doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Rook rifles ?

It's time I learned some answers to some questions I have had about "rook rifles". Let's start with what I think I know. I think rook rifles were mostly mid-caliber centerfire single shots that were used to take potshots at crows (rooks) in G. Britain. From what I have garnered a gamekeeper, or other shooter, would slip surreptitiously into a rookery ( a crow roost?) and look to take potshots at crows sitting in trees.

If any, or part, of this is accurate I have a couple questions that are bugging me about it all. Why were calibers used that seem to use bullets that are heavy and slow, and with a rainbow trajectory? Why was the .22 LR not used in these rook rifles, since it is entirely capable of taking out a crow? I've killed many with it, with never a wounded loss.

It just seems to me that the whole concept of single shot rifles to reduce the number of crows on an estate would have been much better served with a .22 LR. Was it a matter of timing? Had the .22 LR not been developed by the time the mid-caliber, so called rook rifles were in demand, or was there some other obvious reason I am missing?

Accounts that I have read seem to suggest that this was as more a sport activity than merely a crow cull.
The "rooks" were juvenile crows sitting on branches - and referred to as "branchers".

This rooking was done before the 22rf became popular as I understand.
The slow bullet was likely preferred for a short carry.
YMMV.

Rook rifles were developed by extremely vindictive English chess players in the early 1880s. Because it would have been unseemly and uncouth to target the Bishops, the Queen, or the King. But rooks... Well, who gave a damn.

Stan,

I understand that in black powder days the smaller the bore the quicker fouling build up became a problem.

This is why the Lancaster Oval Bore and Holland’s Semi-Smooth Bore Rook Rifles were promoted for their abilities to fire multiple shots without the need to keep wiping out.

Early Rook Rifles were often .380 and could also be used for Roebuck, Duiker and other small quadrupeds.

Just to be clear a Rook is not a Crow although a similar bird in the Corvid family. Their habits are very different.

Rooks are very gregarious and build their nests in dense colonies called Rookeries (a word also used in Victorian London for a Criminal slum at St. Giles).

This and the fact that the breast meat of the young “branchers” was edible if properly marinated (Mrs. Parabola has cooked a Rook Pie) made Rook Shooting in early May, when the branchers were emerging from the nests but there was not yet too much leaf on the trees, an annual social event when there was not much else in the way of shooting on offer.

The gentry would gather for a house party with single or sometimes double rifles from best London “makers” almost invariably from a Birmingham supplier.

For Rookeries not reserved for their “betters” the villagers would harvest the branchers with catapults, shotguns, stone bows etc.

As American .22’s were imported and ammunition improved .22 rifles generally displaced the centre fire rifles.

I the 1895 Army and Navy Catalogue the .22 Colt Lightning was offered as a Repeating Rook Rifle.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/8mcGMcW.jpg?1[/img]

Funny you should mention that.

Lord Dunsany, who included a diatribe on the proper sighting of Rook and Rabbit Rifles in his book “The Curse of the Wise Woman” was in the early 1900’s both the Chess Champion of Ireland and the Champion Revolver Shot of Ireland.

So did this activity inspire the saying "Let them eat crow."

Does anybody else think this thread just begs for a bunch of photos of rook rifles?
LRF- My wife collected cookbooks, she had a couple, one even printed by the Pa. Game Commission, that had recipes for crow. She would cook any creature I shot or caught, but drew the line at insects and crows.

The reason was the date as indicated above. I own 4 or 5 and several are from Australia, France etc, and were made in the post Civil War era when the .22 LR was not even around in some cases. The BP was the issue. Keep in mind too that there were many cartridges used, many of which were quite a bit too powerful to have been needed for small birds. I have seen mention of these being used for rabbits, hare and small game; sometimes even small deer on the upper end of the power spectrum. The whole class seems to be a broad subject, but actually extends past England and small birds.

