Owen Guns Trust Museum

07/09/2026

Thank you Gympie Chamber of Commerce! We are thrilled to be nominated in 2 categories this year! Medium Business of the year and workplace of choice.
So good to see other fantastic business’s nominated, Gympie is full of ambition and creativity. We can’t wait to celebrate with you all at the awards!

06/09/2026

Happy Fathers Day Dad's and Grandads
We are so lucky to have strong, influential, passionate, caring men in our lives.
All we want for Father's Day this year is no more buy-backs, no more laws punishing law-abiding Australian citizens with background checks and perfect records.
Anyway, hope you all were made to feel special and enjoyed your day.

04/09/2026

Welcome back to another Owen Guns Fi***rm Friday! This week we’re pulling a particularly interesting old Wi******er out of the museum, and while everyone knows the Wi******er name, you may not have heard of one made especially for the Australian market: “The Daisy Rifle.”
Sitting in the Owen Guns Museum is this well-used Wi******er Model 1873, serial number 498582B, chambered in .32 W.C.F. ”32/20 Wi******er Centre Fire” and fitted with a full-length magazine and octagonal barrel. At first glance it looks like a classic old Model 1873 that has seen plenty of years of honest use. Look a little closer at the barrel, however, and there is a marking that makes this Wi******er particularly interesting to Australian collectors: “THE DAISY RIFLE.”
The Wi******er Model 1873 needs little introduction. Introduced in 1873 and descended from Wi******er's earlier repeating ri**es, it became one of the company's most famous lever actions. Its combination of a tubular magazine, lever-operated action and relatively handy repeating-fi***rm design made the 1873 enormously successful. It was offered in several chamberings during its long production life, including the .32 W.C.F. chambering found in our museum example.
But the "Daisy" name isn't a Wi******er model in the conventional sense, nor does it have anything to do with the famous Daisy air ri**es. Instead, it takes us from New Haven, Connecticut, all the way to colonial Australia and the enormous Sydney merchant F. Lassetter & Co.
Lassetter & Co. was a major Australian retailer and importer that sold an extraordinary range of goods during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Among the fi****ms it imported were genuine Wi******er ri**es from the United States. Rather than simply selling every Wi******er under its normal model designation, Lassetter arranged for certain fi****ms destined for the Australian market to carry distinctive trade names.
For the Model 1873, one of those names was “THE DAISY RIFLE.”
Importantly, this wasn't simply a nickname subsequently scratched or engraved onto ri**es after they reached Australia. Wi******er Arms Collectors Association historian Bert Hartman confirms that the Daisy marking was factory applied by Wi******er to fi****ms exported for F. Lassetter & Co. Collector research has identified several different Lassetter markings, including “THE DAISY RIFLE,” “THE DAISY CARBINE,” “THE DAISY SINGLE SHOT RIFLE” and, with the arrival of the Model 1892, “THE NEW DAISY RIFLE.”
Period trade-marking research specifically identifies “The Daisy Rifle” as a Model 1873 Wi******er made for F. Lassetter & Co., with the designation recorded from approximately 1889 onward. The same source distinguishes it from the later Model 1892, which Lassetter marketed as “The New Daisy Rifle.”
That distinction is important on our r***e because its octagonal barrel still clearly carries the original “THE DAISY RIFLE” marking. Elsewhere we find Wi******er's New Haven barrel address and King's Improvement patent information, MODEL 1873, 32 W.C.F., and the serial number 498582B.
The serial number places this r***e in 1895, making it a late-production Third Model 1873 and now more than 130 years old. By this stage the Model 1873 was sharing Wi******er's catalogue with newer designs, including John Browning's Model 1892, but Australian buyers were clearly still purchasing the older 1873. The Daisy name continued to distinguish Lassetter's Australian-market guns.
And these Australian Wi******ers weren't necessarily destined to spend their lives sitting above fireplaces.
Australia in the late nineteenth century was a huge market for practical sporting and working fi****ms. Ri**es went onto stations, farms and remote properties where they were tools rather than collector pieces. Research into surviving Australian Wi******ers shows many of the Daisy and similar Australian trade-marked ri**es consequently turn up today showing considerable use.
Our Daisy certainly looks the part.
The metal has aged to a deep brown patina and the timber carries more than a century's worth of knocks, scratches and handling marks. Thankfully, the important markings remain remarkably legible. Rather than detracting from the r***e as a museum piece, that wear is part of its story. Somewhere between Wi******er's factory in Connecticut, Lassetter's Australian operation and eventually the Owen Guns Museum in Gympie, this r***e has lived a working life.
There is also one feature on our Daisy that definitely wasn't there when Wi******er made it in 1895.
Running almost the entire length of the barrel is a huge brass 4×15 telescopic sight. The scope is identified as a Navy Arms scope. So while the scope looks wonderfully at home sitting over a nineteenth-century Wi******er, it is a much later addition. It was deliberately designed in the style of the long telescopic sights associated with nineteenth-century ri**es. In our case, it has subsequently become part of this particular Daisy's history. Rather than presenting the r***e as an untouched factory example, we can see it as something that continued being owned, altered and used long after 1895.
Interestingly, the Daisy wasn't the only Australian Wi******er to receive its own identity. Queensland had its own famous counterpart. Perry Brothers of Brisbane sold specially marked Wi******ers under the name “The Stinger.” Later Model 1892s supplied through Lassetter became the “New Daisy Rifle.” These ri**es are now fascinating reminders that the story of Wi******er in Australia wasn't simply one of importing American guns, Australian retailers created their own recognisable identities around them.
That is what makes this old .32 particularly deserving of its place in the Owen Guns Museum. It isn't the finest-condition Wi******er 1873 you'll ever see, and it certainly isn't untouched after 131 years. But it is unmistakably Australian. It is a genuine Wi******er Model 1873 manufactured in America for an Australian retailer, carrying a special Wi******er-applied Australian-market name, apparently used for generations and later fitted with a wonderfully old-fashioned Navy Arms brass scope.
From New Haven to Lassetter & Co., through more than a century of Australian history and eventually to the Owen Guns Museum in Gympie, there probably aren't many old ri**es that could tell us everywhere they've been if only they could talk.
That's it for another Owen Guns Fi***rm Friday! If you're ever wandering through the museum and spot a long old Wi******er with an enormous brass telescope sitting on top, have a closer look at the barrel, because this isn't just another Model 1873. This one's a Daisy.
See you next Friday when we dig something else out of the Owen Guns Museum and find out what story it's been hiding!

