THE "CERTUS" RIFLE by Cogswell & Harrison

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The famous London firm of gunsmiths - Cogswell and Harrison - produced this .22 rimfire military style training rifle shortly after the formation of the civilian rifle club associations; particularly the Society of Miniature Rifle Clubs in 1903. The rifle had earned a quite reasonable reputation in miniature calibre target shooting circles by 1906.

images by courtesy of the Enfield Pattern Room

The training rifle example above has a bolt action very closely resembling that of the the War Office Pattern Miniature Rifle of 1906; this could well have been due to the specification, issued by the War Office, to which submitted designs were required to conform. The Certus later became available in a more familiarly known shortened fore-end target style stock and with a modified bolt action.

It is interesting to note that Cogswell & Harrison also marketed full-bore calibre centre-fire bolt-actioned rifles and even a single-barrel bolt-actioned 12 bore shotgun under the "Certus" name. Seemingly, by the 1920s, Certus had become more of a trade name representative of Cogswell & Harrison than the name of a specific firearm.

See " Random Writings on Rifle Shooting" by A.G. Banks,

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