Mar 10, 2018 | News, Rifles for Africa
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]An unlikely marriage sent hunters afield with the finest bolt rifles of their time – and ours!
By Wayne van Zwoll
“…Within three yards of the bracken I saw a movement … my first bullet raked her from end to end, and the second bullet broke her neck.”
So died the Talla Des tigress, named, as was the custom, after the village that had endured her predation. Colonel Jim Corbett carried that .275 Rigby rifle, hunting other man-eaters in the Kumaon Division of India’s United Provinces. He noted it was “light to carry, accurate and sighted up to 300 yards.” Its feathery heft counted for more than its reach. While Corbett hiked long miles in difficult terrain, his kit often trimmed to just five cartridges, shots commonly came at mere feet!
Among the most celebrated of hunting rifles is the bolt-action Rigby presented to Corbett in 1907 for dispatching the Champawat tigress, which had reportedly killed 436 people. Today that rifle shows the wear of many trails. Marc Newton, Managing Director of Rigby, “brought it home” a couple of years ago. On a recent visit to Rigby’s shop at Pensbury Place, in a modest industrial district of London, I cheeked this rifle. Slim, lithe, with a nose for the target, it pointed itself, silvered bead in shallow notch.
Corbett’s day won’t return – but the rifle has, in the form of what Rigby calls the Highland Stalker – a nod to UK deer hunters who now climb after stags instead of crawling after tigers. Like its forebear, it features an 1898 Mauser action, a lean version of the single- and double-square bridge Magnum actions in the Rigby Big Game series marking the company’s resurrection.
“We’re re-building the brand,” Marc told me, “not re-inventing it. Pre-war Rigby magazine rifles exemplify the best of British gun-making. Our clients expect fine line and impeccable finish on rifles that shoot accurately, cycle smoothly and endure. We hew to traditional standards of quality, fit and finish.”
Reliable function mattered more to adventurers who carried early Rigbys into jungle and bush. In 1948, after 30 years hunting Africa’s big game, John Taylor wrote: “Time and again have I slammed that bolt back and forth when shooting rapidly; yet never once did [my Rigby] show the slightest tendency to jam …. [There’s no] better or more reliable magazine rifle….”
Rigby’s name entered the firearms industry many decades before the Mauser action that earned the brand plaudits in the smokeless era. Born in 1758, the first John Rigby opened a gun shop in Dublin. Two years after eldest son William joined him in 1816, John died. With younger sibling John Jason, the business became William and John Rigby, 24 Suffolk St., Dublin. In 1865 as John Rigby & Co., it opened an office at 72 James St. in London to sell “breech- and muzzle-loading guns, revolvers and ammunition.” In 1879 Rigby announced a double rifle with a distinctive “rising bite” breech. Hand fitting buoyed cost and limited output. Between 1879 and 1932, Rigby would ship only 1,000 rising-bite doubles!
In 1887, as rifles and ammunition transitioned from black to smokeless powder, the third John in Rigby’s family was appointed Superintendent of the Royal Small Arms Factory. A decade later, he sealed for Rigby a 12-year license with Waffenfabrik Mauser, A.G. in Germany, to sell in the U.K. and its colonies the Rigbys with the new 98 Mauser action. It seemed an unlikely union, as European alliances had begun to fray well before the Great War. But both firms profited. When in 1899 Rigby requested a long action for the .400/350 Nitro Express, Mauser delivered.
With gunpowder maker Curtis & Harvey, John developed a powerful cartridge for hinged-breech rifles. The .450 NE 3¼-inch appeared in 1898, its 70 grains of Cordite driving 480-grain bullets to 2,200 fps, for 5,186 ft-lbs of energy. It drew the curtain on ponderous arms whose black powder limited velocity and whose lethality depended on projectile weight – like the 21-pound 4-bore rifle young Samuel Baker commissioned from George Gibbs in 1840. Its 16 drams (437 grains) of powder shoved a 4-ounce (1,750-grain) silk-patched bullet through a two-groove, 36-inch barrel.
The .400/350 Rigby may have brought Mauser’s Magnum action to London, but its rimmed hull was best suited to hinged-breech guns. A superior option for bolt rifles arrived in 1908. The .350 Rigby Magnum’s 225-grain bullet rocketed out the muzzle at over 2,600 fps. Taylor wrote that, “John Rigby was practically forced to introduce this cartridge [due to] demand for higher velocity… after the introduction of Holland’s .375 Magnum.” As the .375 H&H didn’t appear until 1912, that’s an odd claim. But Taylor was keen on both, praising the .350 as “intensely satisfying.” He wrote: “Rigby’s .350 Magnum is easily the most widely used British medium bore throughout Africa.” Since the 1940s other fine cartridges have crowded that podium. Taylor cautioned that fast .35s are not stopping rounds. An acquaintance “attacked by a peevish cow elephant [found] the 225-grain bullet [failed to turn her] … so she got to him …”
A more reliable elephant brake arrived in 1911. The first rifle in .416 Rigby shipped in 1912, as Rigby opened its shop at 43 Sackville St., London. This cartridge, hurling 410-grain bullets at 2,370 fps, carried 5,100 ft-lbs of energy, matching the .450 NE 3¼-inch. It ranked high on Taylor’s list of medium-bores, partly because “Rigby’s splendid steel-covered solids are available for it…”
David Enderby Blunt had similar praise for the .416, when in 1933 he chronicled a career hunting elephants. “The .416 Rigby… I have always used has the same muzzle energy as a .470, but the bullet has greater penetration, and [the Rigby Mauser is] the most perfectly balanced rifle …” Denis D. Lyell, who hunted extensively in Rhodesia, wrote in 1923 that “for body shots [on elephant] I certainly think a .416 or .470 H.V. is more humane [than small-bore loads.]”
