Lloyd rifle
Encyclopedia
The Lloyd Rifle was the 1950s brainchild of English deer-stalker, rifleman, metallurgist and engineer David Llewellyn Lloyd
. His objective was to create a high-quality, scope-sighted
, magazine-fed
sporting rifle
capable of dependably high accuracy at long ranges, of retaining its zero despite rough handling, and of firing modern high-intensity, flat shooting cartridges such as the .244 H&H Magnum
(which Lloyd himself developed) and the .264 Winchester Magnum
.
on his family's own deer forest
at Glencassley, and elsewhere in northern Scotland - he grassed more than 5,000 Red deer stags in a career lasting some 60 years - Lloyd sought a rifle which would shoot high powered cartridges giving an exceptionally flat trajectory and significant long range hitting power, to make it straightforward to take shots out to 300 yards and more on very sloping, mountainous terrain, without the need for very precise range-judging. A very early convert to the use of scope sights in the conservative world of British deerstalking, Lloyd was impatient with the weak scope mounting systems available in the early 20th century, and sought a solution.
bolt-action
, for its inherent strength and proven potential for accuracy, and on his rifles only the bolt face (to suit the cartridge) and the back-swept bolt handle were modified from the Mauser norm.
, and no provision for fitting them without some difficulty - and the majority of Lloyd rifles were delivered to their owners fitted with fixed-power scopes, usually of 4X or 6X magnification, by makers such as Habicht, Zeiss, Swarovski
and Hensoldt. The scope was held in a specially designed, integral, immensely strong, receiver-enshrouding mount which positioned it very low over the action, and gripped both the scope and the rifle action in massive rings of steel. Lloyd held UK Patent Number 646419 for this design.
With this scope attachment - indeed, integration - system, Lloyd's intention was to create a rifle which was, so far as humanly possible, immune to the shocks, bumps and jars that so often knocked the scopes on other rifles seriously out of alignment. The objective was to have a rifle which, once completed, could be zeroed for a selected cartridge load and a chosen zero distance, and which would faithfully hold that zero from outing to outing, and even from one shooting season to another. "I want a stable platform from which to shoot," Lloyd said. In his quest for this tenacity of zero, he was largely successful, and many of his customers reported that they had never found it necessary to make any adjustment whatsoever to their rifles' sights over many years of use. There are also reports of Lloyd rifles having successfully survived serious mishaps such as falls from considerable heights, and even being run over by vehicles, without losing zero.
. Although Lloyd enjoyed sourcing the walnut for the rifles' stocks himself, visiting growers and dealers across Europe, many of the rifles were stocked-up by Wisemans. In making rifles, Lloyd also had close working relationships with the firms of W. W. Greener
, Webley & Scott
, W.J. Jeffery, John Rigby
and John Wilkes
.
Externally, the Lloyd rifle is distinctive for its very streamlined profile, with the scope mounted very low above the action, and a very elegant but ergonomically efficient stock, invariably of selected dark, well-figured French walnut
. Lloyd sourced the best available walnut on personal trips to parts of Europe, and was actively assisted in this by his wife Evadne ("Bobby" - the longest-serving governor in the history of the Royal Shakespeare Company
)
, and used it to set the zero of all his rifles before delivery to their owners.
Lloyd rifles, and the .244 H&H Magnum cartridge, were influential in sporting firearms and cartridge design and development in the mid-20th century. Both were widely admired by British deer-stalking enthusiasts and international sporting arms experts, and were owned and used by, among others, Bill Ruger
, Roy Weatherby
, Lord "Skips" Riverdale, the Marquess of Linlithgow
and Mrs Patricia Strutt, doyenne of British lady stalkers with a lifetime's bag of over 2,000 stags, who ordered one for her 75th birthday and used it up to her death aged 89.
Shooting Times
magazine voted the Lloyd rifle number 8 in its lineup of the Top 12 Rifles of All Time (the Kalashnikov AK-47
came number 7), and Country Life
declared Lloyd himself to be a "National Living Treasure".
Lloyd rifles are generally accurate, with most shooting to 1.5 MOA
or better; but the massive scope mounts integral to the Lloyd concept had the effect of bending and torquing the rifles' actions out of blueprint. This inevitably caused stresses and imperfections, preventing the rifles achieving the full precision accuracy potential of the cartridges used. But within the approximately 300 yard ranges for which they had been designed and zeroed, Lloyd's rifles in fast magnum calibres performed very well.