03/09/2026

Just a dog sitting in front of fashionable boxes filled with goodies, hoping someone will buy them.

31/08/2026

Father's Day is just around the corner and Chester has you covered for whatever your spend is.
Huglu Under and Over sh****ns are $990
Safes starting at $395
Maintenance kits $89.35
Knives and multi tools
Gift vouchers
hats and more!

29/08/2026

Alan Harrison you are the winner of our Thermal competition! Come see us and collect your $100 voucher.

In other news.... we are feeling immensely grateful for being a gun shop in QLD. I came across this article this morning in Sporting Shooter Magazine. Shane Cusack from Mudgee Fi****ms explains the colossal deprivation he has experienced since the hostile takeover of the NSW fi***rm legislation.

He said trade was down by 87% year-on-year purely because of the knee-jerk, poorly thought-out legislation changes of the state and federal Labour governments.

He has lost an average of more than $18,000 a week in turnover since the start of the year, making a maximum $25,000 compensation payment “an insult”.

“I have around $40,000 in stock that is now no good,” he said.
Please read the full article below...

Regional shop Mudgee Fi****ms has lost $600,000 in turnover, laid off staff and reduced trading hours under Minns Government gun laws.

28/08/2026

Welcome back to another Owen Guns Fi***rm Friday, where we pull something interesting out of the museum collection and have a closer look at the history behind it.
Now, Ron likes an old .303, and this one’s pretty special. He wanted an article on this one, so here we go!
This week's fi***rm is a Short Magazine Lee-Enfield NO1 in .303 British, manufactured by the London Small Arms Company Ltd (LSA) in 1907. At first glance it might look like another old Lee-Enfield, but once you start looking at the date, manufacturer, markings and surviving original features, this r***e becomes a particularly interesting piece of Queensland fi****ms history.
The SMLE was approved in January 1907, making the year stamped on this r***e particularly significant: this example comes from the very first year of production. The NO1 represented the continuing development of the Lee-Enfield system and incorporated improvements intended to produce an effective general-purpose service r***e for the British Empire. It used the famous Lee bolt action, a ten-round magazine and the .303 British cartridge.
Although "Enfield" is the name everybody associates with these ri**es, they weren't all actually manufactured at Enfield. British production was shared between the government-operated Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield and private contractors including Birmingham Small Arms (BSA) and the London Small Arms Company. LSA was a considerably smaller producer than the major factories. Industrial records indicate that immediately before the First World War, the company's production capacity was only around 500–600 ri**es per week without operating a night shift.
That comparatively small production is part of what makes LSA-marked ri**es interesting to collectors today. The company had been involved in British military r***e production since the nineteenth century, manufacturing Lee-Metford and Lee-Enfield ri**es under government contracts before moving into SMLE production. When the First World War arrived, LSA continued manufacturing the SMLE alongside Enfield and BSA, but on a much smaller scale. Published wartime production figures put LSA's 1914–18 SMLE output at about 364,000 ri**es, compared with approximately 1.58 million from BSA and just over 2 million from Enfield.
Our r***e, however, predates all of that. It was manufactured in 1907 during the reign of King Edward VII, and importantly it retains many of the features associated with the original specification. These include the magazine cut-off, long-range volley sights and windage-adjustable rear sight. These features are particularly interesting because they help demonstrate just how much more elaborate an early SMLE was compared with the later wartime ri**es.