The only hunter of great experience to spurn the .416 in print may be John Hunter, who thought it “excellent for lion” but light for buffalo and bigger animals. It’s hard to say if his view was colored by the death of his friend and tracker, killed by a buffalo wounded by a client who’d paunched it with a .416.
Much more effective than its BPE forebears, the .416 Rigby still sells well, thanks largely to the flat arcs and high sectional densities of its bullets. Still, it is not magic. Hunting in Zimbabwe recently, I came upon an aging baobab tree with a plaque noting the death of Alan Lowe. I had hunted with Lowe’s widow, Eleanor, then outfitting from the second farm the industrious couple had carved from the bush. Alan had taken a client on an elephant track late one afternoon. Heading back at dusk, he spotted elephant cows on the trail. Alan sent his tracker and client on a safer route as he held the herd’s attention. Darkness fell. The others found his body by torch-light. An elephant had killed him before he could fire his .416.
Why didn’t Rigby field a rimmed version of the .416 for hinged-breech rifles? By 1910 the safari market was drifting away from double rifles to less expensive but equally potent bolt-actions. The rimless .505 Gibbs and .500 Jeffery would appear shortly. John Rigby’s death in 1916 scotched development of a .33/416 that would drive 250-grain bullets 3,000 fps. (In the 1980s Lapua of Finland and a U.S. company, Research Armament, would take up that thread. Result: the .338 Lapua.)
Burly big-bores didn’t tug Jim Corbett, W.D.M. Bell and others from less violent first-generation smokeless rounds. The .275 Rigby is the 7×57 Mauser with an Anglo name. For 16 years after arriving in Africa in 1900, Bell used it (and the .303 British) to drop elephants with surgically placed brain shots. He reportedly killed 1,011 of the beasts, which brought him $9,000 to $36,000 a year in ivory sales. Bell had a couple of Rigbys in .416, but owned six in .275 – and one in .22 Savage High Power.
Like Bell, Corbett sometimes had a big-bore rifle at hand, most commonly a .450/400 double. On a beat (drive) for the Champawat tigress, he held a .500, loading two of his three cartridges and pocketing the other for “an emergency.” That man-eater’s tally had by then topped 400 people – half in Nepal, from where she’d entered Kumaon. When the tigress crossed a slot in the jungle in front of Corbett, he “sent a despairing bullet after her.” He’d just charged the empty barrel when she broke cover at 30 steps. He fired both remaining cartridges, striking, but not killing the cat. Abandoning his rifle, Corbett dashed toward the beaters, snatched from one a derelict shotgun and hurried after the tigress. Coming upon her in a thicket, he raised the gun and, to his horror, noticed a broad gap between barrels and breech. He let fly anyway at the cat’s open mouth – and missed! By great good luck, damage caused by the .500 took effect at just that moment, and the tigress died.
On the trail, Corbett preferred the light weight and wand-like handling of his .275. Both would pull him from one of the closest scrapes in his hunting career.
Deeply rutted pads and a cleft across the right forefoot distinguished the prints of the oldest of two tigers. The toes were exceptionally long as well. Corbett had found that track in a field three years after the Chowgarh tigers had begun preying on people. A trio of women cutting wheat there had been saved only when one of the beasts had been spotted and the alarm raised. Retreating into the jungle, the female and her cub would soon hunt again.
A couple of days later Corbett was shown by residents to a ravine where a cow had been killed the previous night. The spoor led into forest, where he spied the protruding leg of the luckless cow 30 yards ahead. It jerked as the big cats fed on the carcass. “… I crawled through the bracken [to a tall rock], looked over, and saw the two tigers.” Judging the light-colored animal to be the older, he aimed carefully and fired. She fell dead. The other cat vanished.
To his chagrin Corbett had shot the youngster. That error would “cost the district fifteen lives…”
By April, 1930, the surviving tigress had killed at least 64 people, and the persistent Corbett was again on her trail. In cover that held vision to mere feet, a pair of rare bird’s eggs caught his eye. He picked them up. Easing around a bend, he suddenly looked straight into the tigress’s face three steps away. The eggs in his left palm, he wrote, checked his reflexive urge to cheek the rifle – action that would have triggered the cat’s spring. Instead, with one hand Corbett inched the .275 across his chest. He felt “the swing would never be completed…” At last the rifle came to bear. His bullet shattered the man-eater’s spine and heart.
In 1951 the last of the Rigby family owners, Theo Rigby, died. The company plodded on. In 1968 David Marks bought John Rigby & Co. and engaged J. Roberts & Son to build its firearms. Paul Roberts acquired the Rigby brand in 1984, later developing the .450 Rigby cartridge on .416 brass. In 1997 Neil Gibson bought the company and moved it to California. A Dallas-based investor group dug up the cash to purchase John Rigby & Co. in 2010. They returned it to London and hired Paul Roberts to run it. Three years later Rigby was owned by the L&O Group, which controlled Blaser, Sauer and Mauser. Bernhard Knobel now manages those plants in Isny, Germany, and supplies Mauser actions for Rigby magazine rifles.
