African Hunting Gazette – July 2019

http://www.africanhuntinggazette.com 105

Diggory Hadoke examines the

re-emergence of Rigby’s classic

shotgun in modern guise.

Rigby’s new Rising

Bite shotgun

By Diggory Hadoke

Rifles in Africa

W

hen you buy a new British gun,

you actually buy an old British

gun, made recently. Every major

maker still in business is selling products

developed from patents dating back to

the reign of Queen Victoria. Fortunately,

the reason for this is because the designs

of the Victorian inventors were extremely

good. Match the inventive genius of the

originators with the exquisite skills of time-

served, apprenticed gunmakers and the

result is sporting gun perfection.

Marc Newton, managing director of Rigby, holding their new Rising Bite shotgun.

The best British designs have never been

bettered, only manufacturing cost and time-

saving developments have been influential

in the success of later types of shotgun. To

date, the typical choice for the buyer of a

best English shotgun has been Holland &

Holland’s ‘Royal’ (the current model is the

self-opener produced from 1922 but the

basic ‘Royal’ has been in production since

1893), a Purdey (built on Frederick Beesley’s

1880 design) or a Westley Richards hand-

detachable lock (another Victorian original,