Looks like a pretty neat action and rifle.

That rifle has been sitting on GB since at least early last summer.

Nice digging, LD1!

What caliber is the one shown?  A couple were used in the 1880s-era Creedmoor matches, but you sure would not want to shoot this particular rifle in a Creedmoor-rules match with all that military stuff hanging on the barrel.  Brown and Farrow were well acquainted, maybe friends.  All this going from memory.

Just going from memory here, from reading old books a few years back, may be wrong.  IIRC, Farrow and Brown were on the US team that went to England, shot in the long range matches, tang sights, back positions.  Maybe both used Brown rifles.

waterman wrote on Feb 14^th, 2021 at 10:31am:


Waterman, you may be thinking of the revival match of 1880.  IIRC, the US. was shooting the Palma match by then and accepted an invitation to shoot at Dollymount.  The team members were:

1880 at Dollymount, Ireland 
J.F. Clark, H. Fisher, R. Rathbone, W.M. Farrow J.F. Brown and S.I. Scott
Scores   Americans: 1,292  Ireland:  1,280

There was an unofficial follow-up match shot shortly after at Wimbledon that was organized by Frank Hyde.  Lots of politics and Farrow was booted off the team.

1880 at Wimbledon, England 
Unofficial match USA vs GB following the Dollymount match. 
USA: Brown, Dudley, Gerrish, Hyde, Jackson, Laird, Rockwell, Scott 

Scores: Great Britain 1647,  America 1568
The preferred rifles on the American Team were primarily: 6 Sharps Borchardts, 1 Rolling block and 1 Ballard.  I suspect that Farrow shot the Ballard as he was shooting one in 1879 and represented the factory.  This is all by courtesy of Research Press