All Rigbys are built at Pensbury Place, where each is London-proofed. Such rifles don’t tumble from conveyor belts. “Between 1912 and 1940,” Marc Newton told me, “Rigby shipped fewer than 200 .416s! Annual production of all rifles hovered near 70. CNC machining has speeded some operations and brought our monthly tally near 70. Still, our rifles show a commitment to quality. At Safari Club International’s 2016 auction, a Rigby .275 sold for $250,000 – highest price paid for a bolt rifle in the Club’s 40 years!” More importantly, he added, each Rigby rifle brings to hand the adventure of another time, in jungle and bush, when hunters faced fearsome beasts close enough to read their eyes.
Captions:
1 – An instant hit world-wide, the ‘98 action showed Paul Mauser’s genius in military, and then hunting rifles.
2 – Mauser’s 1898 action has appeared in hunting rifles of many brands. No mechanism is more reliable!
3 – This Mauser bolt from a Rigby Magnum shows the long extractor, the slot for the mechanical ejector.
4 – Rigby’s Vintage Big Game rifle has pre-war profile, fit and finish. Note retracted cocking-piece peep.
5 – Currently, Rigby actions come from Mauser in Isny, Germany. The rifles are built and proofed in London.
6 – A 9.3×62 cartridge lies beside a lion track. Rigby offers the hugely popular “nine-three” chambering.
7 – Rigby lists its Big Game rifles in .375 (left), the Highland Stalker in 9.3×62, both fine classic rounds.
8 – Marc Newton, Rigby’s Managing Director, is delighted with the svelte, lightweight Highland Stalker.
9 – This early Rigby is bored to .350 Rigby, a cartridge dating to 1908, preceding the .416 by three years.
10 – Bell used the .275 Rigby (7×57), left, on elephants – but with solids. The .416 has more advocates!
11 – This Australian hunter brings his Mauser to bear in buffalo country. Note the rifle’s British profile.
12 – Dating to 1892, the .275 Rigby still excels on plains game. As the 7×57 Mauser, it served infantries.
13 – Rigbys have a fixed open rear sight with two (arguably unnecessary) folding leaves on a quarter-rib.
14 – Elephant hunters embraced the deep-driving 410-grain steel-jacketed solids of the potent .416 Rigby.
15 – The .416 Rigby hurls 2½ tons of punch. After a century, it remains a top-selling “safari cartridge.”
16 – Stopping a buffalo can be harder than killing one. A .275 soft nose is lethal, a .416 solid authoritative.
17 – Rigby rifles are built for the field, but they embody refinements – here, a case-colored trap grip cap.
18 – In thick African cover, hunters after dangerous game welcome Mauser reliability and Rigby quality!
19 – Jim Corbett’s book on hunting India’s great cats is a well-written account of his time and adventures.
20 – The grandson of the Talla Des man-eater’s last victim poses with the cat Corbett killed with his .275.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”14190,14191,14192,14193,14194,14195,14196,14197,14198,14199,14200,14201″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Mar 9, 2018 | News, Rifles for Africa
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]More often than not, good hunting stories involve a great deal of hard work, no small measure of patience, and then a few moments of peril when all appears to be in jeopardy, before things come to a satisfying conclusion. The very best also tend to be accompanied by a tot or two of strong drink. The stories of the gunmakers who make such tales of intrepid adventure possible are not always as gripping. The tale of John Rigby & Company, however, is guaranteed to go down well. In this and future issues, we will be bringing you the fascinating tale of how the famous British gunmaker came to be where it is now, and what the future holds.
The Rigby story began in eighteenth-century Dublin, where the first John Rigby established the gunmaker that would go on to make his name synonymous with hunting adventure all over the world. The company moved to the heat of fashionable London in 1865, and the English capital became its sole base in 1897, when it closed its doors in Dublin for the last time.
At this point, Rigby was renowned around the world for building innovative, reliable, and devastatingly effective sporting guns and rifles. These included the phenomenally strong Rigby Bissell patented ‘Rising Bite’ action for best guns, and the company’s enormously successful bolt-action collaboration with German giant, Mauser. Rifles from Rigby’s workbenches played starring roles in dramas throughout the British Empire, expertly wielded by the likes of Jim Corbett, Denys Finch-Hatton and W. D. M. ‘Karamojo’ Bell.
The company stayed on track during the economically difficult inter-war years, and remained in family ownership until the middle of the 20th century. Having sailed past its 200th anniversary in 1975 with comparative ease, Rigby found itself facing the toughest challenge to date as the 21st century dawned. In 1997, the company was bought by an American investor, who moved production to California. Rigby’s sojourn to the West Coast was brief and ultimately unsuccessful. In 2010, two new investors stepped in and returned the business to the UK, with big-game expert Paul Roberts producing rifles under licence at J. Roberts & Co., which had a long history of working with Rigby.
In 2013, the L&O Group bought Rigby, and, under the direction of the dynamic young Marc Newton and the highly experienced Patricia Pugh, things started to look up. Having worked with Paul Roberts for many years, both Marc and Patricia had a deep-seated appreciation of Rigby and its history, and were determined not to let the once-great gunmaker fade away, but instead, to restore Rigby to its former glory. Most importantly, they wanted to build rifles worthy of the name Rigby.
Rigby was back on the trail of success, but there were still sizeable obstacles to overcome. Fortunately, both Newton and Pugh both know that nothing worth pursuing is easy, and their appetite for hard work was almost insatiable. Using a combination of contacts, charm, and the sentimental attachment to Rigby held by many in the gun trade, they assembled a small but exceptionally capable team, and the heart of the old gunmaker started to hammer more strongly as its workbenches came back to life.
“We knew it wasn’t going to be easy,” says Marc, who has been managing director since 2013, “But once we had the team together, I knew we had a good chance. With Patricia as financial director, along with supremely talented craftsmen like Mark Renmant, and Ed Workman supervising production, we had the ingredients we needed to get Rigby back to where it belonged.”
