World’s most expensive rifle?

I’m somewhat cynically amused by a report on Luxist (found via The Firearm Blog) about what they claim is the “world’s most expensive rifle”.

Swedish gun and rifle maker VO Vapen, founded in 1977 by master gunsmith Viggo Olsson, fashions the world’s most exclusive handmade hunting rifles. Their newest creation, the VO Falcon Edition, is the world’s most expensive priced at about $820,000.

The VO Falcon Edition is a tribute to the deep rooted traditions of falconry in the Arabian world, covered by beautiful engravings of Peregrine and Saker falcons among other luxurious finishes.

The production of VO rifles is limited to a very small number of examples each year. The company holds a royal appointment to H.M. King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, and has found great success with ultra-exclusive rifles made for the Middle Eastern market.

There’s more at the link.

I’m inclined to think the price quoted has nothing whatsoever to do with the intrinsic quality of the weapon, or the craftsmanship or ‘artistic embellishment’ it displays. I think it’s more a case of “Let’s price this as obscenely high as we possibly can, because there are idiots out there with more money than sense or good taste, who’ll pay that much in order to boast that their rifle cost more than yours!” (The emphasis on the Middle Eastern market, and the fact that the two languages specified on the entrance page of the manufacturer’s Web site are English and Arabic, tend to lend weight to that assumption!)

I certainly don’t regard VO Vapen’s rifles as “the world’s most exclusive” – far from it. If it comes to an exclusive rifle, I’d rather go for a classic Holland & Holland Royal Grade double rifle, hand-built and -engraved as only the great English safari gun firms know how to do. Here are a couple of examples of Holland & Holland’s work:

Beautiful, isn’t it? That’s their general-production work, too. If you have the budget and the time (their current waiting list is three to four years), Holland & Holland will build a bespoke rifle or shotgun for you that’s unique, one-of-a-kind, and steeped in all their years of tradition and craftsmanship to boot. Some of their historic guns, hand-made for Indian maharajahs and the like, today sell for enormous sums.

I suspect the VO Falcon is, in financial terms, what the .577 Tyrannosaur is in energy terms. The late, great Jeff Cooper once said of the latter:

We were fascinated at SHOT to examine the ‘.577 Tyrannosaur’ from A Square. This piece is designed to end all discussion about stopping power. It is a bolt-action (1917), 3-plus-1, 13lb rifle which fires a 750-grain bullet at 2,460 feet per second. It is said to be the first sporting rifle cartridge that “breaks the 10,000 foot-pound barrier”.

In my opinion this is a definitive example of a piece which is made to own rather than to shoot. It is not at all clear that it will kill an elephant or a buffalo or a hippo any better than a well placed hit from a .470, and, of course, it will not do anything with a badly placed hit except annoy the recipient. As I see it, this combination should be referred to as the “.577 Dundee.” You keep it available in your armory so that when people start talking about the power of their rifles you can break yours out and say, “That’s not a rifle. THIS is a rifle!”

This video of a sucker dumbass potential buyer test-firing the .577 Tyrannosaur demonstrates why Col. Cooper might have got that impression . . .

I’d like to see someone handling a VO Falcon like that . . .

Peter