The Rook Rifle: Gamekeeper? Nath?

[Blaine]

I was watching Poirot, and the weapon used was a Rook rifle. I'd never heard of those before. I gleaned that it was a very low powered rifle used to shoot vermin on the estate.
I wonder if there was special ammo, or did they load their own reduced rounds?
It was a very ornate, and expensive looking single shot break action.

Not quite, but almost like this beautiful H&H:

[KWK]

There are various definitions for this class of rifle. Some consider the light break open singles in certain small cartridges to be "the" rook and rabbit rifles. Others include small falling blocks. There were several small, centerfire BP cartridges, between 25 and 32 caliber, used in these. The smokeless .22 LR pretty much eliminated the class. I once owned a book covering them but donated it to the ASSRA library many years ago, so others might be able to offer more details (and possibly corrections) than my memory recalls.

This web page has an excerpt from an old book which gives more information.

[Blaine]

There are various definitions for this class of rifle. Some consider the light break open singles in certain small cartridges to be "the" rook and rabbit rifles. Others include small falling blocks. There were several small, centerfire BP cartridges, between 25 and 32 caliber, used in these. The smokeless .22 LR pretty much eliminated the class. I once owned a book covering them but donated it to the ASSRA library many years ago, so others might be able to offer more details (and possibly corrections) than my memory recalls.

This web page has an excerpt from an old book which gives more information.

Thanks. That was a cornucopia of excellent info. The "little" Rooks were far more powerful than I imagined.

[gamekeeper]

A lot of those old rook & rabbit rifles were bored out to .410 when they fell out of favour to the .22 rimfires.

[Pete44ru]

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IMO, the "hammerless" break-open Rook rifles are arguably among the most elegant-looking rifles of any size/type.









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[JB]

There was also the 310 Rook. I never owned the Rook version, but had several of the 310 Martini Cadets at one time. I still have some of the ammo lying around, but nothing to shoot it it