One of the first things that Marc did was to revive the historic association with Mauser. As with the collaboration overseen by the third John Rigby a century earlier, this venture offered customers high-quality, hand-finished rifles at affordable prices, with barrelled actions being shipped from Mauser’s factory in Germany to London, where Rigby’s gunmakers made them into beautiful, fit-for-purpose firearms. The result of this present-day association was named the ‘Big Game’, echoing the way its predecessors were described in Rigby’s ledgers.
The Big Game was an instant success with the public, and went on to win awards for best new rifle on both sides of the Atlantic. At first, it was available in either .375 H&H, .416 or .450 Rigby, in single or double-square bridge versions, with a modern, ergonomic stock shape, plus a wide selection of upgrades available. Since 2013, Rigby has introduced new models into the range, including the minimalist ‘PH’ and the ‘Vintage’, which has the traditional stock shape and specifications of pre-1940s rifles.
Another early – and momentous – decision that Marc made was to bring back the famous Rigby Rising Bite. Unlike the Big Game project with Mauser, this would need time to come to fruition. To build high-quality rifles on such a strong but technically complex action would take a minimum of three years. “We really needed people to have faith in us for this one,” admits Marc. “It was a lot to ask – even though we knew we had the skills to bring the Rising Bite back. Fortunately, we had some very far-sighted friends who believed in us. We couldn’t have done it without them, and I’m happy to say we now count them among our most valued clients and friends.
“Some of the proudest – and most exciting – moments of my career so far have been accompanying clients in the field as they put their new Rigbys to the test for the first time. It’s an immense privilege to watch as a rifle makes its way from being a collection of raw components on our workbenches to being a work of craftsmanship that’s beautiful, but will still work its socks off in the wilderness. Hunting in Zimbabwe with Adolfo Gutierrez and the first new Rising Bite was tremendous: from seeing the reaction of our guides to the first ‘boom’ when sighting in, to bringing down a Cape buffalo after some hard hunting.”
Before being blooded in Africa, this first new Rigby Rising Bite – a .470 Nitro Express – was exhibited to much adulation in February 2016 at the Safari Club International Convention in Las Vegas. It was the first time a rifle using this famously strong action had been built by Rigby for more than 80 years, and the excitement was intense: the order books practically filled up overnight.
Exciting though it was, the Rising Bite wasn’t the only rifle on the Rigby stand causing a stir in early 2016. Anything less would have been in danger of being eclipsed by the star attraction that year: a pair of bolt action rifles in .275 Rigby.
This pair shared a caliber, and had been built to identical specifications, but were strikingly different to look at. One had belonged to Col. Jim Corbett and had been used to despatch some of the most dreaded man-eating big cats ever to have stalked India’s Kumaon region. It bears a silver plate recording its presentation to the almost legendary hunter and tracker. It had the classic lines and elegance of a Rigby, but wouldn’t have made the cut in a beauty pageant for any other reason: almost none of the original blacking remained on its now silver metal work, and the wood of its stock was remarkable only for the dents and scratches it bore – some of which are specifically described in Corbett’s gripping memoirs. After a bit of detective work, Marc had tracked it down in early 2015, and arranged for the rifle to spend the rest of its days in Rigby’s London museum.
The second .275 had been crafted by Rigby’s current team to commemorate the original’s return and as a tribute to its esteemed owner. Featuring an exhibition grade Turkish walnut stock reminiscent of the rippling fur of a tiger padding through the forest, plus stunning engraving of animals, maps and scenes from Corbett’s adventures, it was a thing of exceptional beauty. It was Rigby’s offering for the SCI auction that year. It went on to sell for a record-breaking $250,000, making it the most valuable bolt-action rifle ever sold in more than 40 years of SCI auctions. It was bought by husband and wife, Brian and Denise Welker, who are both life-long Corbett fans.
Following a world tour and a visit to the Indian villages where it delivered so many from the menace of marauding big cats, the original rifle has been enjoying a rest in London, but will be making a special guest appearance at SCI Convention 2018. Corbett fans visiting the Rigby booth will also have an artistic treat, as up-and-coming sporting sculptor Jenna Gearing will be on the stand, working on a bronze of the great man facing down the dreaded Chowgarh man-eater.
The Corbett commemorative rifle represented the finest example to date of the third type of rifle available to clients of the reborn Rigby (at that time): the London Best. “The London Best is where Rigby really shines, and having had the creative freedom to make the Corbett tribute rifle for SCI, really gave our gunmakers an opportunity to show the world what they can do,” explains Marc Newton. “The Big Game is an essential part of what we offer – but if you want something bespoke from stock blank to scope mounts, it has to be a London Best. It’s always exciting for us to work so closely with a client and build a rifle to fit his or her needs down to the finest detail, and we’ve built some amazing rifles as a result.”
Since 2013, Rigby has specialised in finding promising young gunmakers and engravers from all over Europe, and giving them a chance to prove themselves. The current in-house team incudes a glut of Francophone talent: factory foreman Olivier Leclercq, gunmakers Brice Swieton and Martin Levis, and engraver Geoffrey Lignon; it also includes talented Slovak stocker Vlado Tomascik, plus English apprentice gunmaker Jamie Holland. This mixture of youth and experience has paid dividends at the company’s purpose-built factory in Pensbury Place, London.
Each rifle is a team effort, and the quality of the firearms leaving the workshop shows how well the team is working together. One of 2017’s highlights was the ‘Elephant Gun’, a .450 Rigby featuring exquisite hand-engraved elephant hide on every inch of exposed metal, which took more than 2,000 hours to complete.
