Earlier this month I received my first English boxlock double, a Watson Brothers 360EX 2.25" from 1906.

  • 26" barrels, Extractors
  • Webley screw grip action
  • Standing 150yd and folding 250 rear sight leaves
  • Mint bores
  • Full engraving coverage
  • No nitro proof marks, just 360EX. No cartridge or load info on the rifle


Prior to purchasing the gun and reaching out to Watson Brothers for their records, my best guess on DOM was post 1895 (based on the maker's barrel address) and pre-1907 (based on another rifle, 29 after mine, sold in 1907). Turns out this was sold in 1906.

Workmanship is quite wonderful. After casting the chamber and measuring the bore, I tried 0.366" jacketed soft point bullets made by RWS back in the day for the 9.3x72r. These with a modest load of H4198 are printing to POA at 35 yards, so I'm looking forward to loading up more rounds and trying at distances out to 150 yards. This will be going deer hunting next month when I join a friend for a hunt in Minnesota.

If you have loads for the 360EX 2.25" using smokeless nitro-for-black power loads, I'd love to see them. This rifle was presumably proofed with black powder (given the absence of nitro proofmarks that would have been required by then), so I'm not loading with full nitro loads.

[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]
[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]
[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]
[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]
[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]