The majority of Lloyd rifles were chambered in .244 H&H Magnum
, .264 Winchester Magnum
and .25-06 Remington
.
of London, and its name, goodwill and records were later offered for sale by him at auction in London on 14 December, 2006.
David Lloyd (riflemaker and sportsman)
David Llewellyn Lloyd was an English deer-stalker, metallurgist, ballistician and sporting rifle maker, of Northamptonshire, England and Glencassley in Sutherland, Scotland. After service in the Royal Air Force in the Second World War, extensive deer stalking, and frequent rifle shooting visits to...
. His objective was to create a high-quality, scope-sighted
Telescopic sight
A telescopic sight, commonly called a scope, is a sighting device that is based on an optical refracting telescope. They are equipped with some form of graphic image pattern mounted in an optically appropriate position in their optical system to give an accurate aiming point...
, magazine-fed
Magazine (firearm)
A magazine is an ammunition storage and feeding device within or attached to a repeating firearm. Magazines may be integral to the firearm or removable . The magazine functions by moving the cartridges stored in the magazine into a position where they may be loaded into the chamber by the action...
sporting rifle
Rifle
A rifle is a firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder, with a barrel that has a helical groove or pattern of grooves cut into the barrel walls. The raised areas of the rifling are called "lands," which make contact with the projectile , imparting spin around an axis corresponding to the...
capable of dependably high accuracy at long ranges, of retaining its zero despite rough handling, and of firing modern high-intensity, flat shooting cartridges such as the .244 H&H Magnum
.244 H&H Magnum
The .244 Holland & Holland Magnum cartridge was created in 1955 in Great Britain by deerstalker and rifle-maker David Lloyd of Pipewell Hall, Northamptonshire and Glencassley in Sutherland, Scotland, and is not to be confused with the smaller-cased and much milder 6 mm Remington...
(which Lloyd himself developed) and the .264 Winchester Magnum
.264 Winchester Magnum
The .264 Winchester Magnum is a belted, bottlenecked rifle cartridge. Apart from the .257 Weatherby Magnum, it is the smallest caliber factory cartridge which uses the standard length Holland & Holland belted magnum case...
.
Requirement
As an enthusiastic stalker of Highland Red deerRed Deer
The red deer is one of the largest deer species. Depending on taxonomy, the red deer inhabits most of Europe, the Caucasus Mountains region, Asia Minor, parts of western Asia, and central Asia. It also inhabits the Atlas Mountains region between Morocco and Tunisia in northwestern Africa, being...
on his family's own deer forest
Deer forest
The deer forest is an institution and phenomenon peculiar to the Highlands of Scotland. It denotes a sporting estate which is kept and managed largely or solely for the purposes of maintaining a resident population of red deer for sporting purposes.Typically, deer forests are in hilly and...
at Glencassley, and elsewhere in northern Scotland - he grassed more than 5,000 Red deer stags in a career lasting some 60 years - Lloyd sought a rifle which would shoot high powered cartridges giving an exceptionally flat trajectory and significant long range hitting power, to make it straightforward to take shots out to 300 yards and more on very sloping, mountainous terrain, without the need for very precise range-judging. A very early convert to the use of scope sights in the conservative world of British deerstalking, Lloyd was impatient with the weak scope mounting systems available in the early 20th century, and sought a solution.
Mauser action
For his preferred rifle action Lloyd selected the Mauser 98Gewehr 98
The Gewehr 98 is a German bolt action Mauser rifle firing the 8x57mm cartridge from a 5 round internal clip-loaded magazine that was the German service rifle from 1898 to 1935, when it was replaced by the Karabiner 98k. It was hence the main rifle of the German infantry during World War I...
bolt-action
Bolt-action
Bolt action is a type of firearm action in which the weapon's bolt is operated manually by the opening and closing of the breech with a small handle, most commonly placed on the right-hand side of the weapon...
, for its inherent strength and proven potential for accuracy, and on his rifles only the bolt face (to suit the cartridge) and the back-swept bolt handle were modified from the Mauser norm.
Telescopic sight
Integral to the Lloyd rifle was a telescopic sight - indeed, Lloyd rifles came with no iron sightsIron sights
Iron sights are a system of shaped alignment markers used as a sighting device to assist in the aiming of a device such as a firearm, crossbow, or telescope, and exclude the use of optics as in telescopic sights or reflector sights...