With the Big Game, Rising Bite and London Best to choose from, you’d think that Rigby customers would be fairly well-satisfied, but you can never have too many rifles on your wish-list – so, in 2017 Rigby added a fourth line to its catalogue: the Highland Stalker. Like the Big Game, the new rifle is built on barrelled actions from Mauser and hand-finished by Rigby’s craftsmen in London. Available in .275 Rigby, .308, .30-06, 8×57, 9.3×62, it was inspired by and based on the rifles used by the likes of Bell and Corbett.
“For a while, people had been asking if we had plans for a smaller-caliber version of the Big Game,” Marc admits. “We have always been keen on the idea, but wanted to get it just right. We’re confident that we’ve done that, and it’s very satisfying to receive glowing reports from the field from those customers who’ve waited so long.”
Ideal for hunting deer the traditional way in the Scottish Highlands, the new rifle was unveiled to the sound of bagpipes at IWA in March 2017, and was officially launched to the sporting press later in the year with a stalking trip of appropriately Victorian vigour at the splendid Atholl Estate in Perthshire.
With so much achieved in such a short time, it’s hard to predict exactly what the coming years hold. With so much enthusiasm, energy and talent, the odds are that whatever it is, it will be good. Fortunately, Rigby has also recently created its own exclusive 18-year-old single malt Scotch whisky and Gunpowder Gin – both are available via its online Shikar Store – we suggest that, for now, you pour yourself a dram, and watch the future unfold.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”14183,14184,14185″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Mar 6, 2018 | News, Rifles for Africa
Two of the most famous rifles ever to cross the Dark Continent—Home Again.
By John Mattera
There was a healthy chance that the young man sitting next to me in the small boat remained calm because he did not understand the gravity of our situation. The same thought had crossed my mind two hours earlier, as we had walked through the seven-foot tall elephant grass on the trail of a big old Dagga Boy. I was certain the old bull was not of good social demeanor under the best of circumstances. Now, he was mad at the world and with good cause, with 750 grains of lead in him.
A concerned look from Rob Oostindien, our steadfast professional hunter, reflected back through our line, for we all understood the potential danger. Then, there was the kid. He smiled at me; but not a nervous smile one would expect from a nineteen-year-old hired to film a buffalo hunt, with a wounded bull lurking about in the tall grass. No, this was a smile of true enjoyment. The kid was having a good time!
I have to be honest: It pissed me off no end, but he was such a likable kid, I shrugged it off as we continued at a snail’s pace looking for clues, hoping for the best, and fearing the worst.
Fear is a healthy part of any relationship, and my current rapport with the buff we were following was growing more intimate with each passing footstep.
Then, all too soon, darkness closed in as we pushed our luck past the point of good judgment.
Now we faced a long walk to the edge of the island, hopefully in the direction of the dugout canoe that had transported us across the treacherous Zambezi River.
You would think three savvy hunters would have packed a flashlight. Enter our cheerful video kid. Leave it to the nineteen-year-old to turn his cell phone into a flashlight. Two weary hunters, the PH, two trackers, and the kid all walking to the faint glow of his Samsung. God, I hoped his battery held out! The wounded buff was still entrenched in my mind.
An hour later, we stumbled upon the dugout along with our paddlers, climbed into the prehistoric tree hull, and began our coast to the western bank. Here is where my concern for the young man’s sanity had begun anew.
When I’m cast on the dark waters of sub-Saharan rivers, my mind drifts to all the big, nasty creatures that call those waters home. Giant crocs haunting the lower Zambezi can turn a man into a midnight snack with a chomp and two rolls.
I was cradling a legendary .470 Nitro across my lap. My hunting partner Bill Jones carried his big .577 Westley Richards— Papa’s rifle in a past life, no stranger to marine patrols, excepting submarines. The immediate enemy was a mouth-belching monster with a serious attitude problem a few yards away. Hippos are just nasty—there is no other way to describe them; they are nasty, plain and simple, and they were close!
I broke open the action of the Rigby and fingered the two soft rounds out of the chambers in the dark, slipping them into my shirt pocket. Feeling on my belt to where the solids lay tucked into the canvas-culling belt I slipped them inside the chambers, letting them fall home with reassuring clunks. I am certain it was just for moral support, as I could not see a thing on those dark waters. But I had more faith in my rifle than can be described in a few paragraphs.
The Rigby had performed Yeoman’s work in the greatest of hands. It had belonged to the Dean of Professional Hunters, Phillip Percival, who first made his claim to fame with the Teddy Roosevelt safari and far beyond. Common consensus is that payment for the Roosevelt safari was how he purchased the rifle I held now.
Then, reality set in again. The boatmen and trackers began to bang on the side of the little boat, hollering about—I assume they were hoping to scare away 3,000 pounds of hippo. I just pressed away a bit more varnish from the well-worn stock in my grip.
Through the eerie reflection of his phone light, I could see the kid was smiling again.
“What are you smiling at?”
“This is the best day of my life,” he replied with infectious enthusiasm.
I shook my head in resignation as my fear alternated on many levels.
First, of course, was fear of the dark. Then, there was my fear of the water.
Cold, dark water gets my respect, and my fear rises and falls depending upon my current anxiety level. Dark water and big animals that kill without the slightest remorse are all triggers for fear in my world.
After fear of death came fear of losing the rifle in my grasp. I remembered reading John “Pondoro” Taylor’s account of losing two batteries of fine rifles on separate occasions when hippo trashed his dugout close to where we now paddled on the Zambezi.
