7 mm calibre 1908 Mannlicher-Schoenauer Sporting Carbine, 1945 (c)

This bolt action carbine has a double set of triggers and a revolving magazine. It was presented to Captain P P T McConnell of 1st Battalion the Cheshire Regiment by Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick, in gratitude for helping him to escape capture by the Russians in 1945. As head of the House of Hanover, the Duke had to move his family and art treasures from their home in Schloss Blankenburg in Thuringia following the Red Army's occupation of that part of Germany at the end of World War Two (1939-1945).