The magazine cut-off allowed the magazine to be held in reserve while cartridges could be handled individually, reflecting British military doctrine of the period. The volley sights were an entirely separate long-range sighting system intended for massed fire at distances well beyond ordinary individual r***e engagement ranges. By the First World War, the need to manufacture enormous numbers of ri**es quickly made some of these complicated features increasingly difficult to justify.
The result was the simplified SMLE. Among the principal features omitted from the wartime pattern were the long-range dial and aperture volley sights, magazine cut-off and windage adjustment on the rear sight. This is why finding a very early SMLE that still retains these fittings is so interesting today.
Our 1907 LSA becomes even more interesting when we look at its numbers. The receiver, bolt and rear sight all carry matching serial number 69942. More than a century of military armoury work, repairs, parts replacement and civilian ownership means matching components aren't something that should simply be assumed on an early Lee-Enfield. In this case, the matching components complement the r***e's remarkably complete early configuration.
But arguably the best part of this particular r***e's story is found stamped directly into its timber butt:
Broad Arrow, Q.G, P, 1908.
Those markings identify its early Queensland Government/Police association and the year 1908. This isn't simply a British .303 that found its way to Queensland many decades later this r***e was here when it was almost new.
So consider the timeline. This r***e was manufactured by London Small Arms in England in 1907, during the first year of SMLE production, and was acquired by the Queensland Government in 1908. Rather than being an anonymous First World War battlefield r***e, its surviving markings give us a direct connection to Queensland's own early twentieth-century history.
That may also have contributed to its survival in such an interesting configuration. While enormous numbers of early SMLEs passed through wartime service, armouries, repairs and subsequent modification, this r***e apparently avoided overseas active service. Today it still wears the complicated early features that were subsequently deleted when the SMLE was simplified for mass wartime production.
When this British-made LSA arrived in Queensland, Australia had not yet begun domestic mass production of the SMLE at Lithgow. Australian manufacture would follow, and the Lithgow-built SMLE would eventually become one of the most recognisable Australian military fi****ms. Our LSA therefore represents an earlier period when ri**es of this type were still being sourced from British manufacturers.
At more than a century old, the scratches, handling marks and wear on this r***e are part of what makes it worth preserving. The timber still carries its extremely clear Queensland Government/Police 1908 marking, while the metalwork and surviving early fittings show the configuration of the NO1 before the pressures of the First World War resulted in simplification.
So Ron was right, this isn't just another old .303!
It's a 1907 London Small Arms SMLE, manufactured in the first year of LSA production, acquired by the Queensland Government the following year, retaining its early volley sights, magazine cut-off and windage-adjustable rear sight, with matching numbered major components and more than a century of Queensland history stamped straight into the timber.
Not bad for an old .303!
That's it for another Owen Guns Fi***rm Friday. We'll put this old Queensland survivor back in the museum and see what Ron decides we need to drag out next week.
Until then, keep an eye on the Owen Guns Museum, there's always another piece of history hiding in the racks!

27/08/2026

Thermals are now one of the most important products we stock at Owen Guns. We are constantly hearing about different brands, but we have limited space. So we would like your input....

Which Thermal is your favourite and why?
If you write a comment you will go in the running to win a $100 voucher. I will draw the winner on Saturday.

26/08/2026

Wi******er 25 Gun Safes just landed... The only thing is, Chester doesn't know where to put them?
I think your house.
$1415 BUT the first 2 we will let go for $1370