Could I let the priceless Rigby go to save myself, or would I let her drag me to the muddy bottom of the river?
My sole happy thought was that Bill carried “the beast,” Hemingway’s .577. The massive rounds in his culling belt alone could drag a man under.
Geez, I hoped he was a strong swimmer!
The beginning of this story started many years ago, for Hemingway and Percival had history. The history shared between the Rigby and the Westley probably went a little further. Winston Churchill Guest carried the big .577 on a safari in early 1933 with Percival’s hunting partner, the legendary Bror Blixen. Guest had stayed over at Percival’s Kitanga Ranch for a bit of shooting; one can assume the rifles then shared their first adventure. Later that same year, Percival was Hem’s PH on his first safari, having many a grand escapade, collecting five lions, a score of Cape buffalo, and much other game. In the course of events, Percival provided Hemingway with fuel for many great hunting stories. Immortalized by Papa as “Jackson Phillips” or “Pop,” in the Green Hills of Africa, it was also Percival who relayed to Hemingway the scandal involving Colonel John Patterson of Tsavo fame, which inspired The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.
Percival needs no introduction to anyone with even a passing interest in African adventures. The famed 11-month Roosevelt expedition of 1908 inspired Roosevelt’s book African Game Trails—the book that sparked young Hemingway’s first African interest. From those first writings, Percival walked off the pages – a living legend.
What brings these two great rifles to Africa once again is Bill Jones. His quest is to bring back legendary rifles of the past, sharing new adventures.
A rifle may be an inanimate object. However, if a rifle that has seen the charge of the elephant long ago and could tell the tale and speak to us, what a story it could tell. To once again see the thrill, taste the fear, choke on the dust, and broil in the sun is a gift for us: Bill Jones is sharing that legend.
The Rigby’s provenance is without question, with factory records, including an invoice listing supplied cleaning equipment, spare strikers and a tin-lined box with 200 cartridges, all sold to P.H. Percival at a 15% discount. There is also a ledger page in the company book that states the serial number, the overall rifle dimensions and weight and date of sale to Percival.
The gothic script across the top rib of the 26″ chopper lump barrels is engraved “John Rigby & Co Ltd 72 St James’s Street. London,” and sporting one standing, two folding leaf express rear sight with platinum lines marked for 100, 200 – and an optimistic 300 yards for those of us with young eyes. The tops of barrels are also engraved, “Special 470 Bore Big Game Rifle” and “For Special Cordite Cartridge & Bullet 500 Grains.” The action is engraved with well-cut large shaded scroll – “J. Rigby & Co” emblazoned on each side. With an empty weight of 11 pounds and 3 ounces, the rifle is all business.
The Rigby is refined and elegant, especially when placed side by side with the beast.
The Beast is a century-old Westley Richards hammerless, single-trigger drop-lock double rifle capable of sending a 750-grain bullet out of the muzzle at a little over 2000 fps. She is an English thoroughbred through and through, weighing in at a chunky 15 pounds 14 ounces, a behemoth designed to manage the heavy recoil from the .577 rounds.
The Westley is steeped in history; it has a lineage that creates a story of its own.
The big double changed hands a few times since it left Westley Richards in 1913. It was built for Stephen Henry Christie, a cavalry officer attached to the 20th Hussars, who had developed a taste for Africa as a young man. It was a unique, single-trigger full load .577 drop-lock action, heavy enough to handle the stout caliber, with scroll engraved over faded image of a charging rhino; 100, 200, and 300 express sights, and a ramped and hooded front blade with a pop-up moon sight.
Christie was planning to return to Africa once again. However, the Great War called and Christie answered, rejoining his regiment where he was killed in a cavalry charge on the Marne. For the next twenty years, the big double flew under the radar screen, but then showed up in New York in the company of Winston Churchill Guest.
Guest and Earnest Hemingway met sometime after their respective 1933-34 safaris; the two developed a friendship that would last their lifetime. Between them, these rogues had many adventures, not the least of which were their World-War-II anti-espionage exploits.
Guest traveled to Havana in September of 1942 to check on his family interest on the island nation; the Westley Richards .577 travelled with him. Guest soon became second-in-command of the Crook Factory, Hemingway’s home-grown counter-intelligence network and their attempts to capture Nazi agents operating in the Caribbean.
Next, Guest signed on board with Hemingway’s Navy, as his fishing boat, the Pilar, was outfitted with over $30,000 in radio and directional finding equipment – High Frequency Directional Finder (HFDF), known as “huff duff.” In the United States Navy’s volunteer-patrol-boat program it was unofficially known as Hooligan’s Navy. The intent was to pick up U-boat transmissions between German vessels by taking bearings from various HFDF locations and relaying the information back to Sub command. Hemingway’s true aspiration was to pose as an unsuspecting fishing boat and lure in German U-boats for attack. The theory was that the .577 would punch big holes in the steel hull of the vessel, while Hemingway’s crew would throw satchel charges down the conning tower. The scheme was classic Hemingway.
When Guest left Cuba, the big .577 stayed behind.
The new owner was Papa Hemingway who returned to the Dark Continent in the fall and winter of 1953-54 with the .577, shaking Philip Percival and the Rigby out of retirement for the adventure.
The big .577 next ended up in the hands of Hemingway’s Charles Thompson, immortalized as “Karl” the lucky hunter in Green Hills of Africa. Thompson explored Africa with the Westley once again to hunt elephant.
