.380 eley

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QM 8687

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Okay so i'm goin through my pile of obsolete and antique ammo and I find a bunch of .380 ELEY. Case length is .680 and rim thickness is .049 . Somewhat similar to 380 Brit stuff or is it much earlier?
There is nothing like this in my Winchester Ammo Book or on the net, that I can find.
What do I have this time?
 
Sir -.380 Eley is a cartridge meant for use in a rook rifle. Long obsolete, it's usually called by its more familar name of .380 Rook. These were/are scaled-down single-shot rifled arms, usually opened by a side-lever, sometimes, as in the better quality arms, based on a miniature Martini action. The shooting of rooks and similar-sized birds was a pastime of the late Victorian and early Edwardian youth in UK and many cartridges were made for the often bautiful little guns that were popular at that time.

They were very popular in the UK around the end of the 19th and well into the 20th century and are very collectable in their own right. My local dealer has one made by Holland & Holland on sale for just over $3000 today, BTW.

My pal Mick shoots a Cogswell & Harrison side-lever rook rifle in this calibre, fakign the cartridge out of a .38Sepc case. The original bullet was heeled, that is to say, it had a reduced diameter base like a .22 bulet, to fit into the case.

Have a look here to see what I mean - http://www.pantilesguns.co.uk/rookrifles.htm

tac
 
Just a side note on the rook hunting; a now deceased friend told me that in his youth he had gone out on rook hunts with his father and that these hunts took place in the short time while the young rooks were more or less full size and still not fledged enough to fly. The birds shot were eaten at least in his area and time (roughly the late 1930s)

cheers mooncoon
 
Thanks for the help. Rook rifle looks nice on Mick's site. I measured and 380 Eley simular to S&W Short. And on the net it is described as BP 380.
Anyways I now know. I got 45 rds and may move them. I suppose I could put some sort of cheap 380 barrel on one of my Favorites, other than that I am not going to buy a rabbit rifle in 380 Eley for 2,000 quid.
Mystery solved. Thank you . I would not have figured this one out.
 
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