I'm afraid I have to correct you on this point. The documents your statements are based on date back to the 1990s and are now outdated. Today, the history of the .500 "Jeffery" can be reconstructed quite accurately, and there is virtually no evidence pointing to a contribution by W.J. Jeffery & Co., whereas there is a great deal of evidence supporting August Schüler and, in particular, his son Richard.
The first indication is the rebated rim of the cartridge. This was a characteristic feature of Schüler cartridges. The first cartridge to incorporate this design was the
11.2×60 Schüler, introduced around 1904. August Schüler believed so strongly in the concept that he protected it with a German registered utility model (
D.R.G.M. No. 239127). The same principle was later applied to the more powerful
11.2×72 Schüler, introduced in 1907.
As the books are hard to obtain, I will share my latest notes on Schüler: The name Schüler is well known in the German arms industry. However, the most well-known Schüler’s were those from a family associated with the SCHÜLER WAFFENFABRIK. Friedrich Wilhelm Schüler (the son of the master...
forum.cartridgecollectors.org
Since Richard Schüler only protected this design within the German Empire, Westley Richards quickly recognized the potential of such a cartridge, resulting in the introduction of the
.425 Westley Richards shortly thereafter. At that time, British gunmakers frequently adopted German technical innovations or introduced virtually identical designs under English names. The
.275 Rigby, which is nothing more than the German
7×57 Mauser, is perhaps the best-known example.
Another strong argument is the overall design of the .500 cartridge itself. It is remarkably compact and appears to have been designed specifically to fit a
standard Mauser 98 action. August Schüler built his sporting rifles exclusively on standard Mauser actions, whereas Jeffery generally preferred
Magnum Mauser actions, to which Schüler simply did not have access.
Had the cartridge originally been designed for a Magnum action, there would have been no need for such a pronounced rebated rim—or it could at least have been made considerably larger. Furthermore, the cartridge could easily have been made longer overall, allowing for greater powder capacity. Its compact dimensions make perfect sense only in the context of a standard-length Mauser 98 receiver.
It should also be noted that British sporting cartridges had virtually no presence in Germany at the time, and in many respects this has remained true to the present day. The opposite, however, was certainly the case. German cartridges such as the
7×57 Mauser and the
9.3×62 gained enormous popularity throughout the British Empire.
Another important point is the role of W.J. Jeffery itself. The company was much more of an
assembler than a designer, at least when it came to bolt-action sporting rifles. Jeffery purchased its Mauser actions and barreled actions "in the white" almost exclusively from Germany, including from
August Schüler himself (see attached photographs). In fact, I would argue that Jeffery was one of the best customers of the Suhl gun trade.
Against this background, it is hardly surprising that the
.500 Jeffery appeared shortly after the introduction of the
.500 Schüler. The timing was almost certainly not a coincidence. Jeffery itself even states that the cartridge did not originate in-house:
https://www.wjjeffery.com/500-magazine-rifle
I personally know of two original Schüler "Jumbo" rifles. One bears a serial number in the
24xxx range, the other in the
25xxx range, and both carry identical proof dates. Today we know that the
12.7×70, or
.500 Schüler, had already been developed in
1920, while the first Jumbo rifles were sold in
1924. In total, approximately
110 rifles were manufactured, almost all of which were exported, primarily to the former German colonies and the Belgian Congo.
The question of why the British
.500 Jeffery ultimately became the better-known cartridge has a rather straightforward answer.
Germany lost two World Wars, lost all of its overseas colonies, and from 1933 onwards had far more pressing concerns than developing or marketing heavy elephant cartridges. After 1945, Richard Schüler was no longer allowed to continue operating his own business. Like most other Suhl gunmakers, he was absorbed into the state-run
BÜHAG, where there was naturally no interest in dangerous-game cartridges within socialist East Germany. As a result, the
12.7×70 Schüler disappeared from the market for many decades.
Fortunately, today the cartridge has experienced something of a revival. Correctly dimensioned cartridge cases, reloading dies, suitable bullets, and even properly dimensioned barrels from
Lothar Walther are once again available.
Best regards.
