The personal Rigby Mauser of Queen Elizabeth II

Rob

Rob

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King George VI commissioned a Rigby Mauser chambered in .275 Rigby (7x57 Mauser) for Princess Elizabeth during World War II. Apparently the Queen kept this rifle all her life and hunted deer with it. (She was noted as having a real taste for venison.) I am interested in finding a photo of this rifle. I know there is a book somewhere that documents the Royal gun collection at Sandringham but do not know if her "personal rifle" appears in it.

Does anyone know a source for an image of the Queen's rifle?

The image below is of Jim Corbett's Rigby Mauser .275.
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Maybe drop a note to Rigby themselves, i have no doubt this is the sort of inquiry they'd love to receive. The Queen was quite the lady.
 
I remember reading that the late Queen's great-grandfather Edward VII was fond of participating in English-style driven pheasant shoots, but that he disliked the newfangled hammerless double guns and insisted on ones with external hammers, saying that they helped him aim. Well, I guess that's one thing the Royal Family is basically there for, to be traditional.
 
This post has me looking around for books on the Royal firearms collection and the single hint I've turned up is one titled 'The Royal Gunroom at Sandringham' of which one copy is available on Amazon.ca. I might wonder though if further research won't find reprint reproductions are being sold out of India, that is certainly true for otherwise unobtainable histories of the area I grew up in, which has hardly any Anglos left in it at all.

But you know what? I bet the Royals are shy about talking about the subject at all. And I can't blame them, these days.

Edit: I find that the University of Toronto has one copy of this book, which technically can be borrowed. This used to involve just a low fee or no fee service but those days are over and the last time I tried such a thing through the Ontario library system I paid through the nose big time for a book I could only keep for one ridiculous week. Abebooks also offers copies at the usual ascending price scale.

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Rob said:
King George VI commissioned a Rigby Mauser chambered in .275 Rigby (7x57 Mauser) for Princess Elizabeth during World War II. Apparently the Queen kept this rifle all her life and hunted deer with it. (She was noted as having a real taste for venison.) I am interested in finding a photo of this rifle. I know there is a book somewhere that documents the Royal gun collection at Sandringham but do not know if her "personal rifle" appears in it.

Does anyone know a source for an image of the Queen's rifle?

The image below is of Jim Corbett's Rigby Mauser .275.
View attachment 1164552
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What ever they do, don't give it it Carney!!!!!!!
 
Big Bad said:
This post has me looking around for books on the Royal firearms collection and the single hint I've turned up is one titled 'The Royal Gunroom at Sandringham' of which one copy is available on Amazon.ca. I might wonder though if further research won't find reprint reproductions are being sold out of India, that is certainly true for otherwise unobtainable histories of the area I grew up in, which has hardly any Anglos left in it at all.

But you know what? I bet the Royals are shy about talking about the subject at all. And I can't blame them, these days.

Edit: I find that the University of Toronto has one copy of this book, which technically can be borrowed. This used to involve just a low fee or no fee service but those days are over and the last time I tried such a thing through the Ontario library system I paid through the nose big time for a book I could only keep for one ridiculous week. Abebooks also offers copies at the usual ascending price scale.

​

Click to expand...
As a retired Professor, I still have free interlibrary loan privileges at my old university library. So I ordered the 'The Royal Gunroom at Sandringham' book and it just arrived (from the University of Alberta library). I have it until mid-August. Looks interesting. Later I'll post a few pictures from it.
 
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Here are some photos from the book. It covers approx. 75 guns selected from the collection. I have no idea how large the full collection is, but apparently it can be visited. I am sure that the Queen Elizabeth II personal Rigby rifle is in the collection but it is not in the book, nor is Princess Diana's gun.

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