In later days, they were made in .22 and many of the medium bores were relined to .22. If you think about it, any of the Martini small bores are rook rifles by function.

see my link about an early Rook & Rabbit rifle that I posted a couple days ago ..

https://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=643554#Post643554

LOL smart women. Don't Coots either.

Buckstix- I did see your post, very interesting rifle. One of the reasons to ask for photos of more rook rifles.
LRF- I collect old hunting books, and some of them, from down south, have mentioned coot gizzard gumbo. I have hunted ducks since I was old enough to get a license, but never paid much attention to coots. Figured it was time to see if those southern hunters knew what they were writing about, so shot 6 or 7 coots one day. Found out they have surprisingly big gizzards, for a relatively small bird. With both of us living in Pennsylvania our entire lives, the gumbo my wife makes might not compare to gumbo from Louisiana, but to us Yankees, that gizzard gumbo was very good. You just never know until you try.

LOL, I am fond of Bridge shot Pigeon Pie and have also eaten Black Bird Pie but that was 60 some odd years ago. Today I prefer chicken pot pies.

I believe you are correct in your last statements.
As many as 40 of us gathered from 2000-2010 to shoot them annually near Cincinnati. Tom Rowe & I restarted Rook Matches last fall, in E. Tenn. along with SS Sporting Rifles. Another match next month - posted on this forum.
Many Rook rifles were bored out to .410 in the 1920’s with the UK ban on rifles.
Tranter was a big supplier of actions to the trade.
Seems the most popular cartridge found are:
250-295
.295 / 300 Rook
.360 No.5 / .380
Sorry, I haven’t taken the time to learn how to post photos on this forum. But, I do have a ‘19th Century Battery’ FB page to communicate my match, with lots of photos.
You should acquire one as they are fantastic little rifles and fun to shoot.

It is a shame so many were converted into a .410. Trying to convert them back, into a proper rook caliber, is often impossible due to liner wall thickness and lack of bore diameter even in a .410. Plus many of the original calibers are for long discontinued calibers which even hand loading are a bit of extra work. You often can just line them to .22 and alter the bolt to put them back in service. I guess with the .17 rim-fire you cold go that direction. But I liked the low power nature of the original caliber, which limited their range and their being used in tighter spaces. If you bullet carries a mile you have a back stop issue.

KY Jon
I converted 2 back to 360 No.5, both were H&H hammerless.
1 lined, the other sleeved.
.366 (9.3mm) liners are still available, I believe.
The 360 No.5 (or .380) basically use a 38 long colt case.

Had they not been converted to .410’s, giving them a new lease of life and much simplified legal status, many of the rook rifles that still survive would have gone as scrap.

The pity is that so many, on conversion, had the front part of the barrel turned down from octagon to round with the change being marked by 2 or 3 circular grooves turned into the barrel.

This was pretty unsightly and in my view the rounding down of the barrel was unnecessary as in boring out to .410 a lot of metal is removed from the barrel leaving the octagonal barrel, if left alone, quite nicely balanced.

It also made it much more difficult to restore them to their original state as rifles such as .32-20 as many have done in recent years.

To prove it could be done nicely (if it had to be done at all) here is how it was done by Charles Edward Greener ( W.W. Greener’s son) for his daughter May.



The original fully octagon barrel has been blended into an ovate shape with the original matted top flat being preserved all the way to the muzzle. Note the chisel work done to blend the change.

I have just acquired, on a princely bid of £2 ( it was Holts upper estimate) a bundle of 4 books.

One is a grubby and fragile copy of W W Greener’s Modern Breechloaders, published 1871.

I looked to see what he had to say about Rook Rifles, to find that he did not use the term instead calling them as shown above Breech-Loading Pea-Rifles.

They were certainly referred to in his later works as Rook or Rook and Rabbit rifles.

Historic Bore, do you know when the term first appeared in print?

The term " four and twenty blackbirds in a pie" in the poem, refers to the custom of making a "pie" from "branchers" breasts.
Mike