, and no provision for fitting them without some difficulty - and the majority of Lloyd rifles were delivered to their owners fitted with fixed-power scopes, usually of 4X or 6X magnification, by makers such as Habicht, Zeiss, Swarovski
Swarovski
Swarovski is the brand name for a range of precisely-cut crystal and related luxury products produced by Swarovski AG of Wattens, Austria...
and Hensoldt. The scope was held in a specially designed, integral, immensely strong, receiver-enshrouding mount which positioned it very low over the action, and gripped both the scope and the rifle action in massive rings of steel. Lloyd held UK Patent Number 646419 for this design.
With this scope attachment - indeed, integration - system, Lloyd's intention was to create a rifle which was, so far as humanly possible, immune to the shocks, bumps and jars that so often knocked the scopes on other rifles seriously out of alignment. The objective was to have a rifle which, once completed, could be zeroed for a selected cartridge load and a chosen zero distance, and which would faithfully hold that zero from outing to outing, and even from one shooting season to another. "I want a stable platform from which to shoot," Lloyd said. In his quest for this tenacity of zero, he was largely successful, and many of his customers reported that they had never found it necessary to make any adjustment whatsoever to their rifles' sights over many years of use. There are also reports of Lloyd rifles having successfully survived serious mishaps such as falls from considerable heights, and even being run over by vehicles, without losing zero.
Barrels and stocks
Most of Lloyd's barrels were made under contract by Vickers Armstrong Ltd. and the Mauser 98 actions were prepared by Holland & HollandHolland & Holland
Holland & Holland is a British gun-maker based in London, England. They offer hand-made sporting rifles and shotguns. H&H holds two Royal Warrants.-History:Holland & Holland was founded by Harris Holland in the year 1835....
. Although Lloyd enjoyed sourcing the walnut for the rifles' stocks himself, visiting growers and dealers across Europe, many of the rifles were stocked-up by Wisemans. In making rifles, Lloyd also had close working relationships with the firms of W. W. Greener
W. W. Greener
W.W. Greener is a sporting shotgun and rifle manufacturer from England. The company produced its first firearm in 1829 and is still in business, with a fifth generation Greener serving on its board of directors.-History:The history of W.W...
, Webley & Scott
Webley and Scott
Webley & Scott is an arms manufacturer based in Birmingham, England. Webley produced handguns and long guns from 1834 to 1979, when the company ceased to manufacture firearms and instead focused on producing air pistols and air rifles...
, W.J. Jeffery, John Rigby
John Rigby
Saint John Rigby was an English Roman Catholic martyr who was executed during the reign of Elizabeth I. He is one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales...
and John Wilkes
John Wilkes
John Wilkes was an English radical, journalist and politician.He was first elected Member of Parliament in 1757. In the Middlesex election dispute, he fought for the right of voters—rather than the House of Commons—to determine their representatives...
.
Externally, the Lloyd rifle is distinctive for its very streamlined profile, with the scope mounted very low above the action, and a very elegant but ergonomically efficient stock, invariably of selected dark, well-figured French walnut
Walnut
Juglans is a plant genus of the family Juglandaceae, the seeds of which are known as walnuts. They are deciduous trees, 10–40 meters tall , with pinnate leaves 200–900 millimetres long , with 5–25 leaflets; the shoots have chambered pith, a character shared with the wingnuts , but not the hickories...
. Lloyd sourced the best available walnut on personal trips to parts of Europe, and was actively assisted in this by his wife Evadne ("Bobby" - the longest-serving governor in the history of the Royal Shakespeare Company
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...
)
Influence
The Lloyd rifle was initially marketed as the "David Lloyd Telescope Sighted Deer Stalking Rifle". David Lloyd had a private 400-yard rifle range in the grounds of his ancestral home, Pipewell Hall, NorthamptonshireNorthamptonshire
Northamptonshire is a landlocked county in the English East Midlands, with a population of 629,676 as at the 2001 census. It has boundaries with the ceremonial counties of Warwickshire to the west, Leicestershire and Rutland to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshire to the south-east,...
, and used it to set the zero of all his rifles before delivery to their owners.
