Mystery rifle...

[Dalua]

A German pal has just bought an elderly Mauser-actioned rifle in 7x57.
On the top of the barrel is stamped
MARS - MADE IN ENGLAND and
CAL.7mm

Very limited info so far - but has anyone heard of this 'MARS' brand/make?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Jura]

MARS - MADE IN ENGLAND

Parker Hale?

 

[Dalua]

Parker Hale?

I did wonder - but why 'MARS'?

 

[Jura]

I think there was a foundry in Germany called MARS.

 

[webley701]

Digressing initially - the MARS pistol (early 20th C) was made by Webley & then by various other gunmakers in Birmingham. It wasn’t a successful pistol as far as sales were concerned but it did capture the imagination of shooters of the day to some degree. The brand name seemed to be used (licensed or not?) on a few other shooting related products / firearms. I’d surmise that the rifle may have been one of them.

PS
‘Notes Around the Gun Trade’ by Bernard Hinckley (volumes 1 & 2) has a certain amount of information & contemporary ‘gossip’ related to MARS & the trade.

 

[Dalua]

Digressing initially - the MARS pistol (early 20th C) was made by Webley & then by various other gunmakers in Birmingham. It wasn’t a successful pistol as far as sales were concerned but it did capture the imagination of shooters of the day to some degree. The brand name seemed to be used (licensed or not?) on a few other shooting related products / firearms. I’d surmise that the rifle may have been one of them.

Is that the enormous self-loading pistol of Gabbett-Fairfax (or something like that)?

 

[Dalua]

Pinched from another forum, and repeated ohne Haftung
"Mars" was the gun trademark of Neckermann, a German mail order house like Sears, during the early 1970s. Neckermann had "their" rifles assembled, most often on Santa Barbara Actions, in Birmingham.

 

[webley701]

Is that the enormous self-loading pistol of Gabbett-Fairfax (or something like that)?

That’s the one. It seems to have been produced at a very low level by several makers in the ‘quarter’.

 

[Dalua]

Parker Hale?

It seems so. Made for a German mail-order firm one of whose brand-names was Mars. More info found on the Wild und Hund forum.

Thanks for the contributions thus far!

 

[Dalua]

So, the mail-order firm with the brand-name Mars was apparently Quelle, rather than Neckermann.
The rifle in question has the PH mark on the butt-plate - which is also rather a giveaway, even if my pal didn't recognise it until we discussed the possible maker.