Thank you all!
Too bad neither the Neal and Back nor the Boothroyd article are available as e-books online. Apparently, one ought to be located in London if one wishes to research these issues
I've come across a few more interesting old books at archives.org, though. Will be working with them.
Most of the Indian shooting books I came across so far deal with the Raj (post-1858) period, and that's a bit too late for what I'm interested in. However, some of those reveal the market niche for Manton & Co and other companies in this line. Stories of colonial hunters who brought some weapons along but found the battery incomplete or imperfect. One such character thought he could do tiger shooting with two 12 bore pinfires, a 5-dram double rifle and a shotgun shooting a round ball over 3 drams of powder for backup. In the jungle, he found the latter weapon inadequate, not to mention the confusion between the cartridges. He overcame the difficulty by writing to the gunmaker to send him another 12 bore DR exactly like the first, but next season found himself in a definite disadvantage for want of a long-range stalking rifle. A visit to Manton & Co, provided they had a big stock of most commonly used guns, could have saved him much disappointment; however, this particular chap stuck to the belief that a quality firearm could be had only in London.
