Old timer from the Terai !

[miroflex]

Hi All,

I have recently joined this forum and am posting this short introduction. I have grown up with guns around me and have been handling and shooting weapons in the jungles of the Terai for over half a century. All that is long over with increasing legislation and rules and regulations and fast disappearing wildlife.

Among the weapons I have handled are :

(i) an 8 bore with two pairs of pairs of barrels, one rifled and one smooth bore, by W & J Tolley;

(ii) various 12 bores, mostly double barreled side by side hammer guns made in Birmingham;

(iii) a 20 bore side by side hammerless gun marked Lyon & Lyon;

(iv) a .577 Express side by side by side hammer rifle with non rebounding locks;

(v) a .44 Winchester lever action carbine;

(vi) a .32 automatic pistol by Webley & Scott;

(vii) a .280 Ross high velocity rifle;

(viii) various .22 rifles, inluding a single shot Winchester and a Mauser magazine rifle;

(ix) and a .177 Diana air gun.

I am an auditor by profession and like Mycroft Holmes, I audit the books of some of the Government departments, presently the railways.

I look forward to reading interesting and informative posts on this forum and posting some of my own views and queries.

Regards.

[timmy]

Welcome miroflex, glad to have you aboard. You certainly have an interesting range of experiences with firearms! Perhaps we shall hear a story or two from you. Are you also interested in cameras?

[miroflex]

Hi Tim,

Glad to hear from you. I am very interested in cameras and have managed to amass a considerable collection, ranging from an 8 mm cine camera to large plate cameras focussing directly on ground glass. Thank God, the Arms Act does not extend to cameras.

More on hearing from you.

Regards.

[goodboy_mentor]

Welcome to IFG, glad to have experienced people like you among us.

[dr.jayakumar]

welcome friend,
you'll sure have a nice stay.looking forward.
regards
dr.jk

[miroflex]

Hi Goodboy_Mentor and Dr Jayakumar,

Thanks for your kind words of welcome. I look forward to more interaction with you on this forum.

Regards.

[brihacharan]

[quote="miroflex"]
Hi All,
I have recently joined this forum and am posting this short introduction. I have grown up with guns around me and have been handling and shooting weapons in the jungles of the Terai for over half a century. All that is long over with increasing legislation and rules and regulations and fast disappearing wildlife.

I look forward to reading interesting and informative posts on this forum and posting some of my own views and queries.

Hi microflex,
> Welcome to IFG & look forward to hearing some of your experiences out in the woods.
> Apart from fire-arms I too am a photography enthusiast (did a lot of moonlighting & earned money for jam!)
> Used to own a 30-06 Winchester with a 4 x 32 Weaver scope + a 12 gauge DBDL - Midland UK, however have sold them both as they were languishing in the cupboard due to ban on shikhar.
> Presently own a 0.22cal IHP35 which has undergone a total makeover (pl. check my earlier posts) can manage 1/2" groups at 30yds.
Cheers
Brihacharan

[miroflex]

Hi Brihacharan,

Thanks for your post. Sometime back I took a short walk through the Rajaji National Park in the company of the Chief Wildlife Warden and James Champion from the UK. James's grandfather was F.W. Champion, an Indian Forest Service officer, who pioneered flashlight photography (using flash powders) in the Indian jungles. He wrote several books including "With A Camera In Tigerland." We did not see any large mammals but sighted a number of interesting and rare birds.

Regards.

[prashantsingh]

Welcome to IFG. Looking forwards to your posts.
Which part of Rajaji did you go to sir?
I drove through the western part of Park last sunday with a member of the Wildlife board and saw a large number of cheetal and sambhar .
The highlight of the evening was spotting 5 leopards . Never seen so many in one evening ever before.

[Vikram]

(i) an 8 bore with two pairs of pairs of barrels, one rifled and one smooth bore, by W & J Tolley;

A J & W Tolley 8bore combination gun? Sounds most interesting. I would love to know more about it. I appreciate any info you could share with us.If you have any old photos laying about, please do share.Thank you.


Best-
Vikram

[Safarigent]

Welcome to the forum sir.
Would you mind sharing some shikar pictures with us?
We would all appreciate it.

[varunik]

Hey! Would be great if you could share some pics of those guns you mentioned!

[Prabhath]

Welcome aboard and glad to have someone with your experience around.

[miroflex]

Which part of Rajaji did you go to sir?
I drove through the western part of Park last sunday with a member of the Wildlife board and saw a large number of cheetal and sambhar .
The highlight of the evening was spotting 5 leopards . Never seen so many in one evening ever before.

Hi Prashant,

Nice to hear from you. We entered the jungles around Mohan (on the Saharanpur Road side) before sunset and saw a lot of birds. No large mammals though we did see signs indicating the presence of elephants. You were lucky to see so many leopards.

Later I stayed in the Rest House at Chilla with Mr Sohan R Singh, a renowned wildlife photographer and my nephew Omkar and his friend Nilesh. We went on long drives in the evening and morning and saw aand photographed many animals. It was a very interesting experience.

Regards.

[miroflex]

(i) an 8 bore with two pairs of pairs of barrels, one rifled and one smooth bore, by W & J Tolley;

A J & W Tolley 8bore combination gun? Sounds most interesting. I would love to know more about it. I appreciate any info you could share with us.If you have any old photos laying about, please do share.Thank you.


Best-
Vikram

Hi Vikram,

Nice to hear from you. The 8 bore and the .577 were bought by my grandfather for hunting big game like elephant and rhinoceros in the jungles of Burma and Assam. He was posted in Rangoon as Deputy Financial Adviser and Chief Accounts Officer, Burma State Railways in the 1930s. I do not think he seriously went after either of these animals. Both these weapons are fitted with non rebounding locks and the hammers have to be drawn back to half cock for loading and unloading otherwise the cartridges are deeply scored by the firing pins protruding into the chambers.

The 8 bore rifle rifle is a beautifully balanced weapon although on the heavier side. It may not have seen much service but the 8 bore shotgun proved to be a much used wild fowl gun for downing ducks and geese. It has very long Damascus barrels and is in my opinion not as well balanced a weapon as the rifle.

The .577 was passed on to a cousin after the 3 weapon per licence holder rule came into force. The 8 bore stayed with us till it was stolen by a terrorist Darshan Singh "Ghora" and later buried by him when he found it was of little use to him. It was recovered by the police and stored in the mal khana as part of the evidence. Now that the proceedings are closed I hope to have the weapon released and restored. I will try to post photographs at that time.

Regards.