Hangfire the Monthly Newsletter of the New Zealand Antique Arms Association Inc
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Hangfire The Monthly Newsletter of the New Zealand Antique Arms Association Inc. Otago Branch. Otago Branch NZAAA Inc., PO Box 2215, South Dunedin. Branch Contacts: Chairman – Tony Secretary – Bill [email protected] Treasurer – Stuart Hangfire Editor – Keith Mitchell [email protected] Monthly meetings are held every third Wednesday evening (except no meeting in January) beginning at 7:30 p.m. Next meeting is on November 18th. Bring along anything that takes your fancy to “show and tell” but in particular German stuff from the Great War. A cute wee bunny grazes contentedly behind the flower pots and whose brief but happy life will very shortly be terminated explosively “with extreme prejudice” by means of a 17 grain .17 Hornady Magnum Rimfire bullet… Keith’s Occasional Editorial Longevity! Sweden has kept better records of its population than most nations. Since 1840, life expectancy there from birth has increased at the rate of three months every year. In 1840, life expectancy for women was 45 years, now it is 83 years – men of course, lag a little behind. New Zealand is similar. When I was nine, in 1964, life expectancy for a male was 66 years. In 1964, our Otago Branch of the Antique Arms was formed. There is an ODT report and photo of the event stuck to the wall of Lawrence Chiminello’s shop. The photo shows Elio and a very youthful Grant Sheriff. At our September 2020 branch AGM, I looked around the room and saw a lot of grey hair (where still attached) and wrinkles. I got to thinking that it was a good job that our AGM wasn’t being held in 1964 because most of us would likely be sitting there propped up and dead. Unless humanity discovers the key to immortality in the next very few years, there will hardly be any firearm collectors left. At present, recruitment of young people isn’t enough to support life. This is a conundrum and I wish I had an answer but I don’t. I do notice that it is rare for any of our very few young members to turn up at a meeting. We have to make the meetings more appealing. It’s a damned shame that more members, young or old, weren’t at the October meeting. John brought along an excellent display of British Great War grenades. I had no idea there was such an interesting, if macabre, variety of grenades. I should imagine that some are quite rare for as Stuart pointed out, “most were just thrown away”. I will have photographs and information on the grenades in December’s “Hangfire”. Otago Daily Times “100 Years Ago” column Bill found this in Wednesday’s (3.11.20) ODT from a 1920 report. “Our Wellington correspondent wires that Dr Thacker, in the House of Representatives yesterday, suggested that the Government should take drastic methods in regard to the indiscriminate shooting that was going on all over New Zealand. Notwithstanding the restrictions some 20 or 25 per cent of the people were going about with revolvers in their hip pockets. Mr Massey said members would recollect that the House had recently passed an Arms Bill, but it would not come fully into operation for some months. It was intended to deal with the difficulty. Mr Young: Stop the sale of revolvers. Mr Massey: That is not yet possible. We must allow dealers to get rid of their stock. We cannot stop the dealers’ business altogether. The automatic pistol, which, I am told, is the most dangerous, is prohibited altogether. The police information to us was that a considerable number of people had got into the habit of carrying firearms. The Act will stop it when it comes into full operation, and the government will do all it can.” Which I presume meant that the government was going to allow the gun shops to sell their stock of revolvers to the public and then they would be made illegal…I’m glad to see that governments haven’t changed over the intervening years. October 11 Swap Meet I love swap meetings, you never know what is going to turn up. As my late Dad used to say about such things, it’s not what you get, it’s what you might get. My stay was short, I needed to be back out on the farm in the afternoon tailing lambs. All I bought was a Pattern 37 webbing holster dated “1941” from Adam Brierley who was up from Invercargill. Morris Smith was there too and we had a good old yarn. I guess in their case, it’s not what they sold but what they might have sold. Chaz Forsyth took this photo of the gathering - the usual suspects. More collectors