The Westley found its way to the James D. Julia Firearms Auction where Bill Jones fought off all comers while sitting on top of his safari truck in the long-closed hunting fields of Uganda, with a satellite phone pressed to his ear as the bidding soared.
When the auction closed, Bill Jones was the new owner and keeper of the faith.
Bill Jones is a hunter of the first order. “Old School” is the term that best applies when speaking of him. To say that Bill is one of the most prolific hunters of our generation is an understatement. Deeply in love with history and the golden age of Africa in particular. Be it hunting, filming video productions, or supporting cultural or anti-poaching projects, Bill Jones spends much of each year exploring the African Continent. So, what does a history aficionado with a passion for Africa do with such a storied piece of shooting lore?
If you were Bill Jones, you would take your 100-plus-year-old Westley and Rigby doubles and return with them to Africa to track dangerous game across its length and breadth. And for my good fortune, Bill invited me along.
Such historic rifles are one day destined for a museum where many people may share in their history – but not yet!
Their legend is still being written…
Bio
John Mattera is a retired US law-enforcement firearms instructor. An avid hunter and rifleman for over four decades, Mattera makes multiple safaris to Africa each year, where his love of the continent and large-caliber rifles fuels his passion for writing. He is the author of three books on shooting and tactics. Mattera divides his time between New York, Southern Africa, and the Caribbean where he works in marine archaeological research.
Mar 2, 2018 | News, On Ammo
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Based on Chris and Mathilde Stuart’s book, “Game Animals of the World,” published by African Hunting Gazette, here’s everything hunters need to know about the Giant (Lord Derby’s) Eland
English: Giant (Lord Derby’s) Eland
Latin: Tragelaphus (Taurotragus) derbianus
German: Riesen-Elenantilope
French: Éland de Derby
Spanish: Gran elán Africano
Measurements
Total length: Male 3.6 – 4.4 m (11.8‘ – 14.4‘)
Female > 2.7 m (8.9‘)
Tail: 55 – 78 cm (22” – 28”)
(some records go to 90 cm (35”)
Shoulder Height: Male 1.5 – 1.8 m (4.9‘ – 5.9‘)
Female 1.5 m (344.5”)
Weight: Male 450 – 907 kg (992 – 2 000 lb)
Female 450 kg (992 lb)
Description
A large, ox-like antelope with distinctive shoulder hump and dewlap on the throat which is most developed in bulls. Dewlap is fringed with a mane of dark hair. Ears noticeably larger than those of the common eland, and horns more massively structured, especially in adult bulls. The spiral of the horns is more open than in the other eland. Bulls generally have no forehead mat of hair. Coat colour is reddish-brown to chestnut, and there are 12 to 15 narrow white, vertical lines on each side. Eastern subspecies, T. d. gigas, tends to be more sandy in colour and usually has only 12 vertical white stripes, but western race, T. d. derbianus, is more reddish and usually has 15 white stripes. Neck and forequarters tend towards grey in older animals. Bridge of nose is charcoal-black, and there is often a white or tan-coloured chevron present between the eyes. The giant eland derives its alternative name, Lord Derby’s eland, from one Edward Smith-Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby, who apparently was responsible for transporting the first live animals of this species to England in the 19th century.
Distribution
Once had a continuous range from Atlantic Ocean shore of Senegal, eastwards to Uganda. The western race now is only definitely known from Senegal and adjacent western Mali. The eastern race survives in northern Cameroon, CAR, and possibly adjacent areas of Sudan and Chad, and is only legally huntable in Cameroon and the CAR.
Conservation standing
The western race is severely endangered with perhaps only 200 animals. Eastern giant eland number about 15 000, with vast majority in Cameroon and the CAR. Hunted to extinction in Uganda by 1970, it is generally held that safari hunting for eastern giant eland is the most likely justification for the long-term conservation of this, other species, and the vast tracts of savanna woodland that this eland requires to sustain the populations. Without the trophy value of this antelope it would probably become extinct in the wild within a decade. The seriously endangered western giant eland was huntable as a trophy animal up to about a decade ago in Senegal, but severe meat poaching has meant that trophy hunting is no longer viable unless numbers are allowed to increase.
Habitats
Woodland savanna lying between the tropical forest belt to the south and the Sahel to the north. It is found in Isoberlinia and Terminalia-Combretum-Afzelia-dominated woodland
Behavior
Despite its large size, the secretive nature of this antelope has ensured that it remains poorly known, and has never been studied in detail. In some areas they tend to be fairly sedentary, but in others they undertake seasonal movements. Most herds are of 25, or fewer individuals, but herd size may rise to 50 – 60 eland at certain times. Predominantly herd animals, but sightings of solitary adult bulls not unusual.
Breeding
Gestation: 285 days
Gestation:
Number of young: 1
Birth weight: 23 – 35 kg (50.7 – 77.2 lb)
Sexual maturity: Bulls 4 – 5 years; cows 15 – 36 months
Longevity: To 25 years – believed to be captive
Food
Browsers, that frequently will use their horns to snap branches that are out of the reach of the mouth. May graze when grasses are fresh. One of its most important foods is said to be the shoots and leaves of the tree Isoberlinia doka that occurs throughout much of its range. They are said to move into burnt areas with new plant growth, and this may be regular and seasonal, based on natural and man-made grass and bush burning.
Rifles and Ammunition
Suggested Caliber: .338 – .375
Bullet: Expanding bullet designed for penetration.
Sights: Medium-range variable scope.
Hunting Conditions: Expect medium-range shots in open woodland.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”14165,14166,14167″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Feb 28, 2018 | News, On Ammo
If backed into a corner at gunpoint and forced to name my candidate for “most influential cartridge” of the 20th century, I would probably say it was the .280 Ross.
