Interesting Gun with Indian connection

[herb]

Hi folks,

Saw the mention of Paradox guns in some previous threads and thought some of you might be interested in this article that I came across when going thru my old gun books, this was published in the "1944 Gun Digest Annual Addition".

This gun was made by Westley Richards for the Maharaja of Patiala, was passed on to King Edward & then on to the famous gun writer Elmer Keith.
























Herb

[mundaire]

Nice read indeed - thanks for sharing Herb!

Cheers!
Abhijeet

[nagarifle]

interesting read, goes to show how advance the old timers were in their thinking.

ta mate

[OverUnderPump]

All I can say is wow, thanks for sharing Herb

regards

OUP

[shahid]

What is the essential difference between paradox and Explora.

I have used a Paradox gun, till very recently by brother had a Holland & Holland 16 bore paradox gun. It had leaf sights for 50, 75 and 100 yards. It was sold in 2006/07.

A paradox has a helixal groove at the muzzle end, about 2 inches.

An explora has what ? Grooving like a rifle at the last 2 inches of the muzzle ?

And a 12 Bore Black powder rifle ? It would also fire a very similar conical projectile encased in a brass case I guess, except that the barrel would be fully rifled and the powder charge would be 4 drams or over. Perhaps a 2 3/4 inch chamber or maybe even 3 inch.

[herb]

Glad you folks liked the article.

Shahid - I think the explora and paradox are nearly the same (could be wrong). Westley Richards called theirs the Explora, Holland and Holland called theirs the Paradox (Paradox is commonly used now, such was the reputation of H&H) and some other gun houses followed suit with minor changes.

Another version was the "Colindian" made by, I believe, Charles Lancaster.

I also believe that there were some guns with one smooth barrel and the other with rifling in the choke area, another with one smooth & one fully barreled. Every gun house wanted to get on the patent wagon.

[indian]

nice one herb u r right about smooth bore and paradox in one gun.i saw one cogswell and harrison in india and its right barrel was a paradox

[shahid]

Does that imply that Explora, Paradox, Jeffery Shikari were the same ?

If Holland & Holland were the inventors ( introduced ) paradox barrels then why call some of their other guns Explora ? Their is bound to be some difference is design / type here.

[snIPer]

Lovely one Herb . Thank you.

[herb]

Paradox gun was invented by Col Fosberry and patented by H&H, paradox was their trademark/brandname for such guns. The patent for Paradox (front two inches of the barrel rifled) was granted to H&H in 1885.

http://www.hollandandholland.com/history/history2.htm

Westley Richards called their version the Explora. It is possible that WR would have made some changes (like more rifling area etc) to the explora to avoid legal complications arising out of H&H owning the patent for paradox, but I have not found any information on the differences in the design of the guns but WR did have a different metal capped bullet design for the Explora which they claimed was superior to the bullets available from H&H & Kynoch for the Paradox.

There is no mention of Paradox in WR's 1910 catalog although they have mentioned explora.

http://www.oldguncatalogs.com/Templates ... s-1910.htm

Sir Samuel Baker the famous explorer/hunter who discovered one of the sources (Lake Albert) of the river Nile mentions Magnum Paradox No 12 in his book long before H&H's patent in 1885. The rifle was made for him by Harris Holland (founder of H&H). The term paradox was in use for such guns long before H&H's patent but because H&H was the first major gun house on the scene with guns having rifling at the muzzle end of the barrel & called it Paradox, all such guns after that were generally called Paradox.





I have never heard of a H&H explora or a WR paradox, that does not mean they don't exist & I will be very interested in learning more about them. Please post photos or information if you have heard about them.

[gatsby]

Holland and Holland introduced their Paradox gun in 1885, by 1900 their patent had expired. During the years when the patent was in effect several alternative methods were employed by other makers to achieve the same effect as the Holland choke rifling, oval boring,invisable rifling, etc, but none were as effective as the Holland Fosebery system.
When the patent ran out other makers used the choke rifling in their own guns.
Leslie Taylor of Westley Richards designed and patented a new cartridge for their rifled choke guns using an elongated capped bullet and slightly changing the Holland choke rifling in order to stabilize the bullet and proportedly to produce better shot patterning. He called the 12's and larger Exploras and the 20's and 28's Faunetas all using the same cartridge system. Taylor a strong adovocate of the rifled choke gun theorized 12 bore guns using his system could be designed to shot a 730 bullet to 1800fps. He never quite achieved this but he did design and manufacture the most versitile and powerful rifled choke gun ever made the Super Magnum Explora. Shooting a 730gr bullet at 1500fps
By 1913 the era of ball and shotguns was coming to an end. Holland only manufactured 80 or less of their 1500 paradoxes from that year till 1930 when the last gun was manufactured

[shahid]

But 12 Bore Paradox was reintroduced in 2006.