Lloyd rifles, and the .244 H&H Magnum cartridge, were influential in sporting firearms and cartridge design and development in the mid-20th century. Both were widely admired by British deer-stalking enthusiasts and international sporting arms experts, and were owned and used by, among others, Bill Ruger
William B. Ruger
William Batterman Ruger partnered with Alexander McCormick Sturm in 1949 to establish Sturm, Ruger & Company. Their first product was the Ruger Standard, the most popular .22 caliber target pistol ever made in the US...
, Roy Weatherby
Roy Weatherby
Roy E. Weatherby was the founder and owner of Weatherby, Inc., an American rifle, shotgun and cartridge manufacturing company set up in 1945. Weatherby created an entire line of custom cartridges, and was one of the people responsible for the industry interest in high-speed cartridges...
, Lord "Skips" Riverdale, the Marquess of Linlithgow
Marquess of Linlithgow
Marquess of Linlithgow, in the County of Linlithgow or West Lothian, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1902 for John Hope, 7th Earl of Hopetoun....
and Mrs Patricia Strutt, doyenne of British lady stalkers with a lifetime's bag of over 2,000 stags, who ordered one for her 75th birthday and used it up to her death aged 89.
Shooting Times
Shooting Times
Shooting Times and Country Magazine, more commonly known as the Shooting Times, is a British shooting and firearms magazine, published by IPC Media. The magazine also features articles on hunting, fishing, deer stalking, gamekeeping, gundogs and wildlife...
magazine voted the Lloyd rifle number 8 in its lineup of the Top 12 Rifles of All Time (the Kalashnikov AK-47
AK-47
The AK-47 is a selective-fire, gas-operated 7.62×39mm assault rifle, first developed in the Soviet Union by Mikhail Kalashnikov. It is officially known as Avtomat Kalashnikova . It is also known as a Kalashnikov, an "AK", or in Russian slang, Kalash.Design work on the AK-47 began in the last year...
came number 7), and Country Life
Country Life (magazine)
Country Life is a British weekly magazine, based in London at 110 Southwark Street, and owned by IPC Media, a Time Warner subsidiary.- Topics :The magazine covers the pleasures and joys of rural life, as well as the concerns of rural people...
declared Lloyd himself to be a "National Living Treasure".
Lloyd rifles are generally accurate, with most shooting to 1.5 MOA
Minute of Angle
Minute of angle is the measurement of a ballistic round's deviation from its initial heading due to gravity and/or the effect of air resistance on velocity. Informally known as a "Bullet's Trajectory" or "the rainbow effect". Long range weapons must account for this effect because a fired round...
or better; but the massive scope mounts integral to the Lloyd concept had the effect of bending and torquing the rifles' actions out of blueprint. This inevitably caused stresses and imperfections, preventing the rifles achieving the full precision accuracy potential of the cartridges used. But within the approximately 300 yard ranges for which they had been designed and zeroed, Lloyd's rifles in fast magnum calibres performed very well.
The majority of Lloyd rifles were chambered in .244 H&H Magnum
.244 H&H Magnum
The .244 Holland & Holland Magnum cartridge was created in 1955 in Great Britain by deerstalker and rifle-maker David Lloyd of Pipewell Hall, Northamptonshire and Glencassley in Sutherland, Scotland, and is not to be confused with the smaller-cased and much milder 6 mm Remington...
, .264 Winchester Magnum
.264 Winchester Magnum
The .264 Winchester Magnum is a belted, bottlenecked rifle cartridge. Apart from the .257 Weatherby Magnum, it is the smallest caliber factory cartridge which uses the standard length Holland & Holland belted magnum case...
and .25-06 Remington
.25-06 Remington
The .25-06 Remington had been a wildcat cartridge for half a century before being standardized by Remington in 1969. It is based on the .30-06 Springfield cartridge necked-down to .257 inch caliber with no other changes...
.
Company
Lloyd's wife Evadne took over the Lloyd Rifle Company in 1996 on David's death, and ran it until her own death in 2003. The company was then briefly owned by John Shirley, a former Technical Director of James Purdey and SonsJames Purdey and Sons
James Purdey & Sons - or simply "Purdey" - is a famous British gunmaker of London, and the name is synonymous with the very finest sporting shotguns and rifles. Purdeys hold or have held numerous warrants of appointment as gun and rifle makers to the British and other European royal...
of London, and its name, goodwill and records were later offered for sale by him at auction in London on 14 December, 2006.