Beautiful Belgian .450 3 1/4 Double Rifle! Nitro proofed, BUT.........

[rhoward252]

Beautiful Belgian Double Rifle chambered in 450 3 ¼ NE. BUT!!…………please read the full description. Boxlocks, excellent bright and sharp rifling, tight on face, and ready to be put to the field. Proof marks indicate that it was built before 1922 and was for non-jacketed bullets. A superb pre-war quality rifle for a great price in wonderful condition. I was told by the dealer that I purchased this from in 2024 that JJ P. had inspected the firearm and had determined that it was Nitro proofed, but for the lower of the 3 commercial loadings. Per the dealer, he recommended a starting place of 350gr cast or thin-jacketed bullets with + or – 45 gr. IMR 4198 plus filler. So it is kind of like a .450BPE +P Please proceed with caution in load development.

This appears to have been an ejector rifle with the ejectors disabled to now be an extractor rifle. The maker is not obviously marked, but the quality is obvious! LOP to both triggers is shown in the photos, barrels are 26 inches, weight is just over 7 pounds 7 ounces on my postal scale. The wood grain is superb, as is the engraving. The trigger guard is elegantly inlayed with a gold crest. This clearly was a high-end rifle for its day! I have not fired it. I am well-established on this forum and have participated in many transactions with different members, but I will be happy to prove my legitimacy in any way reasonably requested. $6250.00 shipped and insured in the lower 48. The price is firm, and I am not interested in trades. FTF is fine. I am located in Northern Minnesota about 3.5 hours north of Minneapolis.

 

[DILLGAF]

Lovely rifle. I would bring it to Puglisi’s Gun Emporium if you’re near Duluth. They have had a lot of safari and big bore rifles in lately. They might be interested. Good luck.

 

[AZDAVE]

Very nice looking double. Will make a great deer/black bear double for here in the states and a work on PG in Africa.

 

[85lc]

Nice looking rifle. For proof marks, look at https://www.scribd.com/document/821046237/Belgian-All-Proofmarks

It looks to me that the rifle is black powder proofed.

 

[85lc]

What JJP may have meant is that the rifle is safe for Nitro for Black which any good 450 BPE is suitable for. That being said, the normal load for a 450 BPE used a bullet between 280 and 325 gr at about 1850 fps. That is a very good deer and black bear load.

Your gun is very nice looking, good engraving and nice weight for a 450 BPE -- too light at 7# 7oz for a 450NE

 

[rhoward252]

There is one nitro proof mark on the rifle. Clearly it was made as a BP rifle, but somewhere along the line it received a Nitro proof. It's been a while since I examined them, but I did find it after I purchased the rifle.

 

[rookhawk]

There is one nitro proof mark on the rifle. Clearly it was made as a BP rifle, but somewhere along the line it received a Nitro proof. It's been a while since I examined them, but I did find it after I purchased the rifle.

Some blackpowder rifles were proofed for nitro-at-blackpowder pressures when new. It isn't always indicative to a reproof.

It is a light-load 450 Nitro-For-Black gun that should use the lighter bullets at original Black Powder pressures.

The gun was probably built for Stag and Boar, but it would be great for plains game in India/Africa as well.

 

[85lc]

The 45gr of 4198 with a 340 gr bullet is a typical NfB load for a 450 BPE cartridge as recommended by Ross Seyfried in several articles in DGJ. It isn't a +P load.

 

[AZSkibo]

Beautiful!