There is no shortage of candidates, and the .375 H&H would be my second choice. But while the .375 H&H has the most grandchildren, it was hardly the most influential. The Ross set in motion a quest for small-caliber, high-velocity performance that continues to this day. We can trace that influence through the .275 H&H, .270 Winchester, and 7mm Remington, right through to the over-long, over-wrought 7mm creations that are now raising dust and causing deafness.
The Ross’s standard load of a 146-grain bullet at 3,100 feet per second (fps) was the first commercial cartridge to breach the 3,000 fps barrier. That velocity instantly became the goal for others, and the benchmark for measuring every new cartridge to come along.
The Ross had a stormy history, to say the least. Designed by Sir Charles Ross and F.W. Jones, it sprang upon the world in 1908, first as a match cartridge and, once it became ruler of long-distance shooting at Bisley, it took up a new career as a hunting cartridge. Its performance at Bisley inspired the War Office to design a new military round to replace the .303 British (.276 Enfield) and a new rifle to go with it (Enfield P-13). Only the outbreak of war in 1914 caused that project to be shelved.
Although the most famous rifle for the .280 Ross was the remarkable Ross M-10, it was so good that Mauser adopted it as a standard chambering for the Magnum Mauser sporting rifle, and a great many custom rifles were chambered for it or rebarreled. Charles Lancaster, which had a close association with Sir Charles Ross, built a pair of double rifles in his .280, with their oval-bored rifling, and King George V used them on his 1911 grand tour of India as the newly crowned King-Emperor. He used them on anything up to tigers and rhinos, and pronounced them “excellent.”
Few remember the King’s hunting tour of India, but many recall that other incident in 1911, when George Grey (brother of the British foreign secretary) wounded a lion with a .280 Ross, and was killed when the high-velocity bullets failed to stop its charge. Blaming the Ross for that failure is manifestly unfair. Dying in hospital in Nairobi, Grey stated frankly that it was his own fault for riding too close to the lion. He was hunting on a farm in the Aberdares, and the informal rules of hunting lions on horseback was, one, never to get too close, and two, never to shoot from less than 150 yards. Grey did both and paid the price, but the .280 Ross has been paying as well, from that day to this.
In connection with the .280 Ross, Sir Charles Ross made several other significant strides, ballistically speaking. In the U.S., he persuaded du Pont to produce a new, coated, slow-burning powder (DuPont #10). It made possible high velocity with heavy bullets, and was used in the later .250-3000 (the first American commercial cartridge to reach that velocity) and fathered a whole family of ever-slower “Improved Military Powders” (IMR) from du Pont. Sir Charles also pioneered the use of heavy-for-caliber bullets with spitzer noses and long ogives — what we would today call “extra-low drag.” The .280 Ross, loaded with Sir Charles’s 180-grain match bullet, was unbeatable on either side of the Atlantic.
In 1920, advised by his doctor to get a good rest, Sir Charles booked a long safari in East Africa with his extra-marital friend, the New York big-game hunting socialite, Mrs. Emily Key Hoffman Daziel. He shot almost everything on the ticket with the .280, to prove that allegations of inadequacy were wrong. When he got home, he commissioned a bust of himself in safari garb; the marble Sir Charles’s marble cartridge loops were occupied by marble .280 Ross rounds. The bust still resides at the Ross ancestral home, Balnagowan, near Inverness.
It is impossible to say how many rifles were chambered for the .280 Ross, but it must have been substantial. Eley-Kynoch kept the cartridge in production until 1967. There is still a demand for brass from handloaders, and Quality Cartridge does periodic runs.
Oddly enough, no other notable cartridges were designed using the distinctive Ross case — long for its time, with a marked taper and a semi-rimless head. Nor did anyone create a wildcat cartridge. It’s too bad: The tapered case would be excellent in hot climates to prevent sticking, while the rim would give more purchase than a standard rimless, without the feeding difficulties of a rim. It has about the same diameter at the base as the later .375 H&H belted case, so there’s no shortage of powder capacity.
The one exception to this was the strange case of Harold Gerlich and his .280 Halger, in the 1920s. The Halger was simply the Ross case with a different headstamp and a raft of opium-induced claims. Possibly this is the sincerest form of flattery, but I rather doubt Sir Charles Ross would have found it so.
Feb 26, 2018 | News, Rifle Guide
Blaser R8 Success
The success story of the Blaser thumbhole stock continues. The well-known classical silhouette of the R8 rifle with the two-piece stock is made from precious walnut wood with the ergonomic perfection of the Blaser thumbhole stock.
The innovative character of the R8 Success Individual does not stop there. For the first time, the natural raw materials – wood and leather – are combined. The specially treated leather inlays, which have proven to be comfortable as well as robust, ultimately create the perfect complement to the wooden stock, forming an exquisitely well-designed, beautiful rifle. In addition to the brown leather inlays, the R8 Success Individual boasts a matte black receiver, a gold-colored R8 logo, and will be available in wood class 4 and 7 in calibers from .222 Remington to .375 H&H. An optional fluted barrel is available. MSRP begins at $6,969.
Blaser is one of the leading manufacturers of hunting rifles and shotguns in Europe since 1957. Every Blaser product is tailored to the needs of the serious, active hunter and shooter. Hence, the product range is extremely versatile. It includes bolt action rifles, break action rifles, combinations guns and shotguns.
All Blaser firearms carry a 10-year manufacturer’s warranty. For additional information visit Blaser USA at www.blaser-usa.com.
