Whitworth Rifle Warning

Whitworth Rifle Warning!

The Whitworth Rifle Number B376 which may appear on the market as a Telescope Sighted Whitworth, with the inference that this might have been Confederate, should be considered in the light of the following information.

B376 was noted by the Whitworth Research Team at the Baltimore Gun Show in March 2000.

Whitworth Rifle Research
Bill Curtis and De Witt Bailey have an ongoing research project concerning original Whitworth rifles. If you have access to ANY original hex bore Whitworth from the period 1857-1865 please note its serial number and letter for recording. Send information to Bill Curtis at:
[email protected]

It was then an absolutely typical Military Match in Whitworth's `BEST' configuration, conforming to the standard form of all the `BEST' marked rifles. It did not have either a telescope or the mountings for one.

At some time in the following three months this rifle has been fitted with a side mounted brass telescope sight and the `BEST' removed from the guard tang and replaced with the words `2nd QUALITY'.

The rifle bears no resemblance whatsoever to Whitworth's `2nd QUALITY' rifles and bears a serial number from well before the first appearance of this series.

The telescope and its mountings are not Whitworth Pattern.

The possible inference that may be drawn from this, is that whoever committed this atrocity has read or otherwise knew that the Confederate Whitworths were marked `2nd QUALITY' and changed the rifle to tempt collectors without specialised knowledge.