My gunsmith thought a 256 Newton would be a nice rifle to have. I looked into Charles Newton and he seemed like a guy to build a rifle after.
Then, my favorite book is "Elephant Hunting in East Equatorial Africa by Arthur Neumann" and the chapter on Lake Rudolph of his goring by
a cow elephant and subsequent 3 month convalescent around the lake, is vivid. So I thought to try to capture that struggle with an engraving from a drawing by Millais.

It was hard to find an engraver that was both an artist and hammer and chisel. Found Lisa Tomlin! What a pleasure to work with her.
Sent her photos of the drawing (I got lucky and happen to have a first edition with higher quality print) and my thoughts about it.
She blended all of these inputs (I also gave her a table book of Millais work) into her engraving.

Lothar Walther barrel (from the times of Woody!!!), Husqvarna small ring action, Jerry Fisher bottom metal and gripcap and Al Biesen buttplate.
Not sure where i got the wood. Hard to capture Lisa's engraving on the round floorplate but it is cool in person as the image changes as the rifle is rotated.

Spectacular engraving! Love that piece of wood too.

what a lovely rifle!

Very nice.

Yep...not much to not like...I'd like to hear the background of choice on the engraving theme.

Flamingos and butterfly...Little unusual on a hunting rifle

quote:

Originally posted by Duane Wiebe (CG&R):
Yep...not much to not like...I'd like to hear the background of choice on the engraving theme.

Flamingos and butterfly...Little unusual on a hunting rifle

Neumann, like a lot of early explorers was a naturalist as well as a hunter. There are many species of butterflies named after him. He did a lot of collecting on his journeys.



Fantastic rifle - well done on the out-of-the-box engraving. unique and classy

Very nice rifle. I like all the metalwork details, and it Defiantly has some beautiful wood!

The engraving is really something. It's interesting how you incorporated the scene from your favorite book into the rifle. Makes it really personal and unique.

Thanks for sharing.

Thanks, Baxter!

That butterfly on the grip cap is Mylothris neumanni

I think a man who exclusively hunted elephant ivory and with butterflies, kongoni and such named after him, must have a "delicate" side.
And working with Lisa, a true Southern Lady, this rifle has a "delicate" side.

As Neumann was struggling with the suppurating hole in his side from the tusk impaling,
he found solace in the varied bird life on the shore of Lake Turkana. His good friend John Millais capture his agony
and joy during this time in an illustration in the book. Lisa derived her engraving from that
drawing and his description of his trying time. One of the dark elements are the flock of Marabou storks coming in
and the 6 dark birds standing off on the sand bar. Lisa's daughter called these undertaker, which is also a name for the Marabous.

I just got bottom metal, grip cap, and screws back from Lisa with a detour to Doug Turnbull on the return trip. Beautiful work.

From the stock and metal work to the engraving, that is one cool rifle...

quote:

Originally posted by steve505:
I think a man who exclusively hunted elephant ivory and with butterflies, kongoni and such named after him, must have a "delicate" side.
And working with Lisa, a true Southern Lady, this rifle has a "delicate" side.

As Neumann was struggling with the suppurating hole in his side from the tusk impaling,
he found solace in the varied bird life on the shore of Lake Turkana. His good friend John Millais capture his agony
and joy during this time in an illustration in the book. Lisa derived her engraving from that
drawing and his description of his trying time. One of the dark elements are the flock of Marabou storks coming in
and the 6 dark birds standing off on the sand bar. Lisa's daughter called these undertaker, which is also a name for the Marabous.

That is one impressive piece of work. Those marabou correctly portend Neumanns fate - as I’m sure you well know he later killed himself in London at 57.

Beautiful rifle, that wood is about as perfect as I have see in terms of the level of color and figure I like in a rifle: Fancy, but like the engraving, not over the top. And the backstory behind the engraving theme is the icing on the cake to this work of art. Art with a multi-layered theme really hits home for me.

On a side note, (not that anyone would care...) at the age of 58 I'm actually pondering my first tattoo. The common thread here is my design will be very subtle, and like this engraving will artfully incorporate various themes from my life. Some small details will be so well hidden they would need to be pointed out. I'm just at the idea stage now, having ruled out a spider on the neck...

P.S. OK, sorry I don't mean to steal this thread, but a cool rifle thing I did was to inlay an oval silver Celtic pendant in black epoxy on a plastic grip cap for a rifle I built for my nephew. I later bought another identical pendant with necklace and gave it to my sister to wear while he was hunting.

I'll stop now... Again, beautiful rifle, and great story! Thanks for sharing, I will remember this now anytime I read something about Neumann.

Just fantastic. Without the back story, I would have thought the engraving to be very odd on a rifle. Really love how you have done your research to build a tribute rifle and tied it all together. Very imaginative. Did I miss the name of the gunmaker?

Roy Bedeaux of Albuquerque, New Mexico did all of the work on the rifle.
Yes, the engraving is a bit different but...
Lisa Tomlin was ecstatic to do this engraving as it told a story.
Other engravers I talked to commented they considered themselves metalworkers and did not have the artistic skill to "paint" the scene.

Steve,
What a nice rifle and cool back story. That piece of wood is about perfect in my eye.
John

Very nice.

No to derail your thread, but I noticed your location. I went to Blue Mountain Ranch as a kid for a few years. Beautiful area.

A lot of thought went into the details of this rifle. Very nice!

Lovely rifle, have you had a chance to work up any loads and if so what kind of groups are you getting?

Both the stock and floorplate in sunlight must be something to behold.

Great execution of vision and skill.

Jeremy

If you like the .256 Newton caliber (as I do), then here's something to aspire to: a 1916 Newton action, restocked by Griffin & Howe, with a half octagonal. half round barrel with full length rib in caliber .35 Newton, with a Zeiss Zielklein scope in a single lever windage adjustable G&H side mount. I'm taking it hunting this afternoon.

https://hosting.photobucket.co...2_11_zpsvcrsinfm.jpg

The barrel is half octagon, half round and has an integral full length rib. The Zeiss Zielklein is mounted in a windage adjustable single lever Griffin & Howe side mount and the cocking piece features a Newton aperture sight. The wood is much nicer than it appears in the photograph.

Extremely nice and built for you, what else matters...