It is great on Deer size game and Wild Boar control in wooded areas tilll ranges of 100 yards.

Coming back to original discussion a paradox is the H & H name.

Explora or Shikari will be from Westley Richards and Jeffery respectively, not H & H.

What Sir Samuel Baker carried was a Magnum Paradox. A loading with more powder which increased the Me and Mv and increased the effective range of the 12 Bore Nitro paradox to ranges above 150 yards till about 200 to 225 yards.

The then bullet was a soft nose slug encased in a brass cartridge. Normal ones had 4 Dram Eq. of charge behing them, the Magnum Paradox had a higher charge.

Shape of the 16 Bore Paradox bullet was slightly different, it had a flat point, conical shape. THis Nitro Paradox was superb for deer and similar game up to 150 yards.

My brother's H & H 16 Bore paradox had leaf sights of 50 yards, 75 yards and 100 yards. We used to wonder about this 100 yard range for we had not seen a Nitro Paradox round till we visited H & H for the first time in 1991. Before that we had heard rumors from some villagers in our area that our grandfathers had used 12 bore with brass cartridge cases. Obviously these would have been paradox.SOme reports of empty cases in the attic room of a relative's house came but we did not actually see them. All these events indicate Paradox was in use in our parts too till about the 1930s ad 40s.

This 16 Bore Paradox was a 1906 model H & H.

Anther important development of that time was the Velopex bullet for NE Rifles.

A great recommendation for Paradox comes from an excellent sportsman and great shooter, The Late Maharaja of Cooch Behar, Father of HH Inderjeet Singh and HH Maharani Gayatri Devi of Jaipur.

He recommends an armoury complete for Jungle shooting from an Elephant back or Machaan for all game including RHino, Bison or Elephant if one is armed with two great guns from H & H

THe .465 India Nitro Express Double
and an H & H 12 Bore Nitro Paradox.

[gatsby]

A great recommendation for Paradox comes from an excellent sportsman and great shooter, The Late Maharaja of Cooch Behar, Father of HH Inderjeet Singh and HH Maharani Gayatri Devi of Jaipur.

I have read his book! I paraphrase a great quotation from him all the time, including using it as my sign off on the Nitroexpress forums. " Recoil is insignificent when there is a Tiger on the head of your elephant" I believe you can apply that reasoning to many situations in life!
Paradoxes of all configurations were meant to shoot to 100yds. Early standard 12 bore loads were a mild 3.5drs Velocities for Hollands were 1050fps for early guns (28grs cordite), to late magnums (1200fps 35gr cordite) Guns were shipped with sights to 150yds and Holland did tests to prove the accuracy of their own capped bullet loads to 300yds. There is also some indication Holland made late guns with special order loadings to compete with the Westley guns.
The Westley Super Magnum Explora had what was a 7 dram equivilent ( never a black powder load)load of 47 grs cordite and 2 grains of an excelerant. The standard Explora shot to 1250fps.

[[email protected]]

Hello Everyone!

I am new here and noticed this string in Google regarding this Westley Richards Explora. My father and I have owned this gun for the last 30 years. We had Howard French of Guns and Ammo Magazine write about it to tell it's beautiful story.

Being Sikh's and living in the United States, we felt compelled to own this historic piece and since purchasing it, have collected a number of cartridges and other important paperwork to back up it's story.

This 1905 era "12 gauge" Westley Richards Explora Shotgun has been held and fired by Bhupinder Singh, Yadvindra Singh, Edward (The Prince of Wales) and Elmer Keith. It truly is a historic and well documented shotgun.

I grew up in the states after the age of three, loving guns and rifles. My visits to India were a few and I loved shooting pellet guns and shotguns. Patiala and firearms have always held a special place in my heart even before acquiring the Explora. I collect many kinds of guns from Colt SAA's to Winchester Lever guns to name a few.

Thank you for your enthusiasm, I hope to check into this forum in greater detail in the future.

With similar passions, Sincerely

Raj M. Singh
eaglegrips.com

Is anyone here from Patiala?

[Mack The Knife]

Hi Raj. I think you may know Mehul Kamdar from Illinois as he has had a lot of good things to say about the grips you make.

Welcome aboard.

Mack The Knife