turned up than appear here. I should have stayed rather than gone tailing – we got rained on. One of the showers on the day, this one out to sea which makes it, I guess, a squall. This Month’s Firearm This is a Boer Steyr M.86 11x58R straight-pull military rifle utilising the Mannlicher packet- loading system. The serial number is 26525. According to Paul Scarlata in his “Mannlicher Military Rifles. A Collector’s Guide” (Mowbray, 2004), barrel length is 31.7” and rifle weight is 9.9 lb – it’s big. The cartridge was loaded with a 370 grain lead bullet pushed by a compressed black powder charge to an impressive 1,610 fps. Production began in 1886 and after 90,000 had been delivered, was halted in 1887. This was due to the momentous arrival of French smokeless powder. As an interim measure, while Austrian chemists sought to invent their own smokeless powder, M.86 rifles were re-barrelled in 8mm using a black powder cartridge and re-designated the M.86-88. This while the purpose-built M.88 was developed – but still using a black powder cartridge. It would be interesting to know how many M.86 rifles remain unconverted. Scarlata mentions that the Boers, who were buying whatever arms they could get, bought later models of Steyr rifles but no mention of the M.86. Obviously, at least one M.86 was being used by a Boer irregular when it was captured during the Second Boer War (1899-1902). The present owner purchased this rifle as one of a group of firearms that had been housed in a museum for the Queen’s Royal Regiment (West Surrey). Apparently, in typical fashion the world over, the police had frozen onto the museum stating that its security wasn’t up to the standard required for housing firearms and that it would have to sell them. The present owner bought the lot in 1984. I commented to him that it was pretty mean for the police not to allow the museum to keep ancient firearms chambered in obsolete calibres on their premises. He quickly replied that, “Probably it was the machine guns in the museum that had first caught the attention of the police!” I Checked with “The Royal Archives” which are available online, to find that the soldier who presented the rifle to the museum was James Kennedy Bunbury, a Major in the 1st Battalion of the Queen’s Royal Regiment and later a Lieutenant Colonel on the General Staff. The Queen’s Royal Regiment (West Surrey) was raised in 1661 and named for Queen Catherine, widow of Charles II. A quick check on the history of Britstown which was also found online tells us that: “During the Anglo Boer War, the town played host to British armed forces dispatched by Lord Roberts to check the advance of Boer Commandos led by Commandant Liebenberg. On the 6th March 1900 the British forces were attacked by the Commando approximately 20-miles from the village and were forced to retreat back to Britstown, with the loss of 21 men. Additional reinforcements under the command of Lord Kitchener were dispatched to the district from Cape Town and the Boer Commandos in the district were forced to retreat across the Orange River.” Presumably, the rifle was captured during the Boer retreat. Recent Auctions There have been two, the Hawke’s Bay Branch “Half Yearly AGM and Auction” which was held on 3rd October, and Ted Rogers’ “Militaria Auction” held on the 17th and 18th October. A couple of items from each caught my eye. First from Hawke’s Bay, a couple of nice Snider carbines: Lot 999. I am no expert on the Snider but if the carbine is as good as the description, it was something of a bargain at $700. These cavalry carbines with their shortened forends have the 5 groove barrels of the Pattern 1861 conversions so should be good shooters. Lot 1000. The description of a “bright/unblemished” bore sounded good and once again, this carbine (presumably) has the Pattern 1861 5 groove barrel. At $1,000, I think this also was good buying. And from Ted’s auction, a Martini and a rook rifle: Lot 1578. I liked the description of this Martini enough to place a postal bid on it. The photo showed a rifle with plenty of colour which presumably was original finish - you just have to trust the person writing the description. Ted’s estimate of $500 to $700 was always going to be laughably light. I am keen on getting a Webley Martini to accompany my sporting Martini which was supplied to the Army & Navy C.S.L. by P. Webley & Son. Reading on the ‘net though, at least some of the “Webley” Martinis were actually made at the Braendlin Armoury which was in business from 1871 to 1889.