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patented by Leslie Taylor in 1897).
Enter Rigby. Re-located to London six
years ago after an ambitious investment and
purchase by the German L&O Group, the
same company that owns Blaser, Mauser and
Sauer, Rigby has grown from a small team,
under managing director Marc Newton, to
a serious player. In fact, Rigby now makes
more sporting rifles than any other London
gunmaker. Let that sink in for a moment.
Rigby has sold close to 1,000 rifles in six
years.
The Rigby policy has focused very much
on re-imagining classic models from the
firm’s back catalogue. The Big Game and
Highland Stalker models re-visited the
hugely successful Rigby-Mauser rifles of
the first quarter of the 20th century for
inspiration and became the gentleman’s
rifle of the modern era: classic, functional,
aspirational, yet affordable, at around
£7,000 (by comparison with best bolt
rifles made by any of the top gunmakers
today, including Rigby, which run between
£25,000-£35,000).
Building on the success of their bolt-
action rifles, the Rigby team then embarked
on a more ambitious project; resurrecting
the double rifle for dangerous game with the
iconic vertical-bolt side-lock action patented
by John Rigby and Thomas Bissell in 1879.
To give that some historical perspective,
1879 was the year in which British forces
under Lord Chelmsford were decimatedat Isandlwana by Cetshwayo’s Zulu impis.
Around the same time, Henry Morton
Stanley was fighting his way through the
Congo to rescue Emin Pasha, and Thomas
Edison was preparing to demonstrate the
first workable light bulb. The world was
a very different place. That gun patents
dating back this far are still being launched
as new models in London is a mark of their
cleverness and utility.
Given the success of their rifle projects, it
was only a matter of time before the shooting
public expected to see a new Rigby shotgun
emerge from Pensbury Place, Rigby’s
workshop on the south side of the River
Thames. That day has come, and the new
shotgun mirrors their double rifle in being
built around the Rigby & Bissell action.
Thomas Bissell was a gunmaker with
whom John Rigby had a close relationship.
Some Rigby guns made in the late 1800s
bear his stylised ‘TB’ initials on the face
of the action denoting their origins. Patent
1140 of 1879 remains his best-known work.
Rigby made it as a signature action from
September 1879 until 1932 as a shotgun, a
black powder express double rifle and as a
nitro express double rifle. Its demise was due
to the high cost of manufacture, rather than
mechanical obsolescence.
The action is inherently very strong, with
a traditional Purdey patent double under-
bolt holding the barrels on the face from
below, by way of bites in the two lumps.Additionally, the vertical bolt rises from the
top of the action and locks into a bite in a
top rib extension, providing a third anchor
point.
Aesthetically, Rigby has stuck to the
original bar action lock-plate with dipped
edges. It is so distinctive that anyone with
a modicum of knowledge will recognise it
immediately as a Rigby. Marc Newton told
me once that his customers want traditional-
looking rifles and shotguns. Part of buying
into the family of Rigby ownership is the
distinction it provides.
Rigbys are not like other guns. It would
have been so much safer to build a copy of
a Holland & Holland ‘Royal’. A London-
pattern stocked to the fences side-lock of
conventional appearance would be the
sensible choice, but it would not reflect
Rigby’s ethos of being true to their history.
Not everybody will understand. Rigby
customers will. And the word will get
around.
Marc Newton told me recently: “The gun
looks old-fashioned”. It really has the look of
the era in which it emerged. The early 1880s
was a period of variance. Every maker was
building a style of gun they hoped would
catch the public’s imagination and be blessed
with general approval. In the two decades
that followed the introduction of the Rising
Bite action, a number of things happened
that streamlined the look and mechanics of
what became known as the London Pattern
side-lock. First, most makers dispensed with
third grips for best shotguns. Rib extensions
and machined recesses in the action are
expensive to fit properly and it became
apparent that for normal usage, a Purdey
bolt alone was sufficient. Some argued
that third grips were unsightly and the
protruding rib extension was an impediment
to rapid loading. For many, the crucial factor
was cost.
The other stylistic feature which became
the norm as the 19th century waned, was
the stocked to the fences look of the Purdey
and the second pattern Holland & Holland
‘Royal’. This means the wood from the horns
extends right up to the fences, without the
shoulders that actions like the earlier Boss,
Grant and Rigby guns feature. When Marc
Newton says his gun looks old fashioned, it
is the differences here to which he primarily
refers. There is also the matter of the dipped-
edge lock plate. It is a distinctive feature that
dates back to early models like the Gibbs &Rigby's Rising Bite executive Nick Coggan, overseeing the development of the Rising
Bite shotgun.