Thread: Thinking about history - 1907 Tikka?

Greetings All,
This thread reminded me of a cautionary tale related to me by my mother approaching 70 years ago now. I had been given a Daisey BB gun rescued from the tip by a neighbour. The story went that some of her cousins, or more likely her fathers siblings, had found her grandfathers old gun is a shed or whatever and were running about putting matches down the barrel to provide smoke and taking imaginary pot shots at things. Eventually the piece went bang, fortunately not hitting anything of importance. Assuming the story was based on fact I have often wondered what the firearm was and where it is now.
Regards Grandpamac.

I would of said a 303 and possibly a Ross 280

Thanks guys, the SAT idea is interesting, there were quite a few Boer war vets in our district, buying one of those would have been a distinct possibility . . .

You could work backwards from what ammunition would be available at a reliable retailer within horse or wagon ride.
What was the nearest town and what did the general store stock.
Could he get ammunition reasonably easily from Christchurch or Nelson y postal order.
He would have been very restricted in his choices

There might have been some great old guns but impossible to keep the ammo up to them back then

Akaroa,
Good approach, the rifles and calibres used in the local rifle clubs drove use in hunting over here.

.303s were it here with discounted rifles and ammunition provided to members.


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I think it comes down to probability vs availability.

He could have machinegunned deer from the back of an elephant with a Maxim gun. There were both Maxim guns and at least one elephant in New Zealand in 1907.

However he most likely used what was the most affordable and suited to purpose.I would imagine Sniders being the most available but a Martini Enfield in 303 would have been more suited to purpose.Could have been a Lee Metford,could have been theoretically any firearms produced anywhere in the world prior to 1907.

Originally Posted by Scout

No they gave back the same rifles with the same numbers BUT not in the same condition unfortunately.

Not in all cases from what I can gather - that's what was supposed to happen but... Relatives of the time for my extended family never got their uplifted firearm returned. I think in one case they were offered a cheap price on a near new .303, the first of the sold out of service ones after the war? I'm not too sure of the details, it gets a bit sketchy in there and one interesting sideline illustrating how sketchy is when my parents and aunties and uncles were sorting out my grandparents house after they passed on they found a Walther pistol in the ceiling (undocumented bring back). That was taken out of the country.

Hmmm. My understanding of "those days" pre WW1 might vary from some but I think things in general were a lot more sophisticated than we might think. The likes of the old AW McCarthy and Tisdalls catalogs give clues. Just about anything produced worldwide was known, and accessible, just with much longer time frames than we are used to these days. They were also better at anticipating what might be needed, I don't think you just bought one packet of ammo. Reading diary entries of the times give clues ( not about firearms and ammo) as to what sort of time frames they ordered farm supplies for example.

I've got a copy of the booklet on the history of the Otago deer herds, and as today, there were many different levels and approaches to hunting, from the very wealthy to the poachers who shot out the Japanese deer herd near Oamaru!