Hi All.

I have the oppurtunity of buying the above rifle on a P14 action in very nice condition. I have heard some reports that they are are actually low quality rifles and should be avoided.
I would appreciate any and all thoughts. Be brutal.

Thank you

I presume this action still has the "dog ears"?
I own two of these rifles. If I were going to start a 404 project, I'd find a Montana Rifle Co. long action and use that as the basis of your project.
By the time you have a smith do all the work to make the action ready for the rest of the rifle, you'll be money ahead getting an action ready to go or even better a CZ in 404.
Just my opines here!

Is this the rifle you are talking about?
http://www.gunsinternational.c...cfm?gun_id=100298946

I have no knowledge of that rifle, but there is a 404 on Ralf Martini's website for sale for a little bit less that I would consider before that C&H. (Do a "ctrl+f" and put "404" in. It's towards the bottom).
http://www.martiniandhagngunma...m/forsale_rifles.htm

Ahh, I see! A finished rifle!

Its not that particular rifle but very similar.

I used a friends wayyyyy back, when I lived in South Africa for awhile.
It looked like the one in the picture, and had been converted to cock on opening. It was a simple, but rugged reliable rifle. I grew very fond of it.

Champlin Arms has a Westley Richards 404 for sale and Wayne Jacobson at AHR has one of his DGRs in 404 for sale as well.

Coggi's are considered to be at the bottom of the food chain of British rifles.....just good working rifles, nothing fancy. 404 Jeff is an excellent round....if you like the rifle and it is not priced way out of range, bbl in good shape, might be a good shooter....sure would be cheaper and quicker than a Custom.
Cheers,

Cogswell and Harrison built both working guns as well as very high end ones. They were well liked in India and still are by surviving old-timers. Building and "regulating" low priced guns was something that all of the Brits did, and they were no exception. If the rifle in question is in good shape, it should work as well as anything with a fancier name.

I had a C&H in .375 and it was well built and very accurate. Good no nonsense rifle.

Coggies are great no nonsense working rifles. I would have to think even the low end rifles made by the Brits would be better than an out of the box Winchester or TC! Plus it has those classic English lines... Even on your first safari you would look like a grizzled pro.

I had one- soon sold it. It fed fine but you had to be very careful when loading otherwise all the rounds in the mag popped out the top- wasn't possible to do an 'eyes on target' reload- you had to look at what you were doing.

Compared to my H&H .404 the C&H was much more pleasant to shoot- but ultimately got rid of both - and never actually shot anything more savage than an IPSC target with either. The H&H was built on a standard F.N. post war comercial Mauser action- to get .404 rounds into the mag you had to 'hook them in' under the rear bridge of the action and there was a cutout in the front reciever ring so you could eject a loaded cartridge- a heck of alot of effort and gunsmithing had gone into making an action that is really too small take a .404 - it made for a wonderfully light (7lb) and compact rifle and I could do an 'eyes off' reload with a bit of practice...