and you can tell me what you think, have to check my book but I doubt I have $1k in both bought in the 80's. Both of mine have mint bores and function flawlessly.
 
IMG_0097.JPG
Both still lock up tight, the 32-20 has a Winchester peep and Beeches flip up front, the 38-40 a Lyman peep, both excellent bores, 32 about 90% blue, the 38 maybe 50-60% mostly nice patina.
 
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Red deer spike, i guess one and the same but mine is stamped 275 Rigby.
Apologies if I’m telling you something you already know. The 7mm mauser was copied by John Rigby in the early 1900’s and used the then favoured imperial system of naming rather than metric. Hence the .275”. If stamped 275 then likely to be an English gun. As a 7mm cartridge the 7x57/275 rigby is probably one of the best hunting rifles made. I’m sure a fan.

BE
 
1992 Remington 700 ADL chambered in .270win. Got it for Christmas that year. When my Dad asked me what caliber I wanted I said of course .270 as I had been reading a lot of old magazines in the high school library and loved Jack O’Connor. Been with me since I was 14, we’ve been on a lot of adventures together. This is one of the several mounts I have that ole’ reliable has accounted for. View attachment 149857
Beautiful rifle and mount!
 
By the looks of your Sharps post, it seems as if you bought the display.

I didn’t buy it, I made it. You can’t find gun display boards on many internet sites. Trying to balance the guns and the accompanying history is a challenge. Sharing the history is what displays are all about.

The connection of those rifles is that they were all shipped to Bozeman, Montana Territory in the 1870’s and Walter Cooper, who was a Bozeman Sharps dealer, rebarrelled 2 of them. The third was done later by another frontier Sharps gunsmith in Miles City, Montana Territory by the name of A.D. McAusland.

I got the 2 Cooper marked guns several years apart and when I lettered them from Sharps, I found out that they were both shipped in the same shipment in August of 1877...

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Apologies if I’m telling you something you already know. The 7mm mauser was copied by John Rigby in the early 1900’s and used the then favoured imperial system of naming rather than metric. Hence the .275”. If stamped 275 then likely to be an English gun. As a 7mm cartridge the 7x57/275 rigby is probably one of the best hunting rifles made. I’m sure a fan.

BE
No need to apologize, just teasing an Aussie. It is really the original 7mm08!
 
Apologies if I’m telling you something you already know. The 7mm mauser was copied by John Rigby in the early 1900’s and used the then favoured imperial system of naming rather than metric. Hence the .275”. If stamped 275 then likely to be an English gun. As a 7mm cartridge the 7x57/275 rigby is probably one of the best hunting rifles made. I’m sure a fan.

BE
Yes measured across the lands as opposed to bore diameter and cartridge length. I'm a big Jim Corbett fan and always wanted a 275. Mine is custom rifle I had made here in Aus

I agree it is a great hunting round, I've often said they could never have created another rifle calibre after 1905 and we would have all we'd ever need, everything since is just marketing. 275/7x57, 9.3x62 and 450/400NE were all in existence by then and between them are suitable for everything that walks the earth.
 
Yes measured across the lands as opposed to bore diameter and cartridge length. I'm a big Jim Corbett fan and always wanted a 275. Mine is custom rifle I had made here in Aus

I agree it is a great hunting round, I've often said they could never have created another rifle calibre after 1905 and we would have all we'd ever need, everything since is just marketing. 275/7x57, 9.3x62 and 450/400NE were all in existence by then and between them are suitable for everything that walks the earth.
Might want to add the 6.5x55se in that list. But again that was before 1905😂
 

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