This movie is starting to get to me with minutiae. The opening scenes are a mix of real elephant hunting and actors playing their scenes. One of the German [client] actor hunters and later in the movie Richard Carlson portraying John Good are using large bore [probably] tubular magazine bolt action sporting rifles, circa 1897. I believe these are the same brand and model. I confirmed these are not Remington Remington-Keene or Winchester Hotchkiss rifles. I don't believe the Winchester was even tubular feeding.

Anyone who can, please identify the German's bolt action rifle.

I haven't watched the movie so sorry I can't help with that but here is a link to a free audiobook reading of the book:

https://librivox.org/king-solomons-mines-by-haggard/

The website is composed of volunteers and they have tons of books that you can download and listen to, you just have to remember that they are being read by volunteers and not necessarily professional actors.

Anyway, if you have never read the actual book it's a pretty good listen.

Is it the rifle in the center?

OK, here's a wild stab in the dark, could it have been a dressed up Stevens/Savage 59A bolt action 410 shotgun?

A good a guess as any, not that whatever it was would do her much good with the bolt raised. I read in the book "Hellraisers" about the autobiography of Richard Burton as well as a few others that he took to doing Stewart Granger's wife. That must have been rough when they had to work together doing "The Wild Geese". Also when he was doing Elizabeth Taylor while she was still married to Eddie Fisher. Eddie calls home + Burton answers the phone + Eddie asks what the hell are you doing there, + Burton replies, "What the hell do you think, I'm fxxking your wife" OUCH!!

Here is a good thread with a few probable responses:

https://www.thehighroad.org/in...s-mines-1950.848152/

I just sourced the rifle as a Remington-Keane Sporting model.

quote:

Originally posted by Naphtali:
I just sourced the rifle as a Remington-Keane Sporting model.

All three characters are British, they're supposedly in British East Africa, and the two very wealthy clients just came out from London, the heart of the bespoke safari rifle trade at that time. So why, then, is she armed with a factory-made, American rifle???

Because it's Hollywood, that's why.

To me it looks like a Mauser 71/84 that has been sporterized.

M

quote:

Originally posted by Mark Clark:
To me it looks like a Mauser 71/84 that has been sporterized.

M

I can see that, now that you point it out. Still not as appropriate as a good London-made rifle, but it would be much more believable than some Remington, certainly. Good eye.

Well American made firearms did indeed make it Africa in those days. The Winchester 1895 her lost husband had in the movie is quite appropriate. So the possibility that a Remington Keene made its way there isn't too much of a stretch. Bottom line is they wanted the latest technology in firearms regardless where it came from.

quote:

Originally posted by Cougarz:
Well American made firearms did indeed make it Africa in those days. The Winchester 1895 her lost husband had in the movie is quite appropriate. So the possibility that a Remington Keene made its way there isn't too much of a stretch. Bottom line is they wanted the latest technology in firearms regardless where it came from.

The 1895 might very well be appropriate as a secondary safari rifle, given that it was popularized by Teddy Roosevelt, I'll give you that. In the hands of an American client, the Remington-Keene is a possibility, but a remote one. And in the hands of the British gentry? Not done, old boy! And if they wanted the best technology for an African expedition, they could find that closer to home, England or the Continent, not in an outdated foreign rifle from the 1870's chambered in the old, old .45-70. Logically, I think Mark Clark's idea is far more plausible. But then, in a Hollywood movie, anything's possible I guess.

As Bogart once grinned and said, when asked by a G.I. where he managed to find a 14-shot .45 Auto: "The miracle